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From Home Furnishing Business

Reverie Partners with Universities

June 5, 2014  by in Bedding, Product   

Bloomfield Hills, Mich.-based Reverie President and Chief Executive Officer Martin Rawls-Meehan has been making monthly visits to both universities to ensure that the classroom teachings align with real-life R&D experience.

Reverie’s partnership with the University of Michigan is a year-long program which will continue through the fall semester of 2014. Teams of students are responsible for developing prototypes that are sent to Reverie’s R&D department, critiqued and sent back to students to make improvements. A multi-disciplinary project involving not only mechanical design but also electronic design, software programming and complete systems integration is in the works for the future.

This past school year, Reverie sponsored the “Innovation Encounter” at Lawrence Tech, which brought eight universities from across the country together to compete in an engineering project over a 24-hour period. The company challenged the teams to make improvements to an existing Reverie adjustable base and the winning school received scholarship funds for their studies. The university also participated in two engineering projects involving mechanized furniture throughout the year.  

“At Reverie we are excited to partner with local universities to cultivate growth and innovation in the students who are going to lead us into the next generation in the sleep products industry,” said Rawls-Meehan. “Many businesses in Michigan are dedicated to the automotive industry. Our projects give students the opportunity to work with a different industry and raise our awareness in the local academic community. We value the new ideas students generate and the relationships we develop with potential new candidates for employment and internships.”