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19 Jobs & 1 Degree: The Breadth of Mechanical Engineering · You've Got Options

• Clare: Hello everyone and welcome to another episode. I know we didn't have an episode last week, and I'm sure you positively missed me. But today we are back with a very exciting episode. Today we are going over the highly sought-after mechanical engineering major. We have some great guests for today's episode, but before we dive in, let's get some basic understanding of the degree. For your foundational coursework, it'll be similar to many of the other CEAS degrees, where you'll take calculus one through linear algebra and differential equations, physics one and two, chemistry, engineering projects, and computing. Some focus or flex areas you can pursue within the degree and some research areas here at CU include, but are not limited to biomedical, mechanics of materials, air quality, robotics thermofluid sciences, and more. As you will hear throughout this episode, the rumors are true. Mechanical engineering is a broad field, but it's still helpful to know what that means and what that translates to in the field after you graduate. To help uncover the reality, I am joined today by two guests. The first guest is Dr. Janet Sai, who is an associate teaching professor in the mechanical engineering department. She'll help us dive into what mechanical engineering looks like here at CU Boulder and what to expect out of your time in the department. Our second guest is particularly special as he comes straight from the mechanical engineering industry itself. Bruce Kelly is a retired mechanical engineer who worked at ExxonMobil for thirty-six years. And if you caught that his last name is the same as mine, that's because he also happens to be my father. As someone extremely passionate about what he did, I spent a lot of time listening to him explain concepts and parts of his job that, while very interesting, didn't apply so much to my eventual career. So I figured, what better audience to give him than people considering this field? Speaking as someone who often took his advice, even if you aren't considering this field, you'll want to listen as our conversation can apply to any engineering student. first, let's dive into the major here at CU Boulder and what you can expect. Well, thank you for coming on the podcast today. I appreciate you taking the time to let us know a little bit more about the maybe not so elusive mechanical engineering. if you just want to start out, name kind of how you got to where you are, what made you wanna get into this discipline and teach and mentor. Okay. my name is Janet Tsai, and I am a teaching faculty in mechanical engineering. And it started, I guess, when I was in high school and even junior high. really it was that I had a math teacher that encouraged me to go to the robotics club. And I had resisted for a long time, because my dad is an engineer. My dad is an electrical engineer, however. And so I never understood what he did at work. my sister and I would go visit and he worked at a company where they just sat in cubicles. and it was always very abstract, And so then I was like, I don't want to do that, right? But then when my math teacher was like, No, no, no, you should come to this robotics club and see what it's all about. really from the first day I stopped by, then I was like, people are making stuff and they're working together to try to get this robot to accomplish a task, And so after that I thought, I should go back because it seemed pretty cool and it seemed like what I would be interested in doing. And so it's funny, it wasn't really that much of a rebellion, if you will. But I could say my dad is my biggest influence to becoming an engineer, And still to this day he likes to joke with me, because he loves to fix household appliances. And so the thing that usually breaks is a mechanical component, not an electrical component, you know. so that is a family joke sometimes. I thought that I wanted to work in robotics and really just make robots. I got a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering and I got my dream job out of undergrad. Which at that point was working at iRobot, making Roombas. Wow. Because this is in like two thousand six when Roomba was probably the biggest consumer robot that someone could go out and buy and I had dreamed of making products that would be on the shelves. So that's why I say it was my dream job, right? So I had interned there and then after I graduated, the first step of my career was to actually move to China. And so I lived in Hong Kong and then I sort of was a manufacturing engineer. and it was a really good opportunity for me in a lot of ways, I was willing to live in China for a year, which a lot of other employees were not. Right. I grew up speaking Chinese, so then I also kind of had an advantage in some ways. But when I got there I realized I know all the words for food, you know, like family things and like conversational Chinese, but I had to learn all the words for like battery, screwdriver, blue, you know, engineer, robot. and so that showed me a lot of issues in some ways about cross cultural communication. when I was there, I was really sort of the liaison between American design engineers and Chinese manufacturing engineers. And so I got to see all kinds of communication issues happening in both directions, but after working there for about three and a half years, I got pretty frustrated, sort of with corporate culture and this question of like, what am I really doing here if a lot of people around me are being laid off? It was sort of during the recession, so it was a good time to make a big pivot. And so I at that point was so frustrated with engineering that I thought I was gonna do something completely different. I made a list of like ten alternate careers. most of them involved, one of three things statistics, basketball, or yoga. Wow. Or combinations in different ways of those all together. Yeah. You know? And at the same time, I had a good group of friends who are also all women in engineering fields. everyone was kind of grappling with the realities of their jobs. and we were writing about it a lot, which for me was really therapeutic in some ways, and also was a place to get a lot of ideas down. And it made me realize, I still actually care about this field. maybe instead of just giving up on this, I should try to do something about it. And then that became, well, maybe I should go to grad