About Me Professional Interests Personal Interests Who am I?
I grew up in Bakersfield, California where I graduated from Bakersfield High School.
I attended college at the University of California, Riverside where I received a
BS in Electrical Engineering and an MS in Electrical Engineering with a focus on Embedded Systems.
After college, I relocated to the Temecula Valley to work as a Project Engineer for Opto 22.
In this position, I have been fortunate to work on many interesting projects that have focused on board design,
firmware programming, and control applications. After building a strong understanding of the product line,
I began instructing training classes twice a month. For more information regarding my professional career, please
view my resume.
Professional Interests
Through my collegiate and professional career, I have had the chance to work on some very cool projects.
Some of my favorite projects (and the ones I learned the most from because, let's face it, when you
learn something from a project you tend to be more proud when it is completed) are described below.
Training Material
Producing a product that is not user friendly is pointless. To reach a large customer base, a product should be
reliable and easy to use. This is why training on a product is so important. Training can come in many forms
including hands on classes, written material such as manuals, or short video tutorials that explain key concepts. Along with
instructing week long classes, I identified key concepts and created material to explain those concepts.
Profibus Serial Module
This was the first project that I was in charge of from design to production. I worked on every aspect of this module starting with
board design, part ordering, and firmware programming. The product finished with testing and production. The first
project where I had to take what I learned from school and apply it in the "real world".
Energy Management
In the recent years, energy usage and management has become very important. This is in part due to the rising cost
of energy and in part to the growing awareness of a business's effect on its surroundings. Working on this project
required me to program a control program and interface for the office lights, HVAC, and sprinklers. I also inspected,
analyzed, and fixed existing control hardware. I got to climb up in the ceiling and change modules, what a cool job!
Control System for Ventilator
My grad school research project. This is a fascinating project because you really get to see how
technology can be used to bring more comfort to another human being. In this project, I derived a control
algorithm that would make persons breathing on a ventilator more comfortable while still maintaining the
necessary volume of air. I then examined different modes or placing the algorithm into hardware to verify
that the hardware would be able to meet the timing requirements.
Bringing eBlocks to the classroom
This was a great idea for a project that unfortunately did not get the time it truly deserved.
This project was created to help find a new way of teaching concepts that once were advanced but with the commonality
of computers is becoming necessary in every day life. The goal was to use plug and play blocks to teach
the concepts of digital logic. What was great about this project was it examined how humans process information
in order to learn a concept and the best way of presenting information so that it could be understood no
matter what type of student you have before you.
Personal Interests
Outside of work, I have two main interests. Reading and running.
As long as I can remember I have enjoyed reading. Even when your life seems hectic, I think you should make time for reading.
I think it is important to read magazines that are related to your field. My favorite magazine is
Control Engineering because it not only discusses the latest products available it also covers topics regarding
how the field of engineering is changing and meeting new problems head on with new innovations everyday. I also enjoy reading
novels.
It is just as important to excerise your body as it is your mind. For many years, I was very interested in weight training.
Then I thought it would be great to say I ran a marathon. I completed the San Diego Rock n Roll Marathon in 2007. I hated running
when I began training for it but over the sixteen week program I grew to enjoy it. 2009 will be an exciting year as I plan
to compete in two half marathons and the Camp Pendleton Mud Run.
