When Ravi Talwar (MSIE ’69) was eight years old, he saw a high-speed industrial clothing mill in operation. The scene sparked a curiosity for how machines and systems work and foreshadowed a lifelong career spent making them work better. Now an entrepreneur, Talwar shares both his time and resources with Purdue Engineering students, including the recent donation of $500,000 to a ”Rising Star“ professorship in Industrial Engineering by Talwar and his wife, Eleanor.