school. Because actually when I was in undergrad, I did one project I had really liked was actually interviewing students about their experiences as engineering students. Wow. And to learn about well, what do they really think about the field, And a lot of my frustrations at work were about again corporate culture and communication. So I was like, well, maybe we should try to teach those things differently. So that led me to say, okay, let me apply to engineering grad schools and plan to study engineering education. And specifically then this idea of how would we teach differently so that maybe there's less issues with cross-cultural communication or to make better corporate cultures where people could be happier working. Yeah. Yeah. So in a long arc, I guess that is how I went to grad school. I ended up doing grad school here at CU Boulder because there was a really good fit actually with the mechanical engineering department. Perfect. and then after I got my PhD here, I worked a little bit in the ITL and in the program that is now IDE. But then I ended up coming back to mechanical engineering. And so yeah, I've been there teaching for over well, I've been teaching since twenty fifteen. So that's already eleven years. And then specifically in mechanical, I think since twenty nineteen. So that's seven years, right? Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah, the years go by fast. It's a great story. so what types of students would you say are drawn to this major? If somebody is undecided, how would they be able to know if this is a good fit for them? this is a good question because I think all engineering gives you options, and I think mechanical engineering may just give you the most options. And for me, when I was an undergrad, actually I could not decide on what my major was going to be, I tried a lot of stuff. I tried being a programmer, I tried doing electrical. I thought about being a systems engineer, and eventually, one of my faculty advisors said, think about mechanical as broad, right? And the idea was if you do this, you can still do whatever you want afterwards. It's not gonna limit any of your choices. And for someone who was undecided like me, it was reassuring to say, I if I take this major. That means that I still could go on to study a whole variety of different things. so that was one big reason I think that ended up working well for me. in general, I think mechanical students and what I see also was true for me, was I liked doing literal hands-on stuff. So that meant using my hands to actually interact with objects. using hand tools, shaping different objects and thinking about different materials and how do they actually feel in your hands, And I think for me it's really that tangible, very visceral aspect that keeps the field fun. I think other fields are very abstract sometimes and you have to be able to really visualize phenomena in your mind. And I think mechanical, there is some of that, but one advantage is a lot of it is stuff that we can see and feel. the class that I teach now is manufacturing, which is required for all mechanical students. But I joke that you need all of your senses. You need all of your senses except for taste. We don't lick any parts. But you do smell them, you hear them, you see them, you feel them, you know. And so in that sense I do feel like a lot of mechanical engineering is immersive in that way. Well, kind of given that, I think that leads into my next question well, of how much of the curriculum is hands-on versus more theoretical, you're sitting in lectures, taking notes, taking tests. Mm-hmm. it's a mixture of both. And we've recently made some changes in the curriculum to make sure that every year there's a big hands-on component. And so in the first year that would be Gene 1400 first year projects where students get familiar with ITL and work in teams over a semester to make something. We also have a CAD class that's offered in the first year, but then that is more just computer-based. But we split off the fabrication component of that class that used to be offered together. So now it's MSEN 2026. And it's a one-credit fabrication class. So students in their second year get into the machine shop. And that's where they get experience, on a mill, on a lathe, and just able to understand actually creating different components and how they fit together. And so there's a fun project at the end of that class. They make these wobbler engines. And then they actually have a contest with them to tune the engines and make sure they're working. then junior year, we do component design. I've taught that class a couple of times. It's super fun because it's literally the nuts and bolts of mechanical engineering. And so they have to learn about components. And then the big project there is the drill-powered vehicle. And so everybody's always invited at the end of the semester when they do the component design vehicle runoff, So teams get to show off their vehicles that are powered by a cordless drill and that have a student driver. And they have to go around kit pond. in the fall semester it's extra exciting because usually in December. can be cold and or icy. A little extra challenge for them. And then in the spring it's funny because then there's all this baby geese that you have to dodge around Kit Pond. And the angry mother geese coming at them. Exactly. The TAs have like, yeah, ward off the angry geese, which is very funny. but yeah, that's usually junior year. And that's a big deal because it helps students work in a team. and really preparing them for senior design. So our senior design program is a year-long capstone. There's a couple different flavors of the senior design program now, but really that's doing a real project in some cases for a real client, in some cases for an entrepreneurial or social innovation, like your own idea and your own venture. And then we also have now a competition brand where students are competing in things like Baja. And then also there's a hydropower team and a wind power team this year. so that's very hands-on I think it really helps prepare them for their next step. Whether that be, grad school or most students, I think, end up going to industry and working. And so this idea of what do engineers really do on a day-to-day basis. then I'll say that my class, I mentioned it earlier, manufacturing, 4026, is also very hands-on. A lot of our classes, especially in the junior and senior years, have labs. And so that's nice because you have lecture and you have