Mark Dirr, director of Research and Development at Xten Industries, LLC, Kenosha, will deliver the keynote address at Gateway Technical College’s Associate Degree and Technical Diploma Commencement ceremony 6 p.m. Dec. 20 at the Indian Trail High School Auditorium, 6800 60th St., Kenosha.

This is the first time Gateway will hold a fall semester graduation. The college decided to hold a fall ceremony because of the increasing number of graduates due to high student enrollment, and to better accommodate the needs of fall semester and summer semester graduates.

The ceremony will recognize 425 candidates for graduation. An estimated 141 are expected to participate in the ceremony.

Dirr started in the plastics industry trimming parts during high school summers, and continued as a college engineering intern on his way to earning his Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Engineering from the University of Illinois Champaign/Urbana.

He has worked the last 27 years to craft solutions for custom molders and their customers in the prototype, automotive, packaging, and general manufacturing industries. He earned a Master of Business Administration degree from Lake Forest Graduate School of Management as a Hotchkiss Scholar and lives in Kenosha with his wife.

Bryan Albrecht, Gateway president, will deliver the welcome address. Albrecht and members of the Gateway Technical College Board of Trustees will present degrees; Caesar Garcia, a student in Gateway’s Computer Support Specialist program, will provide the student response; and faculty member Brenda Pirnstill will lead the ceremony opening and closing.

The commencement ceremony can be viewed on Gateway’s Web site, www.gtc.edu/graduation, beginning in early January.