Press Releases

August 24, 2023 Cambia talks about their experience taking on MECOP interns, what it is like working as an intern at their organization and why Cambia has continued to support MECOP for the past 10 years.

Molly Duddlesten - Communications Coordinator, MECOP Inc. - April 14, 2023 This year, MECOP has made great strides towards implementing diversity, equity, and inclusion into our program. Read about our latest endeavor: Our updated DEI statement!

Molly Duddlesten - Communications Coordinator, MECOP Inc. - January 19, 2023 This year, MECOP is reflecting on our efforts towards diversity, equity, and inclusion. Learn about how we are implementing DEI into our program!

Molly Duddlesten - Communications Coordinator, MECOP Inc. - August 3, 2022 After the completion of her onboarding process, MECOP's Executive Director, Yuliya Dennis, provides updates regarding the Company Representative & Student Listening Tours.

Molly Duddlesten - Communications Coordinator, MECOP Inc. - May 31, 2022 A word with MECOP's Executive Director, Yuliya Dennis, about MECOP's representation at Oregon MESA's event, MESA Day.

Sarah Petersen - Communications Coordinator, MECOP Inc. - December 9, 2021 Sarah Petersen from the MECOP Office interviews MECOP's new Executive Director, Yuliya Dennis, regarding reaching out to various industry, university, and student participants within the program.

Jordan Reed, 2021 MECOP President - July 30, 2021 An introduction and welcome message from our president to our new Executive Director

Dustin Scott - September 15, 2020 Gary Petersen Retirement Announcement

Rachel Robertson - June 6, 2018 Read about Garmin's ongoing relationship with Oregon State University, taking on interns and hiring university alumni.

Jessica Gomez, CEO - May 22, 2018 When you have a microfabrication company, the equipment and materials that you can dedicate to customer projects is important, but it is the depth of your engineering talent that is critical. That puts recruitment at the top of our priority list, and it is why Rogue Valley Microdevices has participated in MECOP, an engineering-specific internship program founded on close industry-university collaboration...

March 30, 2018 Pegah Alavi wasn't sure at first if she should delay her graduation from Portland State University by a year to make time for two paid, six-month internships. But she's really glad she did, because the internships led to a job in transportation engineering with David Evans and Associates as soon as she graduated in June 2017.

Katelyn Barry, Student Writer - Umpqua Community College - March 8, 2018 ROSEBURG, Oregon – On Friday, March 2, Umpqua Community College (UCC) students were offered a front-row seat to learn about opportunities to earn money while going to college. Nearly 30 students took advantage of the opportunity by participating in a lunch-and-learn session to hear all about MECOP, which is short for Multiple Engineering Cooperative Program.

Jay Schmidt, VP/GM - Silicon Forest Electronics - July 1, 2017 Silicon Forest Electronics has participated in MECOP for several years and this year we have three Engineering interns working over a six month period in process engineering. All three of our 2017 interns are from Oregon State University. Let's meet the MECOPs! 

Ed Diehl, President - Concept Systems Inc. - July 4, 2015 In Oregon, the Multiple-Engineering Cooperative offers students real-life experiences in an engineering environment before graduation. At the recent 38th Annual MECOP banquet, Concept Systems accepted the 10-year Sponsor Award.

Kevin Syverson, CTO - Silicon Forest Electronics - May 1, 2015 The Spring season at Silicon Forest Electronics is always exciting as we welcome the arrival of our next batch of MECOP engineering interns. This year we are pleased to have two very energetic engineering students, Seth Taylor (Senior) and Clive Massee (Junior) from the Oregon State University Industrial & Manufacturing Engineering program. We are excited to have Seth and Clive with us for the next 6-months and look forward to the high quality work that we have come to expect from engineering students in the MECOP program. 

Gary Petersen, Executive Director - MECOP Inc. - April 28, 2014 MECOP Inc. is proud to announce that it has been awarded their 501(c)(3) non?profit status from the United States Internal Revenue Service. “This accomplishment is a very important corner stone of the foundation of MECOP as this status recognizes MECOP as a legal non?profit entity and opens the door to building the future of the organization” said John Vandecoevering, one of the founding Directors of MECOP and active Finance Committee member.