some theoretical components, but then you see directly how it's applied in the lab. and so manufacturing I think students may know most about the aluminum casting lab because they get to melt metal and pour it, And what I tell students is this is why you learned all that fundamental theory. That's why you learned about fluids and heat transfer and thermodynamics, because you actually see how all those principles come together and matter for the surface finish of your final part, Again, perfectly leads into my next question. What courses, if any, do you think have the biggest impact on students' development as engineers? Or maybe a class where it's like, I got it now. It's all coming together, it's all clicking. Mm-hmm. I think there's a lot of different ones. when I started researching, I actually thought statics was the gateway course to all mechanical engineering, and in some ways it is in the curriculum. and that's really the first core mechanical engineering class students take, talking to students though, sometimes they're like, no, CAD was the biggest class that made a huge impact. Or we also have MCEN two thousand, which is our professionalism seminar. that's where students get practice with interviews and cover letters and coached on their resumes, And I think they also get really exposed to this idea of what does a career in mechanical engineering look like? And I think that's also hugely impactful for a lot of students to start making it more real. we especially have a ton of alumni in the region, And that's one advantage of being a big department is that means we have a lot of graduates too. Yeah. And so it's nice to have local alumni who come back and tell us about their jobs. And I think for current students, it's always gonna be different to hear it from someone who's out there working right now than from a faculty member. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And so yeah, we do a lot of stuff to try to connect students to alumni and make sure that our curriculum and our courses are still grounded in what do current engineers want, to make sure that our students are staying caught up on all the modern trends and skills and things that they need to be successful. Kind of the opposite of that. What seems whether that's a course or something else, what seems to challenge students the most as they go through this major? That's a good question. And again, it's different for every student, I know just in general for engineering, I think the math curriculum can be really tough. and a lot of it is saying, you know, math is a tool that helps you do the engineering stuff you want to do. Right. but I do think even statics can be really hard. so I do think the curriculum does build on itself. And so it's trying to make sure that you're clear on those things early on so that it doesn't get more confusing as things just get more and more complicated. so I think it's helpful for students to try to keep an eye on the big picture and to not get too bogged down and like, why do I need to know this one concept? It's like people have figured out so much stuff and we're just trying to make sure engineers understand that stuff so they don't have to reinvent the wheel themselves. Yeah, I tell students that a lot too, especially when they are validly considering in that first semester, do I even want to do engineering? This is really hard and it is. But I also, as much as maybe it ends up not being for them, I encourage them This is your foundation. This is what you have to build on to get to maybe that ultimate goal that you want. Totally. Yeah. Yes. what opportunities are there to work with faculty on research while students are taking classes? And what advice do you have for getting involved in research and internships? I think it's just to keep trying, And I'm amazed because I know it's hard sometimes out there and students will say, Well, I've applied to so many things and I haven't heard back. But then I have also many students who are like, I didn't think that this would pan out, but I just applied and they called me back. Right. And so I feel like you never really know. And so it's worth trying. I also think it's worth being strategic, so for internships, for instance, talk to people in real life, go to the career fair, introduce yourself, get an idea of what kinds of things people are looking for. And then also for our students, figure out how to differentiate yourself a little bit and make sure that there's something exciting that you actually want to talk about. with a stranger, yeah. Like an engineering project or a club or a hobby or a school thing that you did. It could even be a concept in class that you really loved, But I think people will respond well to genuine excitement. for research, I think that we do some cool College of Engineering opportunities and so to pay attention like the Discovery Learning Apprentice program and then in summer they have the SPR program. But also it's just to talk to faculty who are teaching classes and to say, do you do research? what kind? would you be interested in having a research assistant, do you have any openings for undergrads in your lab? and sometimes it can be really random skills that lead to an ongoing opportunity. So a few years ago I used to teach the Coen fifteen hundred class and we would do a project where we would scan our own heads, three D scan and then three D print your own head so that we could make bobbleheads of ourselves. my gosh, that's so fun. It was a really fun project But because of that, then a bunch of students in that class learned how to 3D scan. And then someone in Mechanical asked me, I need somebody who's good at 3D scanning to make these models for my research lab. He was like, Do you know anybody? And I'm like, I actually have a whole class of people. But here's the two students that really loved it, And who went above and beyond to scan a bunch of other classmates' heads and fix everyone's, files and stuff. And so I passed that on. And then one of them ended up working in that lab for multiple semesters. So part of it is you just don't know. And so it's good to ask. if you have a curiosity, an intellectual question, there's no better place to have that question answered. Yeah. Because you have other people who are equally as excited about some of these questions about the world or natural phenomena and so I think it's really to make sure to take advantage of that while you're here on campus. what opportunities, if any, within the department should