Beers with Engineers

#66 – Topher Anderson: Textiles are Everywhere Topher is short for Christopher: Textile Topher. FYI, Bert is short for Robert. Likes to drink Westvleteren 12, a Belgian beer. Warp and weft – warp is up and down and weft is weft and white Everything is interesting if you look at it close enough. Ropes are a type of textile. Old mills are very nice functionally and architecturally. Vast majority of...

#65 – Jay Patel: DFV – Design for Volatility CEO of Amtech – a family business started by his parents. Not a beer drinker – enjoys Arnold Palmers SMART goals - Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound For college chose computer science over engineering. Learned all about the electronics business. Amtech builds products that build the products that you know. Company podcast is Har...

#64 – Justin Finke: Astrophysics at the Improv Justin works for Naval Research Laboratory, so this is the first podcast with a disclaimer. “Ways and Means” and “Monumental” are beers from DC area breweries. Used a telescope as a kid Special relativity can be derived with high school math. “Atom” by Isaac Asimov – not sci-fi “A Brief History of Time” by Stephen Hawking FYI, grad school for chemistr...

#63 – Amy Barrickman: “Feng Shui? No way!” Amy studied interior design, acting, and a little improv comedy. Likes a beer brewed with raspberries called framboise. Amy thought it was German but the internet says it is Belgian. Who wants a Beers with Engineers recipe exchange? Interior designer versus interior decorator. Feng shui is still a thing, but Amy doesn’t like it. She was an actress before...

#62 – Jeff Kildow: Engineering Menaces Jeff is a retired aerospace engineer turned author. He writes alternate history novels. His latest is Nazi Menace. Get it at Amazon . As a 10-year old, sent a letter to the Northrup Institute of Technology, and got a reply. Jack Northrup handed him his diploma. GM and Northrup started universities to train employees. So did Arthur D Little Eventually went to...

#61 – Irene Chan: Planning NASA Space Flights Irene is a flight planning engineer at a NASA supplier who drinks stout. Teachers encouraged her to try a career in math. Fear of gangs in East LA was real. Spent a lot of time at libraries as a child Both Irene and Bert read the encyclopedia for fun. “Stand and Deliver” great movie and true story Initially she struggled with calculus and physics in co...

#60 – Elliot McAllister: Butterfly net for alien microbes Elliot McAllister, founder and CEO of Skyphos Technology in Blacksburg, Virginia, and winner of a Beers with Engineers T-shirt giveaway for being the 1,001st connection. We discuss hands on tinkering and cycling the Iditarod Trail. Engineering wise, we discuss materials science and microfluidics. Sorry, but you’ll have to listen to find out...

#59  – Brogan Miller: Being Uncomfortable is Good Brogan Miller is the founder of Doula Studios where he bills himself, accurately I might add, as a doula for early stage hardware start-ups. We cover many topics, including our favorite beverage while camping and why manufacturing is more difficult than design. Brogan is a Gaelic name A brogue accent is mostly Irish but also in parts of Scotland Br...

#58 – Wyatt Bonicelli: Birds – Natural and Manmade Wyatt is a structural engineer for Boeing in Oklahoma, helping maintain the KC-135 fleet. Unsurprisingly, he enjoys military aircraft, and we later learn of an affinity for more natural birds. Throw in a couple SEO companies that he operates and we had a lot of interesting things to talk about. Be sure to check out the SR-71 speed check story , wh...

#57 – Dave Cooper: Navigating from student to engineer   Dave Cooper went from barely graduating high school to teaching university engineering students. In between, he was a navigator for the Marines and worked on refrigeration systems for NASA. We also learn that Dave and Bert share an affection for animated cubic sponges with a palindromic name. He hopes to soon form a father/son engineering te...

#56 – Doug Katz and Gordon Downey: The Tony Stark of Adaptive Products Merchandise - www.beerswithengineers.shop   Nulu Knives: https://nuluknives.com/   BWENULU2026 to save on a Nulu knife Doug Katz – wouldn’t name children Alley or Tom Gordon Downey considered April Fresh and Summer Breeze for his twins Doug went to West Point Gordon is an industrial designer but started studying advertising Was...

#55 – Howard Silverstein: Sometimes it just Clix Merchandise - www.beerswithengineers.shop   Likes to drink a black and tan Tonight, opening a bottle of 18 year old Macallan Has a mechanical mind but is not handy with tools. Likes to keep it simple. “Yes if…” not “No because…” The business card holder he worked on . They invented “Clix” to fill boats with gas without spilling. It’s more than just...

