Can you tell us a little bit about the kind of work you do?
I am currently a regional technical sales manager for STT Enviro Corp – a multi-divisional company with engineering, construction and fabrication capabilities. I started off as a project engineer for medium to large industrial projects in the Mining, Power and Oil and Gas sector.
What have been the turning points and milestones in your career?
The main turning point in my career has been when I switched from Engineering work to Technical Sales and Business Development. A very steep learning curve that I had to go through!
As for Milestones, I can think of two key ones:
Milestones 1: upon completing my bachelor degree in the Mechatronics program, I pursued my Masters of Engineering in the same department. I was lucky to start an exciting and yet challenging project with Pacific Coast Terminals where I was asked to automate a manually intensive task on site. For this project I designed and developed an articulated robot arm, taking on the concept generation, detail design, fabrication drawings, shop fabrication and PLC programming. This helped me to better understand the heavy industrial industry and their requirements.
Milestone 2: during my first year and a half as a technical sales manager in my current company, I managed to successfully expand our company footprint in various untapped industries such as Oil and Gas, and successfully brought in the largest contract our company had ever received.
What is a fact about your work that people might find surprising?
The level of detail that a system would need before it is materialized – a system that might look very simple from a 1000 feet elevation view has so many aspects required to become optimized and reliable, while still being a cost effective solution for the end user.
What was your favourite thing to do on campus as a UBC student?
Everyone in engineering knows how far away the SUB is! To take a break, I would take a walk to the SUB, especially on sunny days, and would enjoy a burger being barbecued outside of the building. On other days, I enjoyed watching people swim in the Aquatic Center.
Do you have any advice you would like to share with students interested in pursuing Mechanical Engineering?
Make sure to grasp the basics of all concepts you are studying. It doesn’t often happen that you use a lot of the details – it’s the problem solving skills you gain that is useful in your career. Fully understanding the concepts of engineering helps you become a great problem solver in a work environment.
Also, learn a CAD software such as SolidWorks or AutoCAD. They are instrumental throughout your career and personal life.