students take advantage of early? I think there's a lot of stuff to take advantage of. And I think the flip side of being on a big campus, is there's so much stuff going on. So it must be hard to choose. specifically, I would think for early stuff, realize that we want to hear from students. And so we're always asking for feedback. So mechanical engineering has started doing these town halls specifically for undergrads every semester. wow. So one opportunity is just tell us what's actually going on. Because we really want to hear feedback and we want to know how to make things better, And to understand what do students think of this class or that program or this policy. And I think that all the time, we issue surveys. And it's easy to not do the survey because you're like, well, I'm just one more person. But actually that survey data really influences the way people make decisions. And so I know it's not the most exciting opportunity, but I think it's a really valuable one. I also think engineering related student clubs, like the Be Involved fair, the welcome barbecue, all the stuff that Engineering Connections does. is a great way to meet more engineers. and then to find people to work with or to just to talk to about going through the curriculum and I do think it makes a really big difference to be able to talk to other people about what you're going through. And I think we all know engineering is not easy. even being a faculty and being staff, A lot of times it's your colleagues and your friends that really help get you through the day. Absolutely. so to make sure from an early, start on campus to have that kind of network and to start reaching out to people because people do want to be connected, even though sometimes it's really hard to get over that initial how do you ask a question? And in some ways classes give you a built-in topic to discuss. And so just to use that as an opportunity to say, I want to ask this person something next to me, because it's likely that some of those people are still gonna be in your classes years later or semesters later. Right. Yeah. And you never know what that connection can lead to. Exactly. Yeah. Yes, totally. Well, we're in our rapid fire round. So I'm gonna ask a question. First thing that pops into your head, What misconceptions do incoming students often have about the mechanical major? I think one misconception is that mechanical students can only get jobs that are labeled mechanical. But one interesting thing is that the aerospace industry, a lot of times they actually want to hire mechanical engineers. In addition to aerospace, I'm sure, but sometimes they prefer for different kinds of jobs, the broad preparation that mechanical gives you. in some ways the degree, the major that you are in undergrad is important, but it's again still giving you options and to think broadly about different career options after getting a mechanical degree. some people go on to work in renewable energy, environmental engineering, even with a mechanical degree rather than some of those other fields. What habits or mindsets can help set students up for success? I think taking good care of yourself, getting sleep. I know that you know when students get sick, that's something that often can debil Yes. And so also to give yourself time to recover, but then not get too far behind. I think that's the biggest thing is realizing like you're sick, okay, I gotta take a couple days off, but then keep track of what you missed and try to get back on the same page as the rest of the class. our classes do move very fast. That's part of just having semesters. And so to realize what can you do if you notice you're falling behind How can you take quick action? A lot of times students won't take action until the first midterm. And then if you're already a third or half of the way through the class, it can be really hard to make a shift in your patterns to suddenly find more time to study or to read things more carefully, Or to look up more reference videos. But if you start to build that in a little earlier, then those habits are already there. And so it doesn't feel like of one eighty to try to learn all that stuff quickly. try to build in good habits from the start. every semester I think is an experiment to say, okay, what worked last semester, what could be different this semester, and encourage people to take that kind of experimental mindset. And I remember when I was an undergrad, you are so busy sometimes. And engineering students, I know it's not easy, especially if they have other responsibilities like jobs or family care, But to figure out when can you focus your energy and really study, you know? I think we all have so many distractions. but part of being a student is learning how to focus. Right. And there's all kinds of scholarship and studies on this. but I read a really influential paper during my PhD journey. And it was from a scholar that's really famous. And they said, at one point in their career, they had such a hard time focusing that they eventually were like, okay, my goal today is to focus for five minutes. And this is like an esteemed scholar, right? Yeah. And then it was really eye-opening for me to say, even these people who are so established in their fields still struggle with this. And it's just it's real, right? Like it's not easy to sit down and focus. And so I think for students, this idea, can you set a 20 minute timer, put your phone away, and actually study for 20 minutes and then take a break and then do 20 more minutes, But that kind of uninterrupted focus is more and more a rare skill in and of itself. And I think part of being a student is just learning how can you get your mind to do that. And whatever tricks or tools is needed to get you there ultimately will, I think, make you effective at whatever you do if you have that ability to really focus on a question, a task, a concept for twenty minutes. Yeah, that is a great tip and point. I think if you are someone that can sit down and focus for five hours, great. But you also have to be realistic with yourself. I'm not that person, certainly. So finding ways to build in that time when you can really focus and Take in the material instead of just forcing yourself to look at it for five hours and then not retaining anything afterwards. Yes. Yeah. What makes this engineering discipline meaningful to you? that's a good question. I don't know. There's like I feel emotional. Yeah. Right. And part of it is that all of my degrees are in mechanical. I