Chester “Chet” Montefering ’18, a College of Engineering industrial engineering major, also sees himself as a future venture capitalist. Born and raised in Missouri, Montefering chose the University of Miami for the warm weather and to study chemistry as a pre-med student. After quickly realizing that was not his passion, he found himself choosing between engineering and business.
After ultimately deciding to pursue industrial engineering, Montefering explains he balanced his interests by pursuing business-related extracurricular activities. Through the TAMID Group, which organizes internships in Israel for American business students, he was able to foster his love for finding ways to improve things and make them more efficient by doing consulting work for local and Israeli startups.
TAMID also gave him the opportunity to study abroad in Tel Aviv, Israel, which has the largest number of startups per capita in the world. “For two months, I had the chance to help find new, innovative technology and recruit for one of the largest telecom company’s incubator programs,” Montefering says. “Within the next ten years, more than 22 billion devices, not including cell phones and computers, will be connected.”
Montefering also co-founded a company to design and build water-cooled computers for gamers with School of Business student David Gannt ’18. Together, they entered their plan for Therion PC into the University’s 2017 Business Plan Competition – and won the $10,000 undergraduate grand prize. The pair used their winnings to diversify their product line and build more powerful computers, which they design from the ground up. Now they’re building out Therion’s website. “I’m really driven,” Montefering says. “I’m excited to stay in Miami after graduation to start building a team [for Therion].”
His drive to solve problems, improve on existing designs and create new designs continues to push Montefering in both his studies and his life. “I love technology. Ten years ago we were introduced to the iPhone and now look at its capabilities,” he says. “I want to be on the cutting edge of innovation.”