***Editor’s Note: The “I Became An Engineer” blog runs every Friday. To share your story email jennifer.delaosa@advantagemedia.com***

This week’s story comes to us from ECN reader Cees Links, GM of Wireless Connectivity at Qorvo.

When my 15-year-old son has a friend over, the first question is, “What’s the WiFi password?” When I reply, “Do you know there was life before WiFi?” I get back blank stares.

These moments remind me why I love engineering and think engineers are the luckiest, most fortunate people in the world. We create something out of nothing, and that thrill compels me to go to work every day.

My own engineering story starts in my younger years. I got my hands on an electrical engineering magazine around 1975—because the Internet did not exist, this was, in fact, a paper magazine. The magazine contained a design, bill of material for 30 components, and a schematic.

I took my bike to a local Radio Shack and bought the 30 components: some resistors, capacitors, a coil, crystal, and a few other items. When I got home, I turned the little bag of components upside down on my desk and got my soldering gun.

Carefully following the schematics, I put the components together one by one. I connected an earplug, then the battery, fiddled a little—and it worked! The crystal-clear sound of music came through the earbud, and I was breathless. I had built a small FM radio from nothing. That is the magic I remember, as if it had happened yesterday.

Transforming the 30 dead components spread out on my desk into something that makes music is how and why I became an engineer. This moment defines engineering for me to this day: the thrill of making something that is greater than the sum of its parts. 

Fast forward to 2004, when it became clear that WiFi was moving toward higher data rates, but would also become increasingly difficult for simple, battery-operated devices in the home to connect online. This was another bag of 30 components for me to put together.

So a few old friends, former colleagues, and I discussed how to implement low-power WiFi, and what the chip architecture would need to be. We quickly discovered not only that zigbee would be superior to low-power WiFi, but the same architectural ideas could be applied to develop the lowest-power zigbee in the industry.

The rest is history.

I was recently honored by Design News with a Golden Mousetrap Lifetime Achievement Award for making a difference with WiFi technology. With this award, I want to celebrate all engineers for their positive power and energy to make something out of nothing.

• For the hours and days of thinking about what needs to be done, what can be done, and how to bridge the gap.
• For the slogging and endless software debugging, because something just does not work the way it’s intended.
• For rejecting the 90-percent-done syndrome, because we are idealists and perfectionists. We want it done right (ignoring those who just want to ship “as is”).

We, engineers, have the creativity and the mind power to make a difference. We can make this world a better place through technology, and a connected world is a better world.

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