My Graduate School Admissions Essay

My father is a professional musician. To this day, one of my favorite things to do is watch him play. I don't know how many of his gigs I've been to over the years, but it's easily in the hundreds. As much as I love the experience of live music performances, I am drawn to identify myself less as a member of the audience, and more with the creators of the music. True musicians can meet each other for the first time on a stage and make music like they've been playing together for years. The pure innovation and creativity that goes into a live performance is energizing, and I've always thought it would be a thrill to be able to pick up an instrument and just start jamming. I never learned to play a musical instrument, but I did inherit a passion for the creativity and innovation I see on stage.

I love technology, I always have. As a kid I was a tinkerer, a passion I inherited from my grandfather. He is a product of the Great Depression and a father of six, so tinkering was his way of giving things a second life and figuring out what made them tick at the same time. I used the same approach with my first computer and it became my muscle car. I bought it in high school and, before long, nearly every component inside had been removed, upgraded, or replaced. Our family was always on a tight budget, so I had to manage my upgrades carefully with money I earned from providing rudimentary computer services to neighbors and family members. My passion for tinkering and technology was clear, but it would be six years of college, a change of major, two internships and a lot of part time jobs before I would match that passion to the right instrument: Industrial Engineering.

Ironically, it was the mastery of another instrument that would ultimately lead me to Industrial Engineering. In 1999 I interned with a biomedical company performing "Y2K" testing in hospitals nationwide. The opportunity to travel the country was so exciting for me that I decided to write about it and share the experience with family and friends via email while "on the road". I discovered a talent for telling stories in a way that kept readers engaged and entertained. The following year, I orchestrated the "Year 2000 Road Trip Extravaganza", a 6,000 mile cross-country road trip that took me and a college buddy through 25 states in 24 days. Our goal was to hit the road with all the mobile technology we could get our hands on and document the experience "from the road" using that technology. The trip provided me a perfect stage to share my passions and connect with people. For an Industrial Engineer, being able to connect with people is like a musician knowing how to read music.

My professional work as an Industrial Engineer has been mostly with The Boeing Company and predominantly dealt with the maintenance, modification, and upgrade of military aircraft. In my nearly six years with the company, I have traveled to numerous sites domestically and abroad, in each place gaining perspective on how people work while supporting their journey to improve processes through "lean" manufacturing. The specific programs and geographic locations change, but my fundamental job remains the same: work with people and their processes to systematically reduce waste.

Lately I’ve been giving a lot of thought to technology and innovation. While many of the end products & services produced by The Boeing Company are truly on the cutting edge of science, technology, and industry, much of the technology involved in creating and supporting those products and services is not. When it comes to placing new technology in the hands of employees, large organizations--especially those dealing with sensitive information--tend to be sluggish to respond and overly protective. I believe that technology should be treated as a tool, not a threat. I believe it is an investment in a means to an end, not just another overhead cost. I believe there is tremendous opportunity for companies of all sizes to manage technology more effectively.

Once again I find myself in the audience. I know my passions and I want to jump on stage, grab the right instrument, and start to play. The Management of Technology degree seems to me the next “right instrument”. Learning how to stimulate technological innovation and creativity in an organization will transform me from the guy in the audience tapping his leg to the guy that can jump on stage and jam with the band. After years of sitting in the audience, I am ready to jam.