As far back as Geoff Chadwick can remember, he was always taking things apart and putting them back together. When things broke and he was told they couldn’t afford a replacement, he was always trying to see if he could understand how to fix it – if it was already broken, what harm was there in taking it apart further? That mindset naturally led him toward engineering, and electrical engineering seemed more interesting by the time Geoff was in high school and helping with sound and lighting for school musicals.
Geoff has an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from UB and a master’s degree in industrial engineering from UB as well. He is a Senior Controls Engineer at Encorus, trying to use his experience in the field with contractors to be an outwardly visible part of the team by calling on current and potential industrial clients.
Geoff’s biggest engineering influences include his boss during his first internship, who taught him that good engineers should be familiar with every discipline and should understand not only how to engineer something, but how that thing is built in the first place. He had Geoff spend 6 weeks working in their company machine shop to learn how things were made and how to use the equipment. His second biggest influence was one of his professors in college, who taught Geoff that a good engineer can almost always negotiate or design their way out of failure – the only question is whether it’s on schedule or on budget, and that negotiating is usually the better option.