feel like I've always been very mechanical oriented. and in that way, it's also because of the way this department is focused, right? And it's because I did my grad program there. I joke sometimes I've been going to work in the same building for yeah, like 18 years. But I started in the basement and now I have like an office with a window. You know? Yeah. But that department, we have a very strong community, the grad students, especially when I was grad student, we all knew each other and hung out together. The faculty are very welcoming. and hope for our undergraduates that that's true too. And for that reason, it's always felt this is a community that I belong to and that is important to me and that I can contribute to and hopefully impact for the better, and I think traditionally mechanical has some images of gears and cars and stuff. And certainly we have a lot of people who love cars. But it's not only that. And I think what's cool is to see now we have all these other emerging aspects of the field. no matter what anyone's interested in, there's probably some connection to something. in the department or someone that I know who has a project related to that interest. last but not least, what is one takeaway you hope the listeners remember? that mechanical engineering is a great option, but also it's not your only option. it's funny I always have students that come up to me and if they are not engineers anymore, they're apologetic. And it's like, no, if you made a decision that you're happy with and if you found something that you're passionate about, then I'm really happy for you. Right. engineering isn't for everybody. It's not the end all be all. But I do think it should be open to everybody who wants to be an engineer. Mm-hmm. So I hope that that's the way people feel about our department. I think that's the biggest takeaway is that lots of fun, lots of good stuff you can do in mechanical, but there's lots of other stuff out there too. great. Well that's all we have. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Totally. My pleasure. Yay. Yay. Now let's hear from an industry professional, the best one, in my unbiased opinion, about the skills and mindset needed to enter the workforce as an engineer. thanks for being on the podcast. I appreciate it. before we jump into the questions, I would just love to know a little bit about your educational and career journey, how you got to where you are today. All right. Well, I grew up in the country in Pennsylvania and I started working on a farm. And interestingly enough, as I was thinking about going to college, there's a lot of mechanical things on a farm that break. And I learned a lot about how things worked between pulleys and hydraulics and those type of things, with all the farm equipment. It was like balin hay and those type of things and cutting hay and it inspired me with that. but then one of my very good friends, his dad was a mechanical engineer. We started talking about what did he do? it really inspired me to think, okay, that's a good starting point. And I began at Penn State in nineteen eighty-five as a mechanical engineering student. and a never changed course. And I graduated in nineteen ninety, so it took me five years, but I did three semesters as a co-op at a research lab. And I did boundary layer analysis with a laser dopplet velocimeter for NASA. It was really interesting. it paid. So that was good for me. We didn't have a lot of money. but it made me realize I was offered to go to our master's Cornell and I was like, I gotta get out and do stuff. I gotta go apply what we're learning. And so one key thing I'll mention and it's a theme I'll talk about probably a little bit is in my junior year I was like, I gotta do something besides engineering. How am I gonna talk to people? How do you lead? Those type of things. And I joined an organization called Leader of the Future. I was just on, I think it was I don't know, the advertisement committee but then I was the treasurer the second year. And then my senior year, I was chairman. They tapped me to be chairman of the conference. I will tell you, we worked with industry. ExxonMobil is one of those people, Exxon at the time. and we brought industry in to tell us how do you lead as engineers? Because we all learn engineering, we don't learn leadership stuff. We don't learn organizational things. and that's where I found out about Exxon. And they were like, you should come interview with us. and you know, I did and it went great. in nineteen ninety I went to work for Exxon Mobil in Houston, as a utilities and power engineer in the chemical company at the time. And that's where I spent all my career in ExxonMobil. Thirty six years two year assignment in Baton Rouge and then a year and a half assignment in Singapore, which is pretty amazing. And then I just recently retired after, you know, thirty six years and nineteen positions. So it was always very interesting. what has kept you in the field for more than 30 years? it's a very very broad, dynamic, discipline. There's a lot of different things. I think it was the sheer volume of options in that discipline. I graduated to the softer side, which is thermodynamics, heat transfer, combustion. And I dealt with thermodynamics, cooling of things and heating of things, and ultimately power generation and those type of things. And so it was kind of like, wow, I just got in a groove and never got out of it. across my career, I utilized so many things that I learned in school. and you're learning how to solve problems in school. You're not learning about how to design things. I mean very small things. Yeah. for a company this big, you're working on plants and big projects but I think it was falling back consistently on fundamentals. heat transfer fundamentals, fluid flow fundamentals, And that was what was always really, really interesting to me, as well as working with teams I've made lifelong friendships and relationships and that's a thing you really have to learn is you could calculate things all day it takes working with people to really get things done to really accomplish something the sheer breadth of the teams you have to work with on some of these more complex problems and complex projects that was always really interesting to me. I was always learning something new. And that was what kept me in that discipline in the company. That's great. what has changed the most about the field over your career? to me, technical computing capability hands down, I've seen engineering