So what is everyone's educational background, and what is your current occupation?

[NetNathan]

Some of the biggest gains in my education has come from people that are using the equipment or information.
Input from operators is very valuable.
What would you like to see...
What would make this easier for you...
How do you see this working...

Just a thought on education.

So True....listen to the operator and dress out the HMI for management.
Pay attention to how the equipment operates and is operated.



I stared at GE Nuclear in Memphis. It was merger between Chicago Bridge and Iron Works and GE
They built nuclear reactors for GE.

I started as a mechanic rebuild grinders.
They approached me to learn electricity. The night shift foreman had taught electronics and electricity in the Army.
For the next year I spent 1/2 day in class and 1/2 day working with an experienced electrician. We built test stands to test electronic boards used in equipment.
I went through several training courses there and achieved my Industrial Electricians license (1974).
From there.... I am an avid reader and am mostly self taught. I learned PLCs and Wonderware on my own.

 

[dwoodlock]

OSB manufacturer as a process tech. Decided I wanted to learn to program, so I got a job at my current employer who offered to pay for my schooling. I worked as a Maintenance Technician while I Got an associates degree in Industrial Maintenance Technology.

Pairing the work with the education nearly simultaneously, was a huge benefit to my learning process.There were times where Id learn something at school that day and use it at work that night.

I now focus on more project oriented tasks, but also manage the maintenance dept. Maintenance isn't something I desire to be involved in, however it fills a need that the company has.

May try and work my way out of manufacturing, as I don't always find it interesting, a lot of times the redundancy is taxing.

 

[BlueAltezza]

No degree or certificates here.

While servicing packaging equipment I had to learn some basic PLC and HMI stuff so I could be the eyes/ears in the field for the controls guy at the office. It all just clicked for me and our PLC based machinery took off, so a few years later I now majority of electrical designs, programming, panel layouts, and future development.

+1 for this site and listening to the people that use the equipment! That's given me a huge advantage when I do my job because I've been on the floor with the folks who press the buttons and have to keep the machines running. This site not only helps with what I do, but is great for reading about other technologies and components that are out there.

 

[Gomez_]

Started at a 4 year for computer engineering, but decided that wasn't for me.
Got associates degrees in Mechatronics and Computer Science.

Worked as a technician for a chip MFG, then as maintenance in a bottling plant. The plant treated me well and i got some additional PLC training paid for by them.

After getting tired of being in a plant all the time, I found a panel building job at an OEM. After a year they moved me into engineering, and I've loved it ever since.

 

[RickParrot]

25 years in industrial. 3 years as maintenance mechanic. Then a NJATC electrical apprenticeship. State licensed master electrician in Wisconsin and Iowa. Certification in PLCs from George Brown University(Canada). Working as Controls Engineer now. Have about 60 credits towards AA, but haven't rolled them together.

 

[Toine]

Worked for some 20 years in the financial services industry, big corporate environment. From a salary point of view it was nice. In other respects I found it less rewarding after some time. Being over-specialized, it was initially hard to find a different direction. I started looking into industrial automation only to find it would not be easy at my age to get started with neither training nor experience. I have always had a strong technical interest from early childhood, discovered a possibility to do mechanical engineering school in part time. After less than a year in school I accidentally bumped into a job in a small family owned engineering company. I am still in school once a week for my engineering degree, rest of the week I now do engineering work, plc and pc programming.

My salary has gone down quite steeply. Job satisfaction rose more than enough to compensate.

 

[rootboy]

1.2 GPA in high school. I was aiming for a 1.0, but messed up and got too good of a grade in electronics. I had fixed my first tube radio at the ripe age of 8, so I suppose I somewhat had a knack for it.

Went into the Colorado electricians apprenticeship the week I graduated high school in '75. It's what I had wanted to do since I was 13, and my 4 year apprenticeship was the best 7 years of my life...

Topped out in '82 with a 91% on the test. Took my Masters test a year or so later and got the lowest possible passing score (76%). I hadn't studied for either test, so just passing either one was a surprise.

Ended up at the Goodyear plant in Lincoln, NE as a construction electrician starting up robots. The Goodyear guys took a shine to me and asked if I had ever worked with PLCs. "Sure, I said. What's a PLC?"

They laughed and sent me off to work on the Berstorff extruder/calender. Where I couldn't contain myself one night and fixed a bug in the PLC that the engineers had been meaning to fix for months (each time the calender line would stop, the operators would have five minutes to get it restarted before having to clean out 500 pounds of hot smoking rubber - they cleaned it out a lot). I wasn't supposed to touch the program, but these guys were in their '50's and they didn't need to be working that hard for nothing.

So I fixed the problem in the PLC, and went home thinking that it would be no big deal. Wrong. When the machine messed up and the operators didn't have to clean it out, they were over the moon. Now they were looking for someone to thank for finally getting this fixed.

Eventually I was asked if I had done it, and I said "Yes, how do you like it?" (they had just got done trying to thank the two engineers for it). The old engineer wanted to fire me, and I'm sure that if he had his way, I would have been (he once told me that I would be all right if I weren't just an electrician). But a young engineer was running the show, and he said that I could do it until "I messed up".

This was on a Series Six PLC. I left Lincoln, and by chance hooked up with Kasa Industrial Controls, who were looking for a S6 programmer for the upcoming Saturn plant.

Eventually I hired on with at first Saturn, and then got "grandfathered in" with GM, whom I worked for on and off for 18 years before retiring in 2015.

Now I train new engineers for a robotics company (and work on the robots as well).

Still fixing tube radios upon occasion...

 