What Drove You Towards a Career in Engineering?

Hi John,

I have never considered my self an engineer but rather a technician. I started my journey very early by taking everything I could get my hands on apart to see how it worked. Though I have spent most of my life repairing electro-mechanical equipment my mother once told me I would probably never make up for all the stuff I broke in the first 10 years of my life. So be it, all I can do is try.

As I walk through life I constantly see things that are not right or need to be fixed. It is not unusual for me to stop to tighten screws on door handles or other items as I pass them. My ever present best friend Millie has learned to put up with me and has taken to helping me spot things that are not right. How many of you guys have wives that can tell you when they hear a different noise coming from the car engine or from the washing machine. Millie has a keen sense of the electro-mechanical and if she had had the opportunity would have made a good engineer. Together we have designed and brought to market 3 simple products that are currently being sold to Dentists all over the USA.

Perhaps the closest I come to being an Engineer is that I am a Re-engineer. I am almost never satisfied with a tool or product as it comes from the manufacturer. Perhaps, because I often use tools for different purposes that they were intended I will always be grinding and changing things to better suit my needs. For better or worse I am usually happier with the products after they have been customized for me.

My hero as I grew up was a character in an obscure SciFi story, a repairman who could take ordinary objects and repair them past their original design to the point where they reached their full potential. While the details of the story now escape me I do remember that after fixing a simple walkie talkie it was able to communicate with spacecraft in orbit. I also thought Larry Niven's and Jerry Pourmelle's, Motie tool makers were pretty cool too. This brings up the interesting point, perhaps, if I had read technical manuals in the first 15 years of my life instead of SciFi books I would have made it to the lofty heights of Engineer but alas I was probably 15 before I swore off SciFi in favor of Physics and Electronic texts.

Since my retirement 5 years ago I have focused my attention on improving my foundation in electronics. Little by little I have learned from my many mentors on this site. This has happened directly by asking questions and indirectly by just looking over their shoulders at what they have done or from their responses to someone else's question. Like retiredpilot14 I have found a great challenge in the pursuit of this knowledge and in my case it is very doubtful that I will ever get to the point of being able to generate more than a pittance from my efforts but that is no longer the point.

John W.

Curiosity is what has drive me to a life of engineering.  At an early age I wasn't just happy with playing with my toys I had to know how they worked. Frequently they would end up in pieces as I explored there inner workings (Such is the fate of my molenium falcon). This was further encouraged by exposure to and hacking of the commodore 64. I didn't relive it at the time but watching my best friends father bend this piece of hardware to his will with osiliscopes and wires and switches unlocking it's many puzzles and prizes had a long lasting impression. As I aged I was driven to a career as a cryptologist. I further developed into a cryptologic maintenance (electronic technician ) career.  As fate would have it I moved into a position in the petrochemical industry. Learning the technical aspects of reforming and cryogenic separation. This then transformed into a mechanical engineering fancy. I have rolled all of this experience into a successful  field service position In the air gas industry. I travel from site to site building repairing and troubleshooting just about anything. Comercial air compressors programable logic controllers, instrumentation, Hv/ac systems metal fabrication. To me there is nothing more satisfying then taking a blank space and filling it with bits of metal and electronics and leaving it with a fully functional production facility.

I am really enjoying these stories, but yours particularly was fun. I know where Long Branch is because my dad worked at Bell Labs back in the 50s and 60s, so we lived in the Plainfields area and later Holmdel, (went to school with Hal Zahl jr). I have a screw driver with a similar "shocking" story.  To this day, I have a healthy respect for standard home AC.  Throwing a screwdriver across a room when the muscles in your arm contract is somewhat scary.

Jack.

Yes, Homedel... 4 building inside one big one. And the 100mph Club (standing start from building to the road!!)

Yes, screwdriver in the panel that happened when I worked for Interdata (Ocean Port) when they put the new panel in the High Bay from our new power station... Well, there was this huge flash of blue light and then darkness. This was the Blackout of Fort Monmouth, the horse track and most of Northern NJ.

And then there was this time when the Nike Base blew up.

Cris

Ha ha, fun times.  My life was with motors and engine control (ignition and fueling). Now I work with medical equipment and blood gas monitoring (much safer).

Jack

Same here John, my job title was 'Engineering Technician - Avionics' (Formerly 'Electronic Technician - Air Radar'). I'm sure it was a way of paying me less!!

Avionics was an area that I thought would be fun.  Kind of like "Flight Simulator" but with consequences.  Thought to use a passive system with GPS transponder sending out location information, then listen for all the devices to make up the map of airborne vehicles.  But I guess someone else has already done that.

Jack

Consequences is the right word to use there Jack , a smoking hole in the ground is the consequence of getting it wrong.

You're right about the mapping, IFF/SSR does that, just not with GPS. airborne systems have been doing it before GPS ever got near an aircraft - you just use your aircraft sensor. There is also AIS for sea based vehicles which gives location and then some.

Tracking all of that data is the fun bit!

I like the process of problem solving by analysis and calculation.