work go from the basic PC, basic spreadsheets. You're using design methods that were, 1500 years old, and you're iterating, but you might iterate Five times you're like, we can't spend hundreds of iterations here. So you put safety factors on there. Safety factors means Vessels are thicker, things are more expensive, because you're like, I gotta make sure these things don't blow up or fall down That to me, the ability of computing to hone in and make the thing safe, but also you're getting down to what's the minimum requirement to be safe. that's to me the biggest change I saw through a thirty six year career. what did you think mechanical engineering would be when you were a student and how did the reality compare when you got into the field? Kind of envision Sitting at a desk doing calculations that were given to me, in an office or a cubicle, but you're not independent. Again, you're cross-functional teams solving problems, designing plants, and it's very interactive. And mechanical engineering on its own. doesn't make anything run. Yeah. You were integrated with electrical and civil on other things, but then chemical. So you kind of learn to be an engineer and then you figure out where do you have to learn more? You keep learning how to work. how do you work with people, but also other technical things, which again keeps it really interesting as well. Yeah. Yeah. What do you think makes this field unique? mechanical engineers known as broad and that's very true and they can be applied through all kinds of industries they're used everywhere in you know chemical plants refineries factories car manufacturing it's almost the sky's the limit is where mechanical engineers are used I say unique I'll shout out to the electrical engineers and chemical engineers too is they're also very broad. it's not unique skills per se, but it's applying skills over a very wide variety of activities and companies Well, given that it's broad, you can go into a lot of these different areas, and given that you have had so many positions over the course of your career, what kinds of industries or careers can a mechanical engineering degree lead to that students might not immediately think of? That is a really good question. And I was lucky enough at the end of my career I was called a senior advisor as just an old guy that has a lot of experience and knows a lot. Is I got to work on some pretty amazing stuff. and It's helping the world evolve. some of it's scary, and I'll mention data centers first, AI data centers. Right? But mechanical engineering, you're like data center, it's all computers But in the background, there's liquid cooling, there is heat rejection, airflow, pumps, thermal systems. They have to reject all this heat. It's a huge, cooling issue within data centers, mechanical engineers is kind of like a playground on, especially the thermal side for what I like. it's a playground for that. I got involved in that and actually a post-combustion capture power plant to support that. So I learned all about the utility side of it that is my expertise, but also the power generation side where we're trying to make low carbon power So that was a lot of fun. That's new and expanding realm. I got to work on a hydrogen generation project. that's part of the energy transition, it'll ties into sustainability, batteries, EV, thermal management, wind turbines, renewable energy equipment, storages. Again, it ties in mechanical items, electrical. When you think about batteries, some chemical engineers working something around batteries somewhere in the background as well. And so it is more collaborative and interdisciplinary than it's ever been. and I think that will continue to be. C U Boulder, for example, describes the boundaries between mechanical engineering, biomedical devices, advanced materials, robotics, and energy systems are increasingly blurred. And I think that was a perfect quote for that because it's always been blurry when you're trying to build big projects, but now everything's expanding, you're getting into all this interconnection So it's really exciting time to be an engineer overall. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I think I've gotten some version of this comment of You learn how to think like an engineer and solve problems like an engineer and that applies to any discipline. You don't necessarily obviously, yes, you probably need to know a lot of the foundations to do heat transfer work and things like that. But a lot of the time when you're asked to take on some of these projects you learn how to learn how to, you know? absolutely. And then that is key is you're learning how to learn, you're learning how to solve problems. you learn how to work with teams, work with people. And then you pull in the data you need, I dealt with cooling water systems. I never talked about a cooling water tower or system ever in school. Yeah. It was the thermodynamics behind it and fluid flow behind it and those type of things. So you hit it on the mark. Yes. you touched on a little bit about this, so maybe I just want to see if you have anything else to say. But how are technologies like AI, automation, sustainability, How is that changing the work that mechanical engineers are doing? Yeah. I think AI, obviously, we've only touched the surface of what I think AI can do. Yeah. especially with an environment that I worked in. Across industries, from a computing standpoint, it's gonna blow things out of the water and make people more efficient. and especially in manufacturing, data analysis environment, I'm not an AI expert at all, but I think it will have a huge impact on how. we work. I just don't quite know how that is yet, And then I mentioned a little bit sustainability. Is it gonna be a huge area, And for, mechanical engineer, you think heat transfer, combustion, power generation, water usage. I talked about cooling towers. We use those to cool our processes in chemical plants. I learned a lot about water sourcing and those type of things. And that is increasingly much, much harder to get water supply. So we're gonna have to come up with much better ideas on how to make power without water, And then how we make heat through combustion, can we use solar? Can we use a different fuel source, hydrogen, which is clean? And so sustainability I think is probably the broadest opportunity. sustainability is a huge driving factor in multiple disciplines now. Kind of switching gears a little bit, what types of students tend to thrive in mechanical engineering