Extreme Engineer of the Month

Profile: Alan Jacobson, Automotive Engineer, the  Ford Motor Company

Education:

• BS in Mechanical Engineering and minor in Electrical and Computer engineering, University of New Hampshire
• MS in Mechanical Engineering, Virginia Tech

Favorite Classes: Design Engineering Classes his freshman and junior years

Best Skills: Problem solving. Sometimes those are technical problems. Sometimes they are business problems. He most enjoys challenges that combine both and has become good at those.

Hobbies: Firefighting, emergency medical services and soccer. Alan works a couple of shifts as a firefighter and EMT to stay current. Believe it or not, from some of the things he saw in car accidents, he was able to develop new, patented designs to help make cars safer. Alan also plays soccer every week on a recreational team with other Ford engineers.

Role Models: "When I go out and meet with middle and high school students, they frequently become my role model when I go back to work," Alan says. "They're not afraid to ask the right questions, and they're excited about what they're doing."

Advice: It's OK if you're not sure what you want to do, but do a lot of exploring. If you can't do that within your coursework, do it outside of your classes-whether it's through volunteering or jobs. That exploration set me on the path I'm on, and I'm really happy where I ended up. Even if you think you know what you want to do, keep exploring and doing lots of things.

Alan's first real exposure to engineering was a science fair project he worked on in high school. He liked the challenge of building something, solving a problem he didn't know the answer to, and doing it on his own. Like most middle school and high school students, however, he didn't really understand what engineers do in the real world. Even throughout college he questioned whether he wanted to become an engineer. "The courses you take in college aren't anywhere near what real engineering is like," he says. What kept Alan interested were the extracurricular, hands-on activities that he did that exposed him to what real-world engineers do.

A Balancing Act—Mechanical Engineering, Division 1 Soccer, Working, and Fraternity Life
"If you're not doing something and wonder if you have time to do it, you might say 'Boy I don't think I have time to add anything extra,'" Alan says. But in addition to majoring in engineering, Alan started playing soccer as a freshman. He was used to balancing both, and soccer was fun. But that's not all he did. He also had a job and helped start a fraternity.

The TA was a Freshman
At UNH, freshmen take a design engineering course their first semester so they can start to design things and experience what engineering will be like. Alan enjoyed the course so much he was invited to be a teaching assistant (TA) the following semester. Following that, the professor asked him to join a research project on computer-controlled numeric machining for the Ford Motor Company. The project involved seeing a design on the computer screen, putting a block of material into a machine and programming the machine to automatically cut the shape out of a block. One of the things he worked on was the hull design for the America3 team, which won the America's Cup. The research team built scaled models of various hull designs to be tested in water and wind tunnels.

Engineering, Med School, Law, Business…. How to Choose?
Even though Alan knew he'd like engineering, he still hadn't ruled out other fields. Upon graduating from UNH, he took the graduate aptitude tests for law, medicine and business. Because he couldn't decide what he wanted to do, he accepted a fellowship from IBM to pursue a MS in Mechanical Engineering at Virginia Tech. The fellowship focused on computer-aided design and engineering. Most of his research was aircraft design focused. Here in addition to research and other course work, he took the required pre-med courses and became an emergency medical technician to see if medicine was something he wanted to pursue. In the end, he figured he should try engineering before trying something else. He was offered jobs by both IBM and Ford, and accepted the position with Ford.

Owning Part of a Car
In his early positions with Ford, Alan was responsible for designing various pieces of a vehicle. "That is one of the most rewarding jobs," he said. "Because when you're done, you can go almost anywhere in the world and when someone asks you what you do, you can pause for just a second and one of those products will drive right in front of you. And you can point and say 'See that part right there. I designed that.' That's the neat thing about the automotive industry," he says. "It's such an important part of everyone's life."

Launching a New Product
In another position with Ford, Alan was responsible for launching a new product. When a product is built for the first time, the assembly plant workers have to be taught how to build the vehicle. "It's also the first time all the parts come together, so invariably there are some changes that need to be made," he says. With the pressure of a new launch, he had to solve problems very quickly, and he had a huge team of resources to draw on. Suppliers flew in from around the world and workers on the line wanted to help. He says that team aspect of everyone working together under huge pressure and tight deadlines was one of the most exciting things he's done in his career.

Prototype and Testing
Alan is currently responsible for Ford's prototype and testing operations. After viewing new products on the computer screen, the next step is building the prototype and testing it. "That's fun because you build a product that doesn't exist yet," he says. Right now he's working on the future products that aren't yet on the road.

Alan's piece of the business is how to build prototypes quickly and at an affordable cost. He's also responsible for determining the testing needed to be sure the vehicle is ready to sell. To build prototypes, Alan's team uses everything from old fashioned technology, such as a hammer to bang metal into a required shape, to some of the most highly sought after rapid-prototyping technology in the world.

Ford's technology is so advanced, his team recently got a call from paleontologists in Montana who dug up the oldest dinosaur remains discovered to date and were afraid to move them. Ford's rapid prototyping team came to the rescue, using scanned data of the bones they built a coffin for it to sit in.

"This is a fun area to be in," Alan says. "Not only do you get to build really fun, cool cars—occasionally you get to drive them." One challenging part of the job, he says, is that you work on products that everyone wants to know about, but you can't talk about them.

Testing, Testing Testing is his second area of responsibility. The tests are wide and varied. There's everything from performance testing—getting in the vehicle and doing handling maneuvers, acceleration, and breaking-to environmental testing—spraying it with salt water and testing it in very hot and very cold climates. If timing doesn't line up with testing nicely, they will actually move testing to New Zealand, where the seasons are opposite the United States. They also do customer attribute testing: Is the ride nice and soft for you? How are the ergonomics? Is the seat comfortable? Other tests include technical issues such as durability and power-train calibration.

A Passion for the Product
Alan is passionate about Ford's products. He would like to see his career continue in product development so he can continue to "work on the metal." Throughout his career Alan's been on different ends of the process—from prototyping to new product launches. His job has taken him all over the United States and around the globe. His last job was managing the Ford F-150 truck and Ford Expedition. While he would like to remain in management, he also wants to stay in contact with technical issues. He enjoys the technical aspects of his job just as much as he does the management challenges and responsibilities.

Alan visited a Long House in Borneo during a business trip to Malaysia, where he relaxed with a tribe in the rain forest for a week.

Each year Alan goes back to UNH and gives a talk to the freshmen engineering majors. He tells them the course work can be difficult and frequently boring, but the practical application is really fun and exciting.