We sat down with a Groov-Pin engineer, Brian Vaught, to talk about his path to an engineering career and working in the manufacturing industry.
Why did you choose engineering? What interested you about it?
From a young age, I found myself wanting to figure out how things worked. From an AM radio to a vacuum cleaner, everything intrigued me. Choosing a path in engineering was a natural fit for me – more like it chose me.
What do you like most about your job?
My tomorrow is never like the previous day. Not knowing what the next challenge will be keeps thing interesting to say the least. Seeing a project through from development to completion is rewarding, but the day-to-day is always unique, and I enjoy that aspect of it.
What do you like about working in the manufacturing industry?
Creating parts from a print to reality from a piece of raw material is satisfying. Striving for the highest quality and best practices in the manufacturing process is always evolving. Keeping up with new technologies is a key factor.
What advice would you give to students interested in engineering careers?
I have two mottos I live by. “How can you learn anything new when you know everything already?,” and the other is, “There’s no such thing as a stupid question.” Keep questioning things until you get a true understanding that makes sense to you.
Keep an open mind and realize there’s always more than one way to achieve your goals. “That’s the way we’ve always done it” is obsolete these days.