careers that you've seen? Is there a particular way of thinking or approaching this career that serves people well? It's a good question. I think three things pop to mind is people who collaborate very well, openly share ideas and willing to established approaches and norms. Because we have to change. Things that were done the way they've been done for 50 years is gonna have to change. And some of the brightest minds that I've seen come out of school, I've had the opportunity to work with, they're gonna have to be the change makers, right? Why have we always done it this way? Why wouldn't we do it this way? And really thinking through that. I think also people who think beyond, the mechanical engineering boundary. and seek to understand the whole system, the whole puzzle okay, well I got this pump spinning, but how's it spinning? Where's the power coming from? How's it controlled? That's electrical interaction, right? And so somebody who thinks I'm just gonna sit in my mechanical world, my mechanical box It's just gonna sit in the box. They're not gonna be able to do anything. To really thrive and understand the system, and when problems happen, you have to understand how the system is controlled. That was a huge learning for me, is to dig down and understand that. And I think lastly, don't be afraid to try and fail. It is where you learn the most. I Early on in my career, it's not sexy, but I designed an air dryer to dry air. we need dry air for instruments. And it was in Baton Rouge, funny enough. I was in Baytown, Texas, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. And then I got an opportunity to go start that thing that I designed up in Baton Rouge. And it failed utterly. I messed up some fluidic calcs, and it was working with the vendor, and I had to go fix that. I am one of the experts in ExxonMobil and air drying now. Wow. Not sexy, but I learned it with three years experience. don't be afraid to fail. You have to take chances and then that's where you push yourself. And you always learn something new by pushing your boundaries. Something you may be uncomfortable with. Like my leadership thing in Penn State I was super scared. I was very apprehensive. But I learned so much. And I actually have the career I had, because of that, taking that step, taking that push to go be really uncomfortable in front of people or working with people That's a great story. how important are hands-on experiences like internships, getting involved in clubs, getting involved in research when preparing for a mechanical engineering degree? Very important. Yes. I didn't have an internship at a company, I had co-op, but it was all research. It's like super valuable. Companies want to find out where you'd be right for them. You have to find out, is that area right for you? is this really what I want to be doing? especially if you have internships in sophomore and junior years, it teaches you, okay, well, I might change a couple of these specialties, right? I mean, I've gone through all this base stuff, but then I might go change direction. I might go be interested in this area of mechanical engineering. You wanna gain all the opportunities you can with project teams that you might have. And that sound a broken record, ask to lead project teams or be part of that project team. project competitions through say ASME. I was actually president of ASME as well and it gave me some opportunities there And I think about networking. Do it. What does networking mean? how do you do it? I talk to professors. ask them, do they have industry people I should be talking to, industry engineers that have graduated from for us here at CU. Do they know those people? Could I go talk with them? Where are they working? ask students or graduate students, graduate students probably have a good perspective of who would they recommend talking about experiences. And it's just as important when you get a job. It may be different. ask your first supervisor or who's a good mentor, who's technical mentor, who's a good leadership management mentor. I wish I had done that when I first got an ExxonMobil. Somebody told me to do that. because it would be invaluable, I think, to just get a jump start. and I have also found that being a mentor, they are very happy and is well received to be asked to be a mentor and their advice. When you hire or work with young engineers, what qualities tend to set the strongest early career engineers apart from others? gonna say technical is a baseline. ExxonMobil hires very technically capable engineers, mostly all companies do, right? communication, collaboration, extremely important. they're not afraid to talk to somebody with 36 years experience, not afraid to ask them questions, a proactive thirst for learning and getting the job done like going and finding out what do I need to know I'll use an example is late in my career on my hydrogen project I had an engineer hydrogen projects were under the Inflation Reduction Act under Biden. They got a huge amount of subsidies. and it was blue hydrogen, green hydrogen, renewables, those type of things. We were working on a blue hydrogen project. Well, the IRA dropped, and this engineer over the weekend interpreted, I don't know, a 400-page document, and he says, this is the impact on the life cycle carbon analysis of our project. Yeah. Wow. I was blown away. It was amazing. But what's really interesting is he had further positions after the hydrogen project where he was an expert with four years experience. Senior management pulled him in. on what is the life cycle analysis of the carbon. For these hydrogen projects and these other projects So he had such a thirst for learning and great people skills. And he had worked on those before he came to ExxonMobil So I would say those are key highlights that I think about on people I've seen working with him and subsequent engineers as well. we have to learn the skills we don't learn here. Yeah. And that is leadership skills, people skills. I mean, you learn some people skills, but I would advise everybody to again push yourself into a discomfort area to understand how do you lead? It's through understanding people, understanding what people need because every person, every engineer is different. when you're a leader, you have to figure out, okay, what are all these jobs? Somebody may be very analytical, I'm gonna put them on that. Somebody may be working with operations really well. I'm gonna put them on that. And that teaches you invaluable things. If a student