Wednesday, November 5, 2025

Muskegon Community College (MCC) will host a lecture, “Make to Innovate: How Impactful Innovation Happens Through Modest Making,” on Wednesday, November 12, 2025, at 6:00 PM in Stevenson Center Room 1300 on MCC’s Main Campus, 221 S. Quarterline Rd. The event is free and open to the public.

Led by Ryan Wheeler, Sr., Senior Technical Fellow at Collins Aerospace and former MCC Distinguished Alumni Recipient, the lecture will explore how meaningful innovation often begins not in boardrooms or large-scale laboratories, but at the workbench. Wheeler will discuss how impactful ideas frequently emerge through small, iterative acts of making—tinkering, prototyping, testing, and refining—rather than through grand visions or massive budgets.

“Make to Innovate challenges us to rethink what it means to be innovative,” said Wheeler. “By valuing experimentation and curiosity, we can create real-world change from the simplest beginnings.”

As part of Muskegon Community College’s yearlong Centennial Celebration, the event is the latest installment of MCC’s ongoing Lecture Series, which brings thought leaders to campus to engage the community in critical discussions and fresh perspectives on education, technology, and culture.

“Events like this are at the heart of what we do at MCC,” said Dr. Andy Wible, MCC Faculty and Lecture Series Coordinator. “They remind us that creativity and innovation aren’t reserved for experts in labs—they’re accessible to anyone willing to explore, build, and learn from the process.”

• What: MCC Lecture Series Presents: Make to Innovate
• When: Wednesday, November 12, 2025
• Where: Stevenson Center, Room 1300, MCC Main Campus, 221 S. Quarterline Rd
• Cost: Free and Open to Public

ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Ryan Wheeler is a Senior Fellow of Advanced Visualization with Applied Research & Technology in Collins Aerospace, an RTX business. He invents apps that make it very easy to do very difficult things. These inventions, such as one of industry’s first scaled VR-enabled apps and novel approaches to expertise sharing, have boosted Collins Aerospace quality and productivity by hundreds of millions of dollars. Beyond advanced visualization technologies, his passions include innovation, experience design, usability studies, cognitive science, storytelling, and technology adoption, diffusion, and valuation.

A graduate of Muskegon Community College, Wheeler was the recipient of the 2024 Distinguished Alumni Award, the highest honor MCC bestows to former students.

For questions, contact: Andy.Wible@Muskegoncc.edu.