UPDATE March 2019: I accepted a position with Sonnen Batterie, and am off the job market. This website now serves as a snapshot of how I was presenting myself in 2018. Thanks for visiting!
Hello! I am an electrical engineer with many years of experience, primarily in satellite communications, monitor and control systems, and engineering operations in general. I’m now reentering the job market, and I’m particularly excited about now shifting my professional focus into energy / power engineering.
For about a decade now I’ve had a personal interest in the technologies surrounding distributed generation (DG) of electric power and the electrification of the transportation sector, specifically:
This started as a personal interest, but in recent years I have become a true believer in these technologies. I see that the most exciting challenges for engineering are in the energy sector, and I want to be a bigger part of meeting those challenges.
To that end, I am now looking to transition to an engineering position in this sector. In the Energy and Power Technologies section I have detailed the technologies and jargon that I’m already familiar with, to illustrate that I’m not exactly new to all this.
I have two engineering degrees from Georgia Tech, so I have the expected literacy in engineering, mathematics, chemistry and physics. Please see the Engineering Background and Science Fundamentals page for more.
Frustrated with a technical team that wastes time on troubleshooting problems, can’t keep facts straight, or can’t communicate issues to management? Perhaps my most critical experience is in a variety of operational techniques that simply help groups work better. Please see the Operations / Communications / Outreach page for more.
I have 20+ years of engineering experience, in both small companies and large ones, building new systems, streamlining operations — generally getting stuff done at a brisk clip, day after day. That experience has taught me that what differentiates me is my discipline in daily engineering work and my due diligence in handling new information, whether it’s a vendor reporting a new problem, a customer discovering a design flaw, or another engineer mentioning a new solution. Without that discipline and due diligence, the technical operation is just one big chaotic, confusing mess. I bend that mess towards order and understanding.
About my resume … You can find a PDF of it here, but please recognize that you’ll find more complete information on this website.
What you won’t find in this site are terms like “self starter” and “quick learner”. I have learned that everyone says that, whether it’s actually true or not. Another thing you might note about this site is that I don’t really feature the actual technologies that I’m experienced in (specific hardware, software, etc.). After 20+ years as an engineer, I’ve come to the realization that what differentiates me as an engineer is how well I can absorb new information, digest it and truly understand it, communicate about problems — and generally become part of the solution, not part of the problem.
I should say that I’m not interested in business development roles, nor even management roles (with headcount), rather an engineering role as key part of a small team. An example of a good fit would be where you, a team leader, need a “right hand man” to carry a plan through to completion, but you need someone who’s already conversant in energy technologies and has demonstrated skills in technology execution. I’m really looking forward to getting deployed into a new organization and quickly demonstrating my skills and the value I can provide.
You will find that I have fantastic references.
In anticipation of this transition, in 2017 I spent some time thinking about what my skills are. Beyond specific technologies, I thought a lot about the intangibles, about what truly differentiates engineers and their productivity. Following some further refinement in 2018, this website is now the result of that period of introspection.
I was head-down in my most recent job from 2002 until 2018, and was completely off the job market. In 2018 I took a sabbatical to tackle some long-delayed personal projects and to do a proper reset from the old career to the new career. I have now popped back up and am looking for a new challenge. I do rely on my network of contacts (you, reading this) to tip me off to opportunities, that I can then target.
If you are working in this sector, in the Atlanta area, and have a need for a very good engineer to join your team, or know of a need elsewhere, please do reach out to me. Even if you just know of a local company in this sector that’s expanding, let me know. I’m particularly willing to take on some risk, e.g. the kind of risk inherent in working for a startup or small, rapidly growing company.
Thanks!
Chris C., January 2019