Jennifer Stockburger is not your everyday automotive engineer. For one
thing, she doesn't work for an auto manufacturer. Rather, she works for
Consumer Reports as an automotive test engineer, testing vehicles and tires.
Stockburger races around curves, slams on the brakes and dodges obstacles.
She drives on icy, rough and wet surfaces. She judges things like comfort,
handling and reliability. Her assessments help readers buy the best products
for their money.
What also sets Stockburger apart is how she got into automotive engineering.
"I guess I'm not typical," she says.
"I was not the engineer that took the toaster apart just for the pleasure
of taking it apart. I was always particularly organized, wanted things orderly
and wanted to know how things worked. But I didn't sit and take things
apart."
Nor was it a passion for shiny, fast cars that drew her to this career.
"It wasn't a love of cars that led me to engineering," she says. "It
was engineering that led me to cars."
Stockburger has a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. Her
first job out of university was evaluating tires for a tire manufacturer.
She credits guidance counselors for encouraging her to study engineering.
"They said, 'Hey, you really have a science and a math potential, but
you also do this right-brain stuff fairly well too -- have you ever thought
of a career in engineering?'"
Robert Gaspar is someone who did take things apart when he was a kid. He's
head of the mechanical, automotive and materials engineering department at
a university.
"I teach courses in machine design and brakes and clutches and things like
that, and I had a student come up to me and say, 'How do you know that
the brake is done that way?'" Gaspar recalls. "And I said, 'Because
when I was 12 years old, I took a car apart.'"
Chris Trangsrud's fascination with cars also started early. He has
a degree in mechanical engineering and is working towards a master's.
He hopes to specialize in motorsport engineering.
"My interest in cars has been growing ever since high school, but I have
always had an interest in how things work," Trangsrud says. "I used to always
take apart old appliances that my parents had, and I loved building things
with Lego. This is why I never really had a doubt that I wanted to go into
engineering."
When Trangsrud was 20, he worked as a test driver. He fondly remembers
the experience.
"Probably the best part of working out there was seeing cars that I will
probably never see anywhere else, let alone get to drive them," Trangsrud
says. "I was able to see cars that wouldn't be in the dealerships for
at least another year, or that would never be sold in the U.S.
"Also, I really enjoyed the training that they provided. They made sure
that everyone was a safe driver and could respond to dangerous situations
correctly. I was trained on asphalt as well as dirt roads and was even given
some high-speed training [speeds up to 100 mph]."
Dave Mitchell is with the Society of Automotive Engineers. He says stereotypes
about engineers and a general lack of awareness of what they do keep
some people away from the field.
"What scares students away is the idea they have that all engineering students
are a bunch of geeks that go out to the lab and play with their computers
and that kind of thing," Mitchell says. "But if you think about the people
who like to do hands-on kinds of things, but aren't brilliant in the
sciences, that's what engineers are."
Mitchell explains the difference between scientists and engineers this
way: "Scientists are the people who are out there doing the new research,
looking at the undiscovered. Engineers are applying the discovered in neat
and sophisticated ways."
Mitchell gives an example from when he was growing up of how engineers
solve problems. The guy behind the counter at the fast-food restaurant would
always have a grease pencil behind his ear. If a drink wasn't a cola,
he marked on the cup lid what it was. Someone came up with the idea to put
small depressions on the lid that could be pushed to indicate what was in
the cup.
"The reason why that is such a neat idea of engineering is that the manufacturing
process didn't change at all [and] the amount of material didn't
change at all," Mitchell explains.
"But instead of having one function, that cup lid now had two functions.
And that to me is the elegance of pure engineering. The ability to look at
something and say, 'How can I build this with fewer parts, with less
material, to have the same piece do two things?'
"I'm taking the simple and making it better. And that's what
engineers are doing all the time."