The end of 2025 marked a special milestone for me – it was my tenth year of working at Hill Engineering! A lot has happened since then, so I’d like to share a little bit with you about how I got here.
My story begins in 2014 while pursuing a double major in Aerospace Science and Engineering and Mechanical Engineering at UC Davis. A summer internship was something I knew I wanted to do, so I decided to apply for positions through the university’s Internship and Career Center. Enter: Hill Engineering. An interview later, I’m at our Prospect Park office location to begin my summer.
My internship experience was rather unique as I had the opportunity to dip my feet in different areas of the company. The things I got to work on ranged from a design project to supporting our engineering services group with fatigue surface microscopy to learning different residual stress measurement techniques in the laboratory, I was able to really figure out the type of work I enjoyed doing.
That summer went by quickly and school started up again. I was gearing up for my final year of my undergraduate studies, which included my senior design team project of designing an all-electric general aviation vehicle as part of NASA’s ARMD U.S. University Design Challenge. Despite the school workload and my on-campus job, I was able to stay on at Hill Engineering, mainly supporting the laboratory’s contour method measurements with equipment we used on campus. It was also during this time that I was fortunate enough to be offered a full-time position after my graduation in December 2015. And so, we’ve come full circle.
Since then, I have gone from working in the laboratory, performing various residual stress measurements to contour method data analysis for the many measurements we do each year.
In 2018, I took on the role of Quality Manager with the main duty of maintaining our laboratory’s ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation. I work with management to ensure that our policies and procedures reflect our practices and that the results we provide for customers are of the highest quality.
Other hats I wear include involvement in our social events committee, digital marketing team, and more recently, radiation safety to support our X-ray diffraction measurements.
I’ve truly enjoyed these past ten years and am thankful that Hill Engineering took a chance on undergraduate me. I have learned so much from the people here, and I’m sure I will continue to learn more as the years go on.
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