Wentworth Grad Shaping Future of Sound at Bose
Richie Lanoue is responsible for exploring early product concepts at Bose
At the forefront of innovation, the Bose Concept Prototyping team explores emerging technologies and shapes the future of customer experiences. Wentworth Institute of Technology graduate Richie Lanoue, Mechanical Engineering ’17, finds himself right in the heart of this world.
As a mechanical engineer, Lanoue is responsible for exploring early product concepts. New technologies that may go into products in the future, new experiences that Bose may want to test, and how customers may value those experiences are all examined.
“We help contribute to whatever new emerging technologies and innovation the company's trying to drive,” Lanoue said.
Lanoue’s team is highly interdisciplinary and pulls experts from various areas to work on a common project, indicative of the environment he experienced at Wentworth. He finds that the skills he learned from the university have translated well to his work and he’s happy to have the chance to make an impact at Bose.
“[They] are super motivating and fun to be around,” he said of the Bose team. “We never get bored. It's always something fun, something awesome coming across our desks. There is a ton of interdisciplinary work.”
At Wentworth, Lanoue recounts a good balance between classroom material and lab work, providing students a chance to apply what they learned to the real world.
“You're learning all the theory and engineering principles behind everything, but there's this conscious effort to make sure that you're applying those skills,” Lanoue said of Wentworth. “It keeps things fun, being able to be hands-on.”
Lanoue took co-ops with Raytheon and iRobot, honing his engineering skills well ahead of his graduation. And smaller class sizes allowed him direct access to faculty members, creating further learning opportunities.
“I enjoyed the co-ops, and they helped me enter my first year working in the real world after graduating with basically a year's worth of engineering experience, so it didn't feel as intimidating going into the real world.”
Lanoue worked as a Resident Assistant at the university, and he joined Wentworth’s Baja Club,—an automotive engineering group that designs and builds a raceable vehicle—forging lifelong relationships along the way.
"I met some awesome people. Most of them are still my best friends to this day,” he said. “But just that experience of learning a lot of engineering principles throughout school, and then applying them to a cool, fun outlet, was great.”
