Achievers Under 40 profile: Michelle Witt, vice president for
July 29th, 2010Journal Record, The (Oklahoma City), May 19, 2010
Three quarters of the way through her undergraduate degree, Michelle Witt realized that she loved engineering, but did not want to be a traditional 9-5 engineer. With that in mind, she added business expertise to her resume, a combination of skills that have led to her rapid rise in a typically male-dominated field.
Now vice president for business development with Tulsa’s Impact Earth LLC and director of business development for its parent company, Impact Technologies LLC, Witt is instrumental in finding grant funds and raising investment dollars for the company’s leading- edge geothermal oil drilling technologies.
Impact Earth designs and builds specialized rigs for installing next-generation geothermal drilling systems.
“One of Impact Earth’s rigs is estimated to do the work of up to eight current rigs for 15 times the annual profit,” Witt said. “My role is to develop the business strategy, find and present the idea to investors to obtain the required funding, along with other activities related to commercializing our products.
“Our technology is very rewarding,” she added, “because it deals with using geothermal energy as a sustainable resource to improve our environment and get our country one step closer to energy independence.”
Witt received her bachelor’s in mechanical engineering and her master’s degree in engineering management, both from the Rose- Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Indiana. She earned her master’s in business administration from the University of Tulsa.
Her promise showed itself early. As a graduate student at TU, Witt led her team throughout the Governor’s Cup competition, winning second place. Today she mentors other would-be participants, and has served as one of its judges.
“Michelle’s combination of technical and business degrees is a powerful mix that provides an understanding of all sides of business,” said Kenneth Oglesby, Impact Technologies president. “In her first year with Impact she has been instrumental in raising $3 million in grant monies from the Department of Energy, and is on track to raise another $5 million for Impact’s other green technologies.”
Her skills haven’t gone unnoticed. Among other accolades, Witt was nominated for Tulsa’s 2008 Tulsey Entrepreneurship Award
geothermal drilling rigs