is considering mechanical engineering but isn't sure if it's the right fit, what would you encourage them to explore or try? I think the best way is to actually talk to engineers. Not just students, but engineers. So we talked a little bit briefly on many of the professors, especially research oriented professors, which is where universities get funding, but also we get lots of really cool projects to work on is find out who are they working with, ExxonMobil does it, other companies do it, GE does it, is they go to colleges and go, okay, we want to try to see if we could do this. Find out if they have contacts to go talk to. And then again, Your professors many times know former students and they may be industry contacts. that's why we're doing this podcast. This is perfect. okay, now we're in a rapid fire round. So first thing that pops into your head. What kinds of projects or problems have you had the opportunity to work on that really stand out to you? I was the all-site utilities lead for China One, which was a big steam cracker. it takes naphtha, which is a liquid, and makes ethylene, which goes to polyethylene, and propylene goes polypropylene. And so I was the lead for that. I always done a lot of mentoring, you know, twenty plus years experience. but this was really my first experiences. I was the lead, but I really wasn't. It was people working with me, not really for me, but with me in the same area. And I was guiding them on You're in front of people. I'm not. You're the person going in front of it. And that was what I think of as really dedicated mentorship of somebody that's still developing. Two more. When I first interviewed at where I actually went to work with an ExxonMobil, there was this person, he's called the lead specialist. John Goddard was his name. it was called Mr. Energy. He had so much energy. He brought cogeneration, which is making power and steam for say process uses. But John really was the Final reason I chose where I worked. And he was the lead specialist. Let's think about that. Thirty-two years later, they named me senior principal engineer of All-States Utilities. That is essentially the same role, just for a wider area. And you're responsible for the whole discipline, globally, everybody, I'm like, my God, I'm doing what I thought the dream job that I joined. Wow. And I loved the job. but then another opportunity came and after two years, I went to be again the lead, the utilities lead for the hydrogen project. And that was all hardcore mentorship. it was one of the most satisfying jobs I ever had because you're teaching people things that you're not gonna be around much longer to teach Those are great stories. maybe one of these examples answers this question, but if you have a different answer, what is the most unexpected career opportunity you've had? well this was a management job. So this was after I'd been a supervisor. a couple different places. they gave me the polyatoline planning manager job at our chemicals headquarters and you talk about people skills and talking through Things that you don't know, you can't be scared to ask questions because this is the business side. Yeah. and that was very unexpected. and that was very enlightening for me Because I'd have been manufacturing my whole career. Why won't they give us money? We always said in manufacturing, why won't they give us money? And you start seeing the criteria of what are their goals, what are their influences? And that made me a much better senior technical person. Because two jobs after that I went back to being a technical engineer, And that was a huge benefit for me to understand, all right, well, this is what we're gonna have to prove that this thing will pay off. this is what we need to do, or we're gonna have financial losses. you have to figure out what are all the things that are contribute to this project to make it a good return project. it's a return on that investment. Wow. Yeah. what is a misconception about the field that you would like to debunk? it's robots. It's yep. It's cars. Cars and cogs. gears working with things and it it's not, right? There's so much more. I think that's the biggest misconception. it's broad from not just you know the skills of the discipline, but also the industries it applies to. Yeah. That is a great thing about mechanical engineering. my brother was an aerospace engineer he went to work for, our aircraft company. and you know, then he didn't. And he actually went through some sales jobs, but then he became a combustion engineer. Think about that. Wow. But he used just his engineering skills to then learn that and apply that. If you could go back and give your college or early career self advice, what would you say? what would I say? Sounds like Many things I've probably already said is seek to understand. Don't be afraid to ask questions. You lose so much by not asking questions. It's not a signal of lack of technical aptitude. It shows that you're interested. You're listening. You're seeking clarity and eager to learn stay curious about how things work. What keeps them operating? It broadens your perspective, helps you build a network of specialists and expertise that you may not have, but then you're probably one of their experts later on And what makes this engineering discipline or maybe just your career meaningful to you? it introduced me to a world of possibilities I never thought growing up on a farm in Pennsylvania at its core, engineering as a whole, keeps the world running and progressing. You think about what is making things run, even right now in this room. Yeah. it's engineers involved. So many different engineers and expertise. last but not least, what's one takeaway you hope listeners remember? how you interact and collaborate with others is an essential skill worth developing, worth pushing yourself. And getting uncomfortable to do that. Strong workplace relationships help everyone understand what each other needs and expects And it makes the work a hell of a lot easier to get done. Mm-hmm. That's all the questions. That's all I had. Was there anything else you felt like you wanted to say, I think we've hit some of those with a hammer. I think a couple of times. I really appreciate the opportunity. Yeah. Thanks, Dad. Yay. my god. What do you think? That was awesome. good. Yeah. and that folks wraps up our episode on mechanical engineering. I hope you found it insightful. I hope you learned something. And as always, keep your ears and eyes open for a new episode. Bye y'all.