Andrew Brown vividly remembers watching the drama of the Apollo 13 mission unfold on a movie screen. Two days into its mission, a routine tirring of an oxygen tank ignited damaged wire insulation and triggered an explosion that vented a signifcant portion of the rocket’s oxygen supply into space. The crew was forced to abort plans to land on the moon and NASA Mission Control in Houston had to rapidly develop new plans to bring the damaged craft safely home.
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As he dug into the rigors of managing his first major capital project (a four-mile, multi-million-dollar gas pipeline in Odenton), Bobby Giese, P.E. “felt like someone kicked me into the deep end of the pool.” Giese, a graduate of the University of Maryland with a mechanical engineering degree, had spent the previous six years working on environmental management, gas regulatory compliance and integrity/safety initiatives for the natural gas system at BGE. Eager to get some “pure engineering experience” before taking his PE exam, Giese accepted an opportunity to serve as Lead Responsible Engineer (LRE) for BGE major capital gas projects and began work on the Odenton project.
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For decades, Howard (Skip) Harclerode II, P.E., F.NSPE, F.AIChE has dedicated time to serving on engineering boards and committees, working on legislative issues, and talking with students and young engineers about the profession. That dedication to supporting professional engineering was recognized this summer when Harclerode was named the winner of the 2022 NSPE Award.
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As a mechanical engineering student at Lehigh University and an avid car fan, Bryan Tansky had an idea of where his profession would take him. “I always thought my path would bring me to being a mechanical engineer working on some sort of automotive application,” he said. His first job out of college, however, focused on an entirely different industry. FLSmidth Minerals made processing equipment for the mining sector. Tansky, who had always loved the tangible nature of mechanical engineering, was fascinated by this very real world application of engineering principles.
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