The Bridge - Issue 2, 2019 - 29

Professional Profile

What do you love about engineering and what
do you love about education?
Engineers apply math, science and ethics to build
products that benefit humanity. That is a noble
profession, in my opinion. That is what I love about
engineering.
What I love about education is the opportunity
to mentor people that have had similar ah-hah
moments to the one I described earlier. When I
watch the eyes of a student light up and see their
brain make connections to the material, it reinforces
my deepest professional love of helping people
better themselves for a brighter future.
Whom do you admire and why?
As a person, I admire my parents for raising their
children to have strong ethics, to value education,
and to face challenges with determination. They
did this under their own economic challenges of an
agricultural career. To me, it seemed like everything
they did was for their kids - to ensure their kids had
a future life that wasn't as difficult as theirs might
have been.
As an engineer, I admire the engineers and
computer scientists that accepted the challenges
of electronic computing. We are more than 80
years into the electronic computer age, and

computer architects have moved the computer
from the room-sized machines of the 1930s to the
microminiaturized machines that power the modern
world. The pioneers in this industry were followed
by the entrepreneurs of the 1970s and 1980s.
Together they changed everything.
In your opinion, what has been the greatest
change in engineering since you were a student?
The personal computer. Paper design has been
replaced by computer-aided design in most - if not
all - fields of engineering. Also, the vast amount
of knowledge available in an instant through the
internet. When I was a student, I read textbooks,
technical journals and technical magazines in the
library. Today, you simply do a keyword search and
find gazillions of bits of information. Some of it is
good information - curated by professionals - and
other non-curated information is not so good. I think
it is challenging for both students and professionals
to filter this information.
I wish I had known...
I wish I had known the importance of taking
a personal finance class. Topics in money
management, personal credit, mortgages, investing,
interest rates and budgets were not topics taught
in my high school. I was also not encouraged

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The Bridge - Issue 2, 2019

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