Beers with Engineers

#49 – Scott Bruneau: A traditional non-traditional engineer

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•  an engineer is somebody who makes precise guesswork based on unreliable data provided by people with questionable knowledge.
• Studied nuclear engineering in high school. Yes, high school.
• Buuuut, got his engineering degree late in life.
• An early position was in quality – to get to know the parts – because that group knows the...

#48– Bob Bouthillier: Innovation Requires Disobedience

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• Like father, like son. His father was an electrical engineer.
• But started college as a pharmacist
• Did quality inspection of guns – including a Howizter cannon.
• He can assemble guns fast – not quite as fast as Forrest Gump.
• Inspecting ball bearings – stains vs pits.
• His podcast summarizes books on innovation.
• Just as generals are w...

#47 – Jordan Poots: He’s good at maths.

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• Mechanical engineer from Northern Ireland
• Who quickly went into software.
• Maths or math? Well, it is mathematicS.
• UK still has a mix of English and metric
• He was into AI before it was cool.
• Studied vehicle on-ramp merging
• Can change the car from altruistic to individualistic behavior
• Still interested in mechanical engineering...

#46 – Noel LaFlamme: Hammer and Forge Metallurgist

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• Always interested in how things work and making it better.
• Which led to blacksmithing - by way of archery
• Made arrowheads out of rebar.
  • Which (of course) led to a sword.
• Rules of thumb for temperature of steel.
• Blacksmithing is a hobby that makes a few bucks.
• Specialty is chef’s knives
• Good knives are t...

#45 – Dan Schreiber: Beer Flavored Ice Cream

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• Dan is an architect in Green Bay but had always wanted to be a farmer.
• Stroh’s was the local macro-brewery when Dan and Bert went to college.
  • They made ice cream, then and still do today.
• Do corn farmers put feed corn around the perimeter of their field?
• Bert and Dan rode a mechanical bull in Kentucky
• Felt li...

#44 – Caitlin Vaillincourt: How to avoid braking chip. The edible ones.

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• Pros and cons of longer or shorter college terms
• Played basketball in college and traveled abroad
• Part of global leadership development program at Avery Dennison and loved the experience.
• Interned at Frito-Lay reducing potato chip breakage.
• For now, she is happy with project management but miss...

#43 – Josh Tarbutton: Accidentally Awesome

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• Likes Sugar Creek Brewery in Charlotte, NC.
• They have a master cicerone (you’ll have to listen to find out)
• Started working at age 12.
• Got GED and went to Georgia Tech.
• PhD dissertation was on CNC machining software
• In the Army reserve in Iraq, he was a fuel specialist who actually knew about fuel.
• Bravo team name is parti...

#42 – Gretchen Gagel: Leaving the world a better place.

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• Likes beer from Boulevard Brewing in Kansas City
• In Australia, the living room is the lounge room.
• Went to SMU and saw Eric Dickerson play.
• Dad sold construction equipment and she played with Tonka trucks.
• Built Baltimore Ravens Stadium and many other things.
• Very little manufacturing in Australia, therefore m...

#41 – Wes Schwie: Porsches, patents, problems, and pigs.

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• Became an engineer to be like his brother.
• Became a patent attorney because his friend’s uncle drove a nice Porsche.
• He learned writing patents and claims as mostly on the job training.
• First job as an inside sales engineer – wasn’t that good at it.
• Firm’s name of Gallium Law was proposed by a friend.
• Gallium...

#40 – John Clarke: Don’t be a cow on ice

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• Found morel mushrooms in his yard and ate them. And ventured into others.
• Hunting wild berries
• Drinking Little Willow beer – tired it because his daughter is Willow.
• Tried numerous manual labor jobs in high school – which convinced him to go to college.
• Manager to engineer to manager.
• Worked at a high tech textile company
• A ...

#39 – Kyle Smith: Engineering knowledge and wisdom

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• Kyle saved Bert’s butt by modifying parts overnight
• You tend to repeat small mistakes, but not big ones.
• Another engineer who started with Legos
• Self-taught on an early computer animation program – Maya.
• Which led into SolidWorks
• Got a mill for cheap and converted to CNC
• Kyle and Bert both use Send Cut Send – not s...

#38 – Seth Greenwald: Engineers are storytellers, too.

• A teller of “good” stories
• Active in toastmasters
• Soul Brewing Company
• Attended Cooper Union to be an architect, but….
• First job was as a furniture designer.
• “Serious Creativity” by Edward DeBono – lateral thinking
• You need to know when to be logical and when to be lateral
• Divergent thinking before convergent thinking
• Toastmasters help you to speak and to lead
• Gives worksh...

#37 – Larry Bridge: Sustainability is good business

• Built the pedestrian bridge over Sycamore St in Cincinnati.
• Bert wants to use nitinol someday. It is super-elastic and has shape memory.
• Larry’s dad was called Mr. Steel and his uncle worked on submarine propellors.
• Thought about being an actuary
• Quickly moved into project management – lots of capital products
• HVAC in an R&D building is huge expense
• Kosher surfactants are...

#36 – Pete Rezac: The Ritual Engineer

• First job out of college was at a startup working on hydrogen energy.
• Pete was unschooled (not homeschooled) through 7th
• Didn’t believe his Mom when she tried to teach him the rules of English.
• For math he was mostly self-taught and discovered the distributive property
• Often school erodes children’s natural inquisitiveness.
• Many smart kids were troublemakers because they were bored.
• Decisi...

#35 – David Elentukh: Not An EIT, A DIT – Doctor in Training

• Drinking kombucha but is a sour beer fan.
• 12 cylinder rotary engines?
• Why do we make the decisions we do?
• “Paycheck” with Ben Affleck and other movies inspired him to engineering. (but not “Falling Down”)
• Isaac Asimov did not believe in character development, especially in the “Foundation” series.
• Knows why he loves engineering, but less why he became one.
• Every day ...

#34 – Tim Johnson: Axe throwing, Ninja engineer

• Owns a Parkour/ninja gym and Axe-Throwing Bar
  • The town council raised an eyebrow at the second one.
• Tinker toys and old broken toys can be used for prototypes
• In college, president of the Demiurgical Engineering club.
• Worked on the Segway and Rockband drumkit.
• Tried to quit but his boss wouldn’t let him.
• Has been doing martial arts since he was a child
  • so he star...

#33 – Chris Costa: He always has enough time for people.

• Chris is enjoying his favorite beer, Sam Adams Octoberfest
• Chris placed engineers and now sells SolidWorks
• Crashed three planes when in high school
• Some recruiters suggest jobs that are a terrible fit.
• It seems like an easy job, but it isn’t. It requires lots of contacts.
• Learn from his father: “You always have enough time for people”
• How many things could you do with th...

#32 – Steve Drake: Speakers in your suspension?

• Beers with engineers or wine-ing and designing?
• Steve worked at Bose – the Soundlink and the Wave CD radio.
• As a kid, he jumped off a roof with a trash bag as a parachute.
• Elsewhere, worked in electro-optics system group.
• Always been interested in acoustics and Bose was very close to home.
• Bose was a great place to work; high caliber people.
• Bose worked on car suspension.
• They al...

#31 – Todd Mansfield: Culture is what you do.

• Lots of microbreweries in Boise, Idaho.
• Todd grew up on a farm north of Boise.
• He became an aircraft mechanic and is also a pilot
• He did fly the planes he worked on.
• Later involved in building materials and electromechanical devices.
• Worked on kit airplanes
• 9V batteries contain 6 AAAA batteries
• His company, OneIPM, co-founded by Bill Dahl, who co-founded Solidworks PDM Works.
• Their...