For the love of Mike: the technical trio of Purdue ME
The foundation of technical services at Purdue Mechanical Engineering are Mike Logan, Mike Black, and Mike Sherwood. These three Mikes have given a combined 110 years of service to Purdue, helping to guide students and build up infrastructure to keep the school running smoothly.
Maker Mike
Mike Sherwood is the longest-serving of the bunch, and also the closest to home: he graduated from West Lafayette High School. “We actually lived across the street from Purdue football’s practice field,” he said. “I remember watching Mackey Arena being built.”
His father worked in construction, and young Mike would often accompany his dad to the jobsite, potting bricks and shoveling pea gravel. While still in high school, he started working part-time at a Purdue machine shop (now called Research Machining Services). When he graduated high school in 1980, Purdue hired him full-time, and he’s been here ever since.
In other words, this is the only job Mike Sherwood has had in 45 years.
“I found my niche,” he said, “and I’ve enjoyed it my entire life.”
Today, Sherwood manages the Product Engineering and Realization Laboratory (PEARL). It’s a workspace exclusively for senior Mechanical Engineering students working on their final capstone projects as part of ME463. These projects often include designing a new product and building a prototype — and that’s where Mike comes in.
“They may need help with motors, electronics, bearings, or other aspects of their prototype,” Sherwood said. “We have up to 100 different teams working on 100 different projects in the Spring semester, so every day is unique.”
Sherwood also lends his fabricating skills to other Purdue entities. In 2013, he was enlisted to help Purdue Bands revitalize the World’s Largest Drum, which had become a rattling monster since its last refurbishment in the 1970s. Sherwood completely remade most of the drum’s metal hardware, including the lugs required for tuning it. “It was a great honor to be a part of that project,” he said, “and all those parts are still in use today.”
He also played a role in one of the most iconic sights in Mechanical Engineering: the 1896 Heavilon Hall mechanical clock. Sherwood helped refurbish the clock in 2011 and install it in the Gatewood Atrium of the Mechanical Engineering Building, where it still ticks mightily to this day. He is also responsible for winding up the 200-pound counterweight every four days, keeping the clock running and accurate.
The Man in Black
Mike Black has a similar story, but with a slightly more circuitous route. “I was born in Elkhart, and lived in many different places in Indiana," he said. "I came to Purdue in the fall of 1979. I was on the ‘extended undergraduate program,’ which means I changed majors a few times!”
He ended up graduating with a degree in photography, and started working part-time for the School of Mechanical Engineering. “At the time, they didn't have many desktop computers,” Black remembers. “I actually did a lot of drafting work by hand, making pen-and-ink illustrations of research equipment and data plots.”
Eventually he put his photography degree to work, becoming the full-time photographer for ME. “I shot mostly black-and-white 35-millimeter film,” he said. “I shot lots of portraits, group photos, candids, photos for news stories. Sometimes it was research related, trying to capture scientific photos of heat transfer experiments for Issam Mudawar. I developed all the photos, too; we had a darkroom on the 1st floor of the old building. I’m pretty proud that some of those photos ended up in Newsweek, USA Today, and other important places.”
At some point in the 1980s, his pen-and-ink drawings transitioned into digital 2D CAD art on a Macintosh. Then in the 90s, his 35mm film camera transitioned into a digital camera. He now offers these services digitally in ME’s Electronics Shop.
Black’s official title is Lead Production Technician, and apart from the updated tools and techniques, his day-to-day hasn’t changed much in 40 years. “I still do technical drawings for the building,” he said. “And I still take hundreds of portrait photos of students, staff, and faculty. We have a display out front of graduating classes from the past 40 years, and I probably took 90% of those photos!”
He also plays another vital role for the school: running the large-format inkjet printer. “Poster shows are a way of life here in Mechanical Engineering,” Black said. “And especially near the end of the semester, they all seem to come at once. In a two-week stretch, I end up printing hundreds of project posters for students and faculty.”
Logan’s Run
The baby of the three, Mike Logan, is actually their boss: Senior Director of Technical Services. He grew up in Marion, Indiana, and attended Purdue to study wildlife sciences. “I actually did endangered species research for the military, and ended up studying bats at disused military bases,” he said.
When the environmental science market dipped, Logan considered joining the military himself. But instead he came back to Purdue in 1999 and began work on another degree, this time in electrical engineering. He saw on the job boards that the School of Mechanical Engineering was looking for an electronics tech. “I applied, but they never called me,” Logan said. “So the next morning I just showed up at seven in the morning and asked the boss to give me the job. That was 25 years ago, and I’ve never left!”
Logan began in the Electronics Shop, mainly writing computer code. “I wrote a lot of good code, and a lot of terrible code,” Logan laughs. “Much of it is still in use today, but I refuse to specify which is which!”
Soon Logan was managing the Electronics Shop, and getting more involved in technical services for the entire Mechanical Engineering building. Today, he’s involved in institutional planning, facility administration, capital projects, safety protocols, and all facility issues for the School of Mechanical Engineering, and all its associated lab spaces and external buildings, including in Indianapolis.
He took on these responsibilities right before the Mechanical Engineering Building began a massive two-year renovation project in 2023. “It was my happy duty to relocate most of our faculty and staff to temporary offices — and some of them hadn’t moved in 30 years! We also had to find spaces for research labs, instructional labs, and student motorsports teams. And pretty soon, it will be my job to relocate them back again into the newly-renovated building.”
Logan also monitors the day-to-day activities of the renovation itself, meeting regularly with the construction company and frequenting the jobsite to make sure every last detail gets addressed before classes resume there in August 2025.
“I rely heavily on these guys,” Logan says of the other two Mikes. “We have some of the greatest people in the world working here in ME, and I do my best to enable them to do their jobs well.”
Three Amigos
So... three Mikes, all working in technical services at Purdue Mechanical Engineering, all of them staying here for their entire adult career. Does it get confusing?
“We had a student worker who used to call us ‘nice Mike’ and ‘mean Mike,’” said Black. “I’ll let you guess who is who!”
“Working with students is by far the most fun part of the job,” Logan said. “I try to consult whenever I can, teaching about electronics design and fabrication. I don’t get as much time as I’d like to nowadays, but getting to work with students is the best.”
“I know one thing, I’m never letting you use red Loctite ever again,” said Sherwood. “Logan put red Loctite on these tiny screws on some research apparatus. When it came time to take it apart again, we had to use soldering irons and heat guns and all sorts of things.”
Despite the good-natured roasting, the three Mikes work well together, and have given a combined 110 years of service to the School of Mechanical Engineering. Logan explains that all three share the same goal: “We all love the program, we love the students here. We’ve really embraced the mission, and it’s a great privilege to work with these guys.”
Writer: Jared Pike, jaredpike@purdue.edu, 765-496-0374