***Editor’s Note: The “I Became An Engineer” blog runs every friday. To share your story email sarah.goncalves@advantagemedia.com***
This week’s story is brought to us by reader Dan Haubert.
Growing up in the industrial Midwest in the 60s and early 70s provided me with a fertile environment in which to grow into my chosen field as an electrical engineer. Both sides of my family hail from German farmer immigrants who settled in North Central Ohio in the mid 1800s. The “engineering gene” runs strong in my family, such that my father and all of my uncles (three on my mother’s side and my father’s two younger brothers) were engineers. With that heritage, it isn’t surprising that I and three of my four brothers also became engineers (hey, there’s a bound to be a throwback “free thinker” in the strongest of engineering families!).
My own engineering interest started with watching my father as a young child. He built me my own workbench next to his own in the basement where I would watch him run stock through the table saw and build all manner of wood projects (a love I share with him to this day as it’s my own free time hobby). When I was five, he bought me a benchtop electric jig saw which I used to happily cut shapes out of Masonite. My mother was somewhat horrified though, and as a response to the question of “What if he cuts himself?” my father replied, “Well, he’ll only do it once.” (Well, maybe more than once if the truth be told.)
In another corner of the basement, we had two WWII-era shortwave radios my father had resurrected from an Army surplus store. He taught me Morse code, and I remember spending many hours tuning into stations from all over the world (sort of a “pre-Internet”). I also had several of those “electronic kits” where electronic components were mounted to a board and various circuits were made by placing wire jumpers under connected springs. I also took apart many an old radio or television on that same workbench searching for the mysteries insides.
I would watch and “assist” my father whenever he worked on our cars. When he passed away early at 44 years of age, my father’s two (engineering) brothers, who were perhaps the greatest influence in my formative years, filled in. They were there for any task my widowed mother needed. I learned how to change wheel bearings, tune carburetors, work on plumbing and furnaces, and in my mind, there wasn’t anything (that mattered anyway) that they didn’t know how to do.
As I grew older, I gradually amassed a vast collection of chemistry set-type paraphernalia. I spent a lot of paper route money buying supplies and test tubes at the local hardware store. There were a lot strange house odors and stains on the basement ceiling that I was admittedly responsible for.
In school, I came to love anything having to do with the hard sciences (math, chemistry, physics, etc.). There were laws and rules, and the “non-fuzzy” aspect of it appealed to me.
By the time I had started to think of college, there was no doubt in my mind that I wanted to be an engineer. My real problem was: what kind? Back in the early 70s, there was no Internet, and information was often limited to what you were exposed to (in my case, my father and his brothers were all mechanical engineers). For reasons I don’t quite remember though, I eventually decided I was going to be a chemical engineer (maybe it was all that paper route money I’d used to invest in test tubes!).
Beginning my senior year in high school, I was invited to participate in a Boy Scout event called “Eagle Scout Day” (I had achieved the rank of Eagle Scout in the spring of the same year), where a scout would choose a profession he was interested in and was then hosted for a day by a volunteer (in that same profession).
As it turned out, my host had a Ph.D. in chemical engineering and worked at Champion Spark Plug in Detroit. He picked me up from my family home in his English sports car (the day got off to a good start!). We spent the day touring around the plant, viewing the processes used to manufacture spark plugs (which was actually a lot more interesting than it sounds). Toward the end of the day, it was decided to mix up the touring groups (there were more than just chemical engineering hopefuls there). This included a tour of the Electrical/Electronic Lab.
As I had mentioned earlier, back in the early 70s, (good) information wasn’t so easy to come by. I’d loved the short wave radios and the electronic kits, and I’d built many a benchtop electric motor with nails and magnet wire. My own perception of electrical engineers, however, was that they only worked on TVs and radios, the same things I had tinkered with over the years (okay, so maybe I was a little dumb too).
In many people’s lives there is an epiphany moment where everything suddenly becomes crystal clear, doubt falls away, and there is only one path forward.
When I walked into the lab that fall afternoon so many years ago, I had that moment.
My eyes beheld row after row, bench after bench of various equipment of unknown function that promised me I’d never be bored or my imagination constrained by limits too near.
In an eye blink, I knew what I was always meant to be.
I went to college and became an electrical engineer and have been in that field for almost forty years. In a few more years I plan to retire, but until that time, I hope to continue to do what I do and was always meant to do.
I’m also proud to say that the engineering rradition continues with my daughter, who graduated as a mechanical engineer almost two years ago and is now working for GM in the Detroit area!
The chain remains unbroken!
Read other stories, here:
- A Note From The Editor: An Engineer’s Story
- I Became An Engineer: Because Of A Lunch Box
- I Became An Engineer: Because of Christmas Lights
- I Became An Engineer: Because Of The Cool Jackets
- I Became An Engineer: Because My Dad Said Not To
- I Became An Engineer: Despite Being Bad At Math
- I Became An Engineer: Because of Uncle Chet
- I Became An Engineer: Because I Can’t Stop Asking ‘Why?’
- I Became An Engineer: Because of Star Trek (Specifically Montgomery Scott)
- I Became An Engineer: Because I Was A Really Lucky Nerd
- I Became An Engineer: But ‘Nobody Knows’ Why
- I Became An Engineer: Because of Nuclear Submarines
- I Became An Engineer: Because of a Sewing Machine
- I Became An Engineer: Because No One Was Hiring Shoe Salesmen
- I Became An Engineer: Because of Mr. Kenny, the TV/Radio Repair Man
- I Became An Engineer: Because of a Book (And My Mom)
- I Became An Engineer: Because of a Cattle Ranch
- I Became An Engineer: Because of a Wise Father and the Possibility of Death
- I Became An Engineer: Because of An Evil Mastermind
- I Became An Engineer: To Get Off the Tractor
- I Became An Engineer: Because of My Rodeo Coach
- I Became An Engineer: Because the Air Force Equipment Kept Breaking
- I Became an Engineer: Because My Mom Let Me Take Apart the Old Vacuum
- I Became An Engineer: Because I Liked Tearing My Toys Apart
- I Became An Engineer: Because of the Mysterious Glowing Tubes
- I Became An Engineer: Because of My Father, Star Trek, and Music
- I Became An Engineer: Because I Was Tired of Sweating