In my day job I work as a systems engineer and electrical engineer. For 30 years I have worked at the same Fortune 500 company, a company that is a high-tech leader in the US and globally. I’m lucky that in my role I often get to explore new ideas and new technologies when working toward the development of new products. The BuildTheEnterprise website just seems to flow out naturally from the same approach I take in pondering and evaluating new ideas and technologies in my day job.
Personally, I have found working as an engineer to be very rewarding. The work is interesting, the pay is good, your co-workers are bright and enthusiastic, and the unemployment rate in engineering typically runs under 3% – far below the national average for all workers. For these reasons I hope that some young people find a bit of inspiration in this website, and that this might even help motivate some to study engineering in college.
And okay, for the record, while in grade school I watched the first Star Trek series each week during the original season on TV in 1966 on my family’s black & white TV. (Yes, the vast majority of Americans didn’t have color TV sets yet back in 1966!) Captivated by the image and idea of the USS Enterprise, I built a long lost model of it from a kit I purchased at a store. I was around nine years old. So I suppose the USS Enterprise has been burned into my brain for a long time, just waiting for a chance to get out.
– BTE-Dan