Alumni News

Three more Mechanical Engineering Technology (MET) alumni have reported back to us with their accomplishments. The most recent to graduate is Brandon Tyson, who received his diploma in January of 2008. He is currently working for Gulfstream Aerospace in Savannah, Georgia, where the company manufactures large-cabin business jets. As a manufacturing engineer, Brandon covers three departments, Nose, Nose/Forward-Mid Fuselage Joining, and Aft-Mid Fuselage, where he investigates manufacturing issues on the GIV and GV product lines and implements process and product improvements. His work will help Gulfstream produce 90 aircraft this year under budget and on schedule.

Brandon reports that CETA and the University of Hartford prepared him, not just for his career “but also life in general. The diversity I encountered on campus and in the classroom allows me to interact professionally with colleagues who are from all over the world.”

We have also heard from Captain David McKelvin, class of 2003, who is currently serving in the Army Corps of Engineers in the Great Lakes and River Division as a project manager in the Buffalo District, which covers parts of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York. Prior to this posting, Capt. McKelvin served in Germany and was twice deployed to Iraq. In both Iraqi postings, he led soldiers in engineering assignments, the first involving light construction, excavation, and security, the second involving counter-improvised-explosive-device (IED) work. In the later position, he planned and managed daily missions with the engineer battalion to find IEDs, the number-one killer of soldiers in Iraq, before they could be detonated, and he worked extensively with his Navy and Air Force counterparts to develop new ways to defeat the IED threat. He has been serving in Buffalo since February of this year. In Buffalo, where he lives with his wife and 2-year-old son, he is working on a dam project, replacing hydraulic gates and clearing debris from a dam training wall, and the development of a confined disposal facility for dredged material in Cleveland’s harbor.

Captain McKelvin tells us that among the many things he learned here at CETA, a couple of lessons stand out. One is that you don’t need to know all the answers—but you definitely need to know where to go to find them. He also says that “the driving force to becoming a . . . well-rounded engineer is constantly building and relying upon your knowledge in other subjects and understanding their specific application in each engineering subject.” In other words, students should try to understand how each of their courses relates to their other courses.

Finally, we have had a visit from Philip Nasadowski, who graduated back in September of 2001. Phil is working as a project engineer for PCS Integrators, in Fairfield, New Jersey. The company is involved primarily with control systems for water and wastewater plants and sells pumps and other water- and waste-related equipment. Phil’s most recent project for PCS Integrators was a water filtration plant in Toms River, New Jersey, where he set up the supervisory controls and instrumentation and tied it into their other systems. He reports running into some very old equipment, including a pump that included a motor with a patent date of 1915; he’s even seen a vacuum tube occasionally. Phil says that he does a lot of work with programming and electrical systems along with light mechanical engineering: “My job is basically a bit of everything—electrical, mechanical, computer, politician, salesman, mechanic, draftsman, shop monkey, tech support hotline.”

And did we help prepare him for his job? “Oh, yes. I learned about PID loops in school, my senior project was that automated bottle filler, which I did the controls for. And technical writing! I’ve had to write proposals and stuff in the past, and these tend to end up in the hands of customers and their consulting engineers.”

If you know of other alums who would like to let people know what they’re doing, please email Natalie Segal at nsegal@hartford.edu. She is glad to share your news.