Greg Elden - January 3, 2011
Oregon stands at a crossroads. Crushing unemployment lingers. The state faces multiple financial crises. Funding higher education continues to be a major challenge. And it’s all within a tax structure that many manufacturing concerns consider tough on business, if not flat-out anti-business. Even in that milieu, Oregon’s manufacturing industry is not only fighting for its life, it’s digging in and working to expand sales and yes, jobs.

Eugene City Council, Newsletter - June 17, 2010 Oregon's Civil Engineering Cooperative Program (CECOP) demonstrates the value of an effective
business/education partnership. This program pairs students from Oregon State University (OSU), Portland State University (PSU)and Oregon Institute of Technology (OIT) with local agencies and companies, providing internships and real-world experience for the students, engineering resources for local agencies, program depth for universities and better-trained graduates for the engineering profession. This year, the Public Works Department is continuing its longstanding relationship with CECOP by bringing in three CECOP interns.

City of Eugene, Public Works Monthly Summary - December 1, 2009 Sara Shaddock and Josh Christiansen were Civil Engineering Co-Op Program (CECOP) Interns from Oregon State University for the summer and fall quarters of 2009. Their internships are now complete – Sara worked on the Engineering Darwin Project Team and Josh split his time working for the Darwin Team, Engineering East Project Team and Maintenance Traffic Operations. Both worked on a variety of tasks including design work in AutoCAD, field inspection, and other technical tasks as assigned. In order to wrap up the internships, each gave a presentation about the work they did and what they learned to a group of people including Project Team staff City Engineer Mark Schoening and Traffic Engineer Tom Larsen.

Cliff Newell, The Lake Oswego Review - August 7, 2009 It is a good summer for the interns at the City of Lake Oswego. That means better service for the citizens of Lake Oswego.The city staff is now bolstered by a record eight interns, and they are having an impact in much more important ways than making trips to the copying machine or making coffee.“The interns help us tremendously,” said Megan Phelan, director of human resources for the city of Lake Oswego. “They help projects get done that have been inadvertently neglected.” These interns are not only young, bright and promising, in some cases they are very well qualified, with past experience in area planning and engineering departments.

Eric Jones, Eugene City Council Newsletter - April 22, 2009 About 12 years ago, civil engineers in the Willamette Valley got together and worked with Oregon State University to expand a multidisciplinary internship program to include a strong civil engineering component. Civil engineers, particularly those in public agencies, typically have a different role than their counterparts in the mechanical, industrial, electrical and computer engineering fields. That initial effort led to the formation of CECOP, the civil engineering branch of MECOP (Multiple Engineering Cooperative Program). A board of volunteers, one from each company, oversees the program, the selection process and employment evaluation. The program started at OSU but now includes OIT and PSU engineering colleges.

Lee Sherman, OSU Quarterly Report - December 1, 2008 If you looked in on Mike Sabo at Cascade Microtech's corporate headquarters in the Silicon Forest last summer, you couldn't have distinguished him from the firm's 20 full-fledged engineers. Just like them, he spent his days designing and testing precision equipment for many of the world's biggest microchip manufacturers. Only one small clue gave away his status as a student intern: the tower of textbooks teetering over his workstation.

Alison Ryan, Daily Journal of Commerce - January 30, 2008 Next month in Corvallis, Oregon’s top engineering students will go through what few outside the pro sports arena ever experience – a daylong series of interviews that ends with engineering companies drawing numbers for a shot at hiring their top picks for internships.

Alexander Cope, MECOP & Intel - October 27, 2007 Intel continues to be a cornerstone of MECOP's engineering successes by annually employing up to 50 interns with the majority of Intel’s internship disciplines being electrical, mechanical, and computer engineering.

Dane Andersen, City of Portland Water Bureau - September 27, 2007 I’m an intern in the Engineering Construction department. I’ve been here since April of this year and will be heading back to Oregon State University at the end of this week.

Freightliner IT DriveLine/August, 2007 - August 1, 2007 This month's IT DriveLine focuses on the success of Freightliner's involvement in the MECOP internship program and on the ever-increasing efficiencies of the IT Data Center. It also introduces the Miscellaneous Invoicing program and brings us up to date on how the Help Desk's successes in meeting with its customer service goals.

Randall Hoyt, OSU "Momentum" - June 1, 2007 Randall Hoyt, who graduated with a degree in civil engineering, was snapped up by a Wisconsin engineering firm before the interview process was even over. Hoyt says the reason he beat out all the competition is the experience he gained during his CECOP internship and his experience at OSU. Here is his story, in his own words.

Bill Graves, The Oregonian - January 31, 2007 97 percent of the Class of 2005 are satisfied with their skills, jobs and pay, but the costs come in higher tuition that leaves a heavier debt load

David Adams, Manufacturing Engineer, GE - April 1, 2006 To start off we had selected Brandon differently than the normal process of Intern selection. Our company had just gone through some extensive reorganization and we had to change our Intern requirements at the last minute...

OIT - June 7, 2005 The Klamath Community Development Corporation (KCDC) and the Multiple Engineering Cooperate Program (MECOP) will receive Oregon Institute of Technology’s two 2005 Community Partnership Awards.

Aliza Earnshaw, Business Journal - September 4, 2004 The benefits of a well-designed internship program may seem obvious: Students get industry experience, and companies get extra labor at reduced rates.

Gary Dulude, TERRA - September 1, 2004 Most students come to college as works in progress, their interests only partially identified, their potential still to be realized. And as they explore and develop that potential, many students find something equally important: a mentor. OSU offers an “opportunity-rich environment” for mentoring; at the same time, it’s an informal and organic process, says Larry Roper, vice provost for student affairs.

Ken Roley, Facilities Engineer, City of Salem Public Works Department - August 1, 2004 As many of you may know, Oregon State University has run a well-organized summer internship job program for their Construction Engineering Management (CEM) students for a number of years. While the CEM intern program is still thriving at OSU, CEM students will soon have an additional opportunity to get real world work experience and help fund their education when the Multiple Engineering Cooperative Program (MECOP) at OSU creates a pilot project for CEM students in 2005.

Oregon State University College of Engineering 2004 Annual Report - April 1, 2004 Mechanical Engineering students Darren Johnson and David Elia pose with one of the cars they helped design and race to first- and third-place overall finishes at the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Mini-Baja West Competition in Portland, Oregon. Johnson, who graduated in June 2004, and Elia, a senior, say their paid internships working in industry will have a profound impact on their careers.

Ken Roley, Pacific Northwest Clean Water Association Newsletter - March 1, 2004 Engineering students have an opportunity to gain valuable experience in industry and take part in paid internships. The Multiple Engineering Cooperative Program is a five-year undergraduate program financed by industry. The program is training and development experience featuring internships with two different companies.

Ken Roley, Oregon Civil Engineer Newsletter - March 1, 2004 If you are like most engineers you still remember the fear, excitement, trepidation, and panic of your first real engineering job. But think what an advantage it would have been, if you had gotten your first experience as part of you college curriculum. As a result of a cooperative work experience program, that is just what is happening for a select group of civil engineering students at Oregon State University (OSU).

Kirk Richardson, AOI Business Viewpoint - September 1, 2003 Twenty five years ago, engineers from heavy truck builder Freightliner, electronics giant Tektronix, and pump manufacturer Bingham-Willamette (now Sulzer-Bingham), noticed a troubling trend. The three Oregon-based companies identified a growing gap between the skills and knowledge needed to succeed in the work place and those being taught at the state’s universities.

Gregg Kleiner - February 5, 2003 Twenty-five years ago a handful of Oregon companies forged a unique alliance to bring the state’s brightest engineering students to their workplaces for extended hands-on experiences that would benefit the companies as well as the students - and in the process keep Oregon’s top new engineering talent from leaving the state for employment elsewhere.

Erik Sorensen - March 15, 2002 Engineering students have an opportunity to gain valuable experience in industry and take part in paid internships. The Multiple Engineering Cooperative Program is a five-year undergraduate program financed by industry. The program is training and development experience featuring internships with two different companies.

David Stauth - June 5, 1998 An Oregon State University internship program that has Pacific Northwest businesses chomping at the bit for its graduates is continuing to expand, and the concept holds potential to be applied at many other institutions and fields of study, officials say.

David Stauth, Oregon State University - July 24, 1997 One hundred Oregon State University students are among the latest to be accepted into the Multiple Engineering Cooperative Program, or MECOP—one of the most innovative and successful internship programs ever developed between a university and private industry.

David Stauth, OSU News & Views - January 1, 1997 A sophisticated internship program for engineering students at Oregon State University is so successful it could become a model that changes the face of higher education, university officials say.