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Career Highlights

Biography

“Industry leaders respect that Purdue engineers will roll up their sleeves and solve the problem at hand,” Ellspermann says. “When you say you are a Purdue engineer, it is recognized that you are ‘worth your salt.’”

In her current role as President of Ivy Tech Community College, Ellspermann has led a restructure of the college and new strategic plan focused on a 5-year vision of 50,000 credentials completed per year aligned with Indiana’s economy and the state’s goal of 60% of the workforce having a post-secondary degree by 2025.  In three years, the college has increased its production of credentials by more than 80%. 

Early in her career, Ellspermann served as a Corporate Industrial Engineer at Frito-Lay where she served 40 plants’ logistics and sales sites contributing to a $500 million productivity initiative. She says, “through creative problem solving and quasi-analytical methods, I learned the better role of an industrial engineer was not to prescribe how others do their work, but to facilitate others to problem solve better solutions together.”

She adds, Purdue Engineering trained her in the “grit to persist when things get hard. Freshman engineering was tough!”  Ellspermann urges students “not expect a 4.0 GPA in Engineering.  That is not what will make you a great engineer.  It is in the work that you do in which you will find your true passion.”

Taking on tough challenges is a theme in Ellspermann’s career.

From 2013-16, she served as the 50th Lieutenant Governor of Indiana, managing six state agencies including the Indiana State Department of Agriculture, the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority, the Office of Defense Development, the Office of Community and Rural Affairs, the Office of Tourism Development and the Office of Small Business and Entrepreneurship. She also served as Indiana’s Secretary of Agriculture, President of the Indiana Senate and Chair of the Indiana Counter-Terrorism and Security Council.

Ellspermann acknowledges not only that Purdue helped prepare her for many diverse career responsibilities, but that being a Purdue engineer is a lifelong point of pride.

“Professionally, I am proud to be the first Purdue industrial engineer as Lieutenant Governor and college president,” Ellspermann says of her own achievements. “As such, I brought good process and problem solving to state agencies and initiatives such as the Blue Ribbon Panel on Transportation Infrastructure and the Indiana Career Council.”

Many have found her work exemplary. In 2018, she received the Indianapolis Propylaeum May Wright Sewall Leadership Award. Purdue presented her the Outstanding Industrial Engineer Award in 2014.  The Indiana Business Journal recognized Ellspermann as one of its “Women of Influence” in 2013.  Her research was recognized, in 2007, as one of the Top 50 management articles by Emerald Management Review.

Ellspermann points to her daughters’ educational achievements at Purdue as her proudest achievement. Daughter Lauren (BS Biology) now teaches high school chemistry, and daughter, Kara, (BS Biomedical Engineering), is a researcher at the IU School of Medicine in Evansville after obtaining a master’s degree and PhD at Washington University.  She adds, “I owe Purdue a great debt of gratitude for sponsoring Women in Engineering Day.  It is that experience which cemented both girls to attend Purdue and pursue STEM degrees.”