The UW Chemical Engineering students received a rare opportunity to visit the global coffee giant—Starbucks—at their Seattle headquarters. As it turns out, the coffee business employs many engineers, including our alumna Hannah Su (UW BS ChemE ’92 & MBA ’04), who serves as Director of Global Retail Quality Assurance. While visiting her alma mater as a guest speaker, Hannah invited the ChemE students to visit Starbucks.

Twelve students met with engineers on the Starbucks team, which began with a coffee tasting—a company custom for starting a meeting. The students sat down with their group and witnessed the power of engineering studies firsthand. The students were amazed with the scale of impact the engineers make at the company, given the figure of 70 million customers they serve per week. A chemical engineer led an important project on the company’s soluble coffee line, while a mechanical engineer developed a new milk steamer that was much more efficient for Starbucks’ baristas.

But technical skills are not enough. “The majority of the office looks at engineers like we are wizards, but we need to be able to explain our ideas to marketers,” said one of the engineers, stressing the importance of communication skills.

After the meeting, the group took a tour of the building, and received a bonus surprise when they saw Mr. Howard Schultz himself walking around the building. 

Kaitlin Colleary
Assistant Director of Advancement