#54 – Naeem Turner-Bandele: His plan is electrifying Merchandise - www.beerswithengineers.shop   Likes to drink Ginjinha, a Portuguese cherry liqueur Wanted to be a professional soccer player. Moved to Brazil and discovered power outages were frequent. Then he got a serious concussion and pivoted to wanting to start an energy technology company. From no interest in engineering to getting a PhD. He...

#B5 – Josh Weaver: Engineers/Christmas Josh is Bert’s nephew for this Christmas themed podcast Josh is drinking a Bell’s Lighthearted IPA. Bert is enjoying a Bailey’s Irish Cream. One semester as a computer science major. A few years as a commercial painter but did not see it as a long term thing. Started working for his step-father’s manufacturing company. Forgive the dog sneaky toy in the backgr...

#53 – Stan Leong: Engineering Your Finances Merchandise - www.beerswithengineers.shop   Stan is a Buffalo Bills fan, like Bert. Electrical engineer from Cornell Likes how the simple things of electronics build into complex things. Was laid off the week after he bought his first house. Saw a financial job on Monster.com (remember that?) Got all his clients through cold calling So miserable his wife...

#52 – Therese Miclot: The Engineer Whisperer Merchandise - www.beerswithengineers.shop   Drinking a Spotted Cow, available only in Wisconsin. Observed her mom who struggled with bad bosses. Got intrigued by the psychology of work. First job at a heavy engineering company – Rockwell Found leadership and communication skills lacking in engineers. But both are important even if you don’t want to go i...

Show Notes #51 – James Kell: Seven continents without trying James lives on the beach in Bondi, Australia He could be a wedding crasher without making up occupations Likes to do fasting 36 – 72 hours Studied engineering in Germany but went into construction He eats Vegemite and teaches the secret of eating it. Australians also check to see if water swirls the other direction in the toilet when cro...

Bonus Episode #4: Year 2 Jokes Merchandise - www.beerswithengineers.shop   In this bonus episode all of the jokes from the second year of the podcast are compiled in one place. I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as I enjoyed putting it together.   Enjoy! Bert's company - www.dexterityeng.com   Hat tip to Joseph McDade for free use of his music "Mirrors".

#50 – Charles Gillis, P.E.: Engineering and art Merchandise - www.beerswithengineers.shop   Drinking a Start Line IPA in honor of his hometown, Hopkinton, where the Boston Marathon starts. His mom knew he would be an engineer long before he did. Has an interest in art, but isn’t an artist Artist and engineers both combine existing things in new and interesting ways. Worked controllable pitch prope...

#49 – Scott Bruneau: A traditional non-traditional engineer Merchandise - www.beerswithengineers.shop    an engineer is somebody who makes precise guesswork based on unreliable data provided by people with questionable knowledge. Studied nuclear engineering in high school. Yes, high school. Buuuut, got his engineering degree late in life. An early position was in quality – to get to know the parts...

#48– Bob Bouthillier: Innovation Requires Disobedience Merchandise - www.beerswithengineers.shop   Like father, like son. His father was an electrical engineer. But started college as a pharmacist Did quality inspection of guns – including a Howizter cannon. He can assemble guns fast – not quite as fast as Forrest Gump. Inspecting ball bearings – stains vs pits. His podcast summarizes books on inn...

#47 – Jordan Poots: He’s good at maths. Beers with Engineers merchandise - www.beerswithengineers.shop Mechanical engineer from Northern Ireland Who quickly went into software. Maths or math? Well, it is mathematicS. UK still has a mix of English and metric He was into AI before it was cool. Studied vehicle on-ramp merging Can change the car from altruistic to individualistic behavior Still intere...

#46 – Noel LaFlamme: Hammer and Forge Metallurgist Beers with Engineers merchandise - www.beerswithengineers.shop Always interested in how things work and making it better. Which led to blacksmithing - by way of archery Made arrowheads out of rebar. Which (of course) led to a sword. Rules of thumb for temperature of steel. Blacksmithing is a hobby that makes a few bucks. Specialty is chef’s knives...

#45 – Dan Schreiber: Beer Flavored Ice Cream Beers with Engineers merchandise - www.beerswithengineers.shop Dan is an architect in Green Bay but had always wanted to be a farmer. Stroh’s was the local macro-brewery when Dan and Bert went to college. They made ice cream, then and still do today. Do corn farmers put feed corn around the perimeter of their field? Bert and Dan rode a mechanical bull i...

#44 – Caitlin Vaillincourt: How to avoid braking chip. The edible ones. Beers with Engineers merchandise - www.beerswithengineers.shop Pros and cons of longer or shorter college terms Played basketball in college and traveled abroad Part of global leadership development program at Avery Dennison and loved the experience. Interned at Frito-Lay reducing potato chip breakage. For now, she is happy wi...