I've been working with CalTrans since 1991.
Almost that whole time has been here with the toll bridges.
In some way or another I've also, uh, spent sometime up in Sacramento Design.
My typical day I, uh, like I say, I oversee a group of engineers roughly twenty.
We split it down - half of them are doing bridge inspections and the other half are doing,
uh, rehabilitation designs for the older structures.
Uh, a lot of infrastructure here in the Bay Area
particularly the toll bridges are now getting somewhere in the fifty years.
You know, the Bay Bridge now is seventy years plus.
Uh, you know, just trying to keep up with everyday maintenance
is a big issue as the infrastructure gets older and older.
For me the most exciting part and I hate to say it is when something goes wrong.
Um, I'm the type of person who likes to think
fast, use my engineering background and my construction background and try to determine
repairs, you know, on the go.
Uh, it's some people run away from that kind
of thing, you know the pressure but I seem to thrive off that kind of issues.
For my early years in high school, I knew I wanted to be an engineer or an architect.
I originally started studying architecture and realized that I didn't have that quick ability that
when you look at an artist or someone that really has those talents, innate talents, that I probably
wasn't, you know, going to make it as an architect and I realized that pretty easy when I saw
how quick people were putting the things together and how I struggled with it.
As far as school goes, you are paying your dues.
It's just one step in your career, you know, you realize
that you put in four, five years of education -
it's what you get when you get out of school and what you can do.
You know, engineering teach you logic, you know, common sense, you
know, little things that most people take for granted.
And you're hammered all through school, you know, to think.
And the thinking part is a big part of your education, where you
were taught how to think, how to solve problems.
For me, you know when I came out of high school
and going into college right away, it wasn't the right way to go.
Um, and I took a couple years off.
When I came back to it, I renewed vigor into it the schooling part of it.
You know, knew what I really wanted to do, knew that I wanted to do engineering now
and could really focus on the demands of engineering.
It's not easy, uh, major to do.
You sit around and look at all the liberal arts majors and they are out playing you know games -
volleyball and frisbee and when you're up at two in the morning doing homework.