Global Company Makes Local Commitment

Praxair, a global Fortune 300 company and one of the three largest industrial gases companies worldwide with 26,000 employees in more than 30 countries, provides the comfort that packaged food are safe to eat and that fuels are burning cleaner. It supplies oxygen, nitrogen, argon, carbon dioxide, helium, and hydrogen to industries that preserve foods, improve the efficiency of industrial processes, reduce emissions, clean and recycle waste water, treat hospital patients, produce fiber-optics for telecommunications, make cleaner-burning gasoline and diesel fuels, and increase energy supplies.

“We help our customers  improve efficiencies and environmental performance, reduce costs, and/or increase yield,” said Scott Sanderude, the company’s vice president of marketing and business development.  Sanderude is responsible for strategy development, marketing, marketing communications, and new growth programs for Praxair’s largest business unit in North America. Sanderude has been instrumental in facilitating a connection between Praxair and Western, establishing a scholarship and supporting the university’s Bridges Program.

 “Higher education, in particular the furthering of higher education opportunities for minorities and women, is a priority area for us, as is supporting the communities where Praxair has a substantial presence, and Western is in our global headquarters community. The Bridges Program is well defined and has established a good track record, and it has a substantial ripple effect throughout the community.”

Additionally, Praxair will be supporting two Bridges Program students from Bethel and Danbury who have demonstrated their interest in pursuing majors in science, environmental studies, or engineering.  Full-tuition grants will change the lives of these deserving students. Praxair has demonstrated its commitment to Western in other ways, too. About 10 Western graduates of work at Praxair in Danbury, in accounting, tax, and human resources.  In addition, four Western interns are currently getting their professional feet wet at Praxair. 

The WCSU Foundation Board looks to Sanderude for his expertise, and he has served as a member for just over a year. “Praxair encourages its executives to serve on the boards of community organizations as part of its good corporate citizenship efforts.  I am still getting to know Western, but I am encouraged by what I have seen so far.” 

Along with his WCSU commitment, Sanderude is involved in the  community as well. “I have been a youth soccer coach and am currently a soccer referee and instructor.  You will find me travelling throughout Fairfield County officiating soccer games and mentoring young referees on the weekends.”  He has two children who graduated from Ridgefield High School and attend college in the Midwest, and, although he has lived in the area for 12 years, he is still getting used to Connecticut’s narrow and sometimes treacherous roads on his bicycle, a new pastime for his active family that skis, golfs, plays tennis, and runs.