***Editor’s Note: The “I Became An Engineer” blog runs every friday. To share your story email sarah.goncalves@advantagemedia.com***
This week’s story is brought to us by reader Stephen Heckman.
As far as I could remember I had in interest in both science and engineering. Even before kindergarten I would get in trouble for tearing my toys apart to see what was inside (even more so if they were not my toys!).
By the time I was eight, my dad helped me assemble a crystal radio from a kit we bought at Ames. We would also build go-carts from old wagon wheels and ride then down the hill that ran past our house. My mom also bought me a How and Why Wonder Book on electronics that really turned up the interest… I was in 3rd grade at that point.
Every year I asked for chemistry sets, microscopes, and erector sets for birthday or Christmas presents. A family friend gave us a small telescope. I spent my paper route money at Cons (a local hardware store) or Radio Shack that a fellow nerd friend and I would ride our bikes to. A Ham that was on my paper route located a Heathkit GR-64 shortwave for $20 when I was 15; it later got replaced by a Realistic DX-150A that I kept through my 10-year Air Force enlistment. My only complaint back then is it was hard to find cast-off electronics that was in good enough shape to get working again.
When I was a young teen, my uncle gave me the book Chemistry and You, which inspired many unsafe experiments by today’s standards. (By the way: my uncle was a USN machinist’s mate (he served on submarines during WW2), who went on to be the Maintenance Engineer/Manager for Wise Potato Chips and developed many of their manufacturing processes. So he definitely was an influence, but I was already leaning toward “nerd.”)
By the time high school rolled around, I went to our county Vocational-Technical high school for electronics. Our teacher was a former NASA employee who worked in mission control during the Apollo program. He was also an influence on me and was instrumental in getting many of my classmates to join the Air Force.
Each year, we got the day off to take our FCC commercial exams. I got my 3d class in 10th grade, and my 2d class my junior year. Because of that, I was able to get a co-op job working on car radios my sernior year, and I got to leave school at noon four days a week! Given that I hated school, it was a cool fringe benefit. While I loved learning and was a voracious reader, I hated the culture in high school that worshiped people that chased a ball with a stick but despised those with functioning brains.
After graduation, I joined the Air Force, primarily because it had its own community college with its training being accredited. I picked my career based on the fact that EW Systems had the longest school you could attend with a four-year enlistment. I took college classes in the evening, and once I made E-5, the Air Force paid 90 percent of my tuition. I reenlisted once to finish my bachelor’s degree while stationed in Germany (although having a child was a factor in that decision!).
Looking back, I realize how true I have stayed to my original interests: even now, I have a hammer and chisel on my bench at work so I can take things apart to see what is inside. And now I get paid to do so!
Read other stories, here:
- A Note From The Editor: An Engineer’s Story
- I Became An Engineer: Because Of A Lunch Box
- I Became An Engineer: Because of Christmas Lights
- I Became An Engineer: Because Of The Cool Jackets
- I Became An Engineer: Because My Dad Said Not To
- I Became An Engineer: Despite Being Bad At Math
- I Became An Engineer: Because of Uncle Chet
- I Became An Engineer: Because I Can’t Stop Asking ‘Why?’
- I Became An Engineer: Because of Star Trek (Specifically Montgomery Scott)
- I Became An Engineer: Because I Was A Really Lucky Nerd
- I Became An Engineer: But ‘Nobody Knows’ Why
- I Became An Engineer: Because of Nuclear Submarines
- I Became An Engineer: Because of a Sewing Machine
- I Became An Engineer: Because No One Was Hiring Shoe Salesmen
- I Became An Engineer: Because of Mr. Kenny, the TV/Radio Repair Man
- I Became An Engineer: Because of a Book (And My Mom)
- I Became An Engineer: Because of a Cattle Ranch
- I Became An Engineer: Because of a Wise Father and the Possibility of Death
- I Became An Engineer: Because of An Evil Mastermind
- I Became An Engineer: To Get Off the Tractor
- I Became An Engineer: Because of My Rodeo Coach
- I Became An Engineer: Because the Air Force Equipment Kept Breaking
- I Became an Engineer: Because My Mom Let Me Take Apart the Old Vacuum
