National Engineers Week is observed Feb. 18-24 this year – a time for us to celebrate Liberty’s dedicated team of engineering professionals who help ensure our infrastructure is designed to meet all safety standards and deliver safe and reliable service to our customers.
For some of our engineers, a passion for the field began to blossom at a young age.
Zach Harrison, Liberty Engineer II in Jackson, Missouri, says there wasn’t a single instance that made him consider the career path, but more a yearslong honing of the skills that led him in that direction.
“(Engineering) was a possibility that was repeatedly raised by my dad starting when I was 12 years old and continued through high school,” says Harrison. “I was good at math and science in high school, so I continued studying them in college.”
For others, however, a lightbulb clicked when they began taking things apart to see how they worked.
“When I was a teenager, I found myself taking all of my mom’s broken appliances to try fixing them,” says Alex McChristian, Liberty Engineering-Substation Manager in Joplin, Missouri.
“I realized that not everyone has a natural desire to identify and solve technical problems. When I was in middle school, I asked my grandpa to teach me how to solder so that I could open up old cell phones and chargers and try to repair them.”
Aaron Russell, Liberty Engineering-Design Manager, Joplin, says a key moment in his interest in engineering came when a VCR ate a copy of the movie “The Fifth Element.”
“I sat my 11-year-old self down and carefully and methodically disassembled my VCR to assess the extent of the issue,” says Russell. “To this day, I have no idea what I did to correct the situation … but it gave me the confidence to believe in myself and ignite my passion for engineering.”
And then there’s Tom Rosetti, Liberty Engineer IV in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, whose curiosity led him to literally scale to new heights.
“When I was around 14 years old, I was lying on the bed one afternoon when it occurred to me that the space between the floor and ceiling in the bedroom was more than the space between the floor and ceiling in my closet,” he says. “Having little to no impulse control, I got a steak knife from the kitchen and commenced cutting away the closet ceiling. Lo and behold, there was a space up there and it was large enough for me to crawl into. I had my very own secret hideaway. I would crawl up into it and gloat about how clever I was and dream of all the treasure I would hide there.
“Then, one day, my dad got home early from work. For some reason he did not share the same appreciation for my spatial-reasoning skills or my adventurous nature. He gave me the ‘I’m so disappointed in you’ speech … and made me fix the closet.”
Thank you to all our Liberty engineers - in the Central Region and across the enterprise - for dedicating your careers to help ensure that Liberty provides our customers with energy and water for life. We couldn’t do it without you!