Opus College of Engineering Award Recipients

Entrepreneurial Award

Robert J. Platt, Eng ’74
Elmhurst, Ill.

Bob and his Marquette roommate were barely two years out of college when they started an eponymous environmental consulting business in a Chicago garage. Today, Mostardi Platt has grown to a full-service firm with clients throughout the United States and the world.
Bob knew in high school that he would eventually have his own business and that he wanted to study engineering. The strong sense of community he felt during his Marquette visit influenced his choice to enroll as a civil engineering major. 

The Opus College of Engineering’s co-op program “gave me good exposure to the business world and introduced me to some good options to consider in my search for a business to start — one of which I did, in fact, select,” Bob says. He discovered that business while working at Kin and Associates, Inc., a small smokestack emissions testing provider where both he and Tom Mostardi, Eng ’74, worked as co-op students. Shortly after founding Mostardi Platt, the young entrepreneurs borrowed enough money to purchase Kin.

While Tom has retired, Bob continues as president and CEO of Mostardi Platt, which in 2001 sold two of its five divisions to General Electric. With six locations including its state-of-the-art headquarters in Elmhurst, Ill., the company employs approximately 110 engineers, scientists, and technicians and owns a fleet of vehicles specially equipped to facilitate air emissions and other environmental testing services throughout the United States and overseas.

As he works on succession planning for Mostardi Platt, Bob remains actively involved in his community. He is a longtime board member of community hospital system Edward-Elmhurst Health. He also serves on the board of advisers for the University of Saint Mary of the Lake–Mundelein Seminary.

“I try to recognize all of my many blessings as I stay active with my family, church, faith, business and civic community,” Bob says. “In doing so, I feel I get much more than I give — but, I’ll try to keep up.”

Fun fact: Bob would like to have dinner with Pope John Paul II, whose faith-based wisdom and leadership in the peaceful breakup of the Soviet Union he greatly admires.