Beers with Engineers

#57 – Dave Cooper: Navigating from student to engineer

Dave Cooper went from barely graduating high school to teaching university engineering students. In between, he was a navigator for the Marines and worked on refrigeration systems for NASA. We also learn that Dave and Bert share an affection for animated cubic sponges with a palindromic name. He hopes to soon form a father/son engineering team.

Also:

• After leaving Marine...

#56 – Doug Katz and Gordon Downey: The Tony Stark of Adaptive Products

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• Doug Katz – wouldn’t name children Alley or Tom
• Gordon Downey considered April Fresh and Summer Breeze for his twins
• Doug went to West Point
• Gordon is an industrial designer but started studying advertising
• Was also a commercial photographer.
...

#55 – Howard Silverstein: Sometimes it just Clix

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• Likes to drink a black and tan
• Tonight, opening a bottle of 18 year old Macallan
• Has a mechanical mind but is not handy with tools.
• Likes to keep it simple.
• “Yes if…” not “No because…”
• The business card holder he worked on.
• They invented “Clix” to fill boats with gas without spilling.
  • It’s more than just a funnel.
• For some r...

#54 – Naeem Turner-Bandele: His plan is electrifying

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• Likes to drink Ginjinha, a Portuguese cherry liqueur
• Wanted to be a professional soccer player.
• Moved to Brazil and discovered power outages were frequent.
• Then he got a serious concussion and pivoted to wanting to start an energy technology company.
• From no interest in engineering to getting a PhD.
• He is known for being a man with ...

#B5 – Josh Weaver: Engineers/Christmas

• Josh is Bert’s nephew for this Christmas themed podcast
• Josh is drinking a Bell’s Lighthearted IPA.
• Bert is enjoying a Bailey’s Irish Cream.
• One semester as a computer science major.
• A few years as a commercial painter but did not see it as a long term thing.
• Started working for his step-father’s manufacturing company.
• Forgive the dog sneaky toy in the background.
• Josh “sequestered” the d...

#53 – Stan Leong: Engineering Your Finances

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• Stan is a Buffalo Bills fan, like Bert.
• Electrical engineer from Cornell
• Likes how the simple things of electronics build into complex things.
• Was laid off the week after he bought his first house.
• Saw a financial job on Monster.com (remember that?)
• Got all his clients through cold calling
• So miserable his wife handing out resumes to enginee...

#52 – Therese Miclot: The Engineer Whisperer

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• Drinking a Spotted Cow, available only in Wisconsin.
• Observed her mom who struggled with bad bosses.
• Got intrigued by the psychology of work.
• First job at a heavy engineering company – Rockwell
• Found leadership and communication skills lacking in engineers.
• But both are important even if you don’t want to go into management.
• “The Trusted Ad...

Show Notes

#51 – James Kell: Seven continents without trying

• James lives on the beach in Bondi, Australia
• He could be a wedding crasher without making up occupations
• Likes to do fasting 36 – 72 hours
• Studied engineering in Germany but went into construction
• He eats Vegemite and teaches the secret of eating it.
• Australians also check to see if water swirls the other direction in the toilet when crossing the equator.
• Won an Aust...

#50 – Charles Gillis, P.E.: Engineering and art

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• Drinking a Start Line IPA in honor of his hometown, Hopkinton, where the Boston Marathon starts.
• His mom knew he would be an engineer long before he did.
• Has an interest in art, but isn’t an artist
• Artist and engineers both combine existing things in new and interesting ways.
• Worked controllable pitch propellors
• First job at Gillette.
• Ev...

#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...