Biotech Exec & MCC Alum Robert Kenyon to Address Class of ’17

Middlesex Community College’s Commencement exercises for the approximately 1,400 members of the Class of 2017 will be held at 10 a.m. Thursday, May 25, in Lowell Memorial Auditorium, 50 E. Merrimack St. The processional will begin at 9:30 a.m. in front of MCC’s Lowell campus Cowan Center, located diagonally from the auditorium.

This year’s Commencement speaker will be alum Robert Kenyon (Class of 1996), Biogen’s Vice President of North American Manufacturing Operations. He will also be presented the 2017 Distinguished Alumni Award.

Kenyon enrolled in MCC’s innovative Biotechnology Program as part of a federal program for dislocated defense workers. In October 1994, at the conclusion of the six-month program, he was placed in an internship on the manufacturing floor at Biogen.

Eleven months later, he was hired full time, working the 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. overnight manufacturing shift. There were 30 people working in manufacturing at that time. Today, he supervises the company’s manufacturing facilities and general operations sites in Research Triangle Park, N.C., home to approximately 1,300 employees.

Kenyon continued his education while he worked, earning his associate degree from MCC in 1996 and in 2000 his bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Laboratory and Clinical Sciences from Boston University.

“Middlesex really set me up well,” he said. “I was in school learning concepts about the business in the classrooms and in the labs, and then going to work at night and seeing it all in practice. I really took to manufacturing – this intersection of biology and engineering.”

As Vice President of North American Manufacturing Operations, Kenyon oversees Drug Substance Manufacturing, Drug Product Manufacturing, North American External Manufacturing, and North American Facilities for the company.

Kenyon serves on the Board of the Biogen Foundation and on the Executive Committee and Board of Directors of the North Carolina Biosciences Organization. He is a member of MCC’s Biotechnology Advisory Board, the Parenteral Drug Association, and the International Society of Pharmaceutical Engineers. A New Hampshire native, Kenyon now lives North Carolina with his wife and two dogs.

For more information about 2017 Commencement, visit: www.middlesex.mass.edu/graduation

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