Everett Boeing Engineers Volunteer in Schools, Inspire and Encourage Students

February 15, 2012

Everett

Aaron Harrison in the Boeing Everett, WA plant where he works. (Peyton Whitely/Boeing photo)

This week volunteers from the Boeing company are fanning out at area middle and high schools to promote engineering and technical careers. In just the Everett School District alone there will be 39 presentations made by 69 volunteers at five different schools. One of the Boeing engineering volunteers is Aaron Harrison of Everett. Here’s his story as reported by Peyton Whitley of Boeing.

Seven billion people.

If you want something to think about, think about that.

Then become an engineer.

That’s the message behind an annual engineering event this year.

It’s advice that’s well worth considering, according to people like Aaron Harrison — who is an engineer with Boeing Commercial Airplanes.

Harrison works on the Boeing 747-8 in Everett, Wash. He’ll also be one of several hundred volunteers Boeing sends into schools throughout Puget Sound in association with National Engineers Week Feb. 19-25.

The theme of the week this year is based on a seven-billion-person world, a mark believed to have been hit in October.

“There are many challenges facing our world that require immediate engineering solutions,’’ is the way the week’s official sponsors, which include Boeing, sum up the theme.

Harrison has a little different — a little less formal — way of saying the same thing.

“You can make a difference in the world,’’ he said. “Everything you come in contact with has been engineered in one way or another. ’’

“You can develop something no one’s ever thought of before,’’ he said, grinning, because that’s what he likes to do.

Those seven billion people certainly could use some inventions like that, such as perhaps how to get a clean drink of water to the estimated 1.1 billion of them who don’t even have that often-taken-for-granted option.

“If you tend toward problem solving and creative thinking, engineering is for you,’’ he said.

That’s one thing Harrison likes about his work now.

“There’s always something different,’’ he said. “Seventy-five, 85 percent of the time, you’re handling a new issue every day.’’

Harrison came to such challenging work partly through a conversation with his parents in Spokane, Wash. before he went to college, when they mentioned engineering as a career.

Harrison said he’d like to have a similar effect on students during Engineers Week.

“The main drive is to introduce engineering to students in junior and senior high school,’’ he said. “It’s simply to expose them to what engineering is all about.’’

Harrison got a mechanical-engineering degree from Washington State University in 2005. He joined Boeing five years ago and lives in Everett with his wife and two children.

For four years, he designed actuation systems — which control the airplane’s moving surfaces such as the movement of wing panels during flight — and a year ago he moved to liaison engineering, making sure the planes are ready to “get out the door.’’

A remarkable thing about that, Harrison notes, is that 747s first were designed with pencils and paper in the 1960s, and yet still are constantly being redesigned and improved, only with computers.

“It’s getting things sorted out,’’ he said. “You still have to maintain the design. Even after years and years, things still come up.’’

Something Harrison says he finds most satisfying about his work is the long life of airplanes like the 747-8 – what he helps build will be around for generations.

“It’s something that supposed to last 30, 40 years,’’ he said. “It’s not like something that’s going to last a year or two.’’

Information about National Engineers Week can be found at www.eweek.org/

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