Commencement
For our students, their families and the University community, Commencement is the culminating event of the Kettering experience.
The successful completion of a Kettering degree is an enormous accomplishment, worthy of celebration and public acknowledgment.
If you weren't able to attend the event, you can watch it here.
Commencement Speaker
SEAN MCBURNEY ’03
Regional President of Las Vegas Operations and General Manager of Caesars Palace, Caesars Entertainment
Sean McBurney currently serves as Regional President of Las Vegas Operations and General Manager of Caesars Palace, Caesars Entertainment, overseeing nine casino resort properties. With responsibility for 26,000 hotel rooms, McBurney ensures that these large-scale operations deliver high levels of service through robust processes and quality control systems - skills rooted in his Mechanical Engineering education from Kettering University.
McBurney says the most valuable lesson he learned from Kettering is the importance of a process-driven approach to problem-solving. This is a skill he honed not only in Kettering classrooms, but while studying abroad in Germany, working for such prestigious brands as Mercedes and Porsche.
McBurney suggests the best advice he could provide to future students is not to limit themselves to the traditional confines of this education, “I find engineers to be some of the most talented problem solvers that I’ve worked with or worked around. And so, I think when I look back at my career at Kettering, and my fellow classmates, a lot of them go into traditional businesses associated with engineers. And that’s great, and a lot of them love it, but don’t limit yourself to that.”
McBurney began his Kettering career as a Co-op student with General Motors, working in Lordstown, Ohio, as well as Warren and Detroit, Michigan. McBurney earned a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Kettering University in 2003, attending Stanford University Graduate School of Business before joining Caesars Entertainment in 2006 as a Casino Marketing Manager. In the nearly two decades since then, McBurney has worn many hats in the Caesars organization before taking on his current role as Regional President in 2021.
