I started my professional career with B/E Aerospace (later bought by Rockwell Collins (later bought by UTC and renamed Collins Aerospace)) as an intern in their Flight Structures and Integration business unit mostly doing work as a systems engineer, working failure mode analysis and working with an FAA Designated Representative within the business to help develop better methods of consistent smoke penetration testing. Upon graduation, I returned to B/E Aerospace under their Advanced Lavatories and Cabin Interiors (ALCI) business unit where my design career took off.
ALCI was only a couple years old when I joined, so it had a very strong feeling of a tech startup, with a “fail fast” and “deliver at all costs” sorts of mentalities. This was the perfect environment for me to start out in as they were willing to give me a lot of responsibility very quickly. While there, I worked on two contract development programs, dozens to new design projects, gained the role of a corporate hardware librarian, focal on multiple development programs, authored design processes and standards, and was allowed to create and deploy tools to help increase efficiency and consistent work. After 5 years with ALCI, I moved on to the world of aviation waste water systems while still with B/E Aerospace (Collins Aerospace, by this point). I brought many of the same efficiency, processes, and standards to the Ecosystems business unit as I developed at ALCI.
In my time with Collins Aerospace, I was awarded 3 Design Patents. Two pertaining to magnetic latch and lock mechanisms with ALCI, and one dealing with a vortex wast separator system with Ecosystems.
A more detailed look at my experience with Collins can be found here!
In April of 2019, I joined The Boeing Company to the 777X Lighting group where I started exploring the world of commercial aviation LED passenger lighting systems and working directly with airline customers. While I was still a Design Engineer in the capacity that I was designing layouts across the passenger cabin, but more interestingly, I was also designing lighting scenes throughout that cabin based on the specifications that the customers had requested. So the next time you’re on a 777X flight and see some of the awesome colors through the cabin, some of that might’ve been me! Unfortunately, in late-2020 my adventure with Boeing ended.
Not all news is bad news, though. In April of 2021, I was hired as a Staff Mechanical Engineer at the Engineering firm Andrews Cooper! This was my big break to get into the field of Consumer Electronics where my first stint was with Meta (then Facebook) working on [REDACTED] and later still with Meta working on Virtual Reality Display and Optics prototyping.
Outside of my day job, I have designed and built a left-handed USB number pad and have a number of open projects that you can see on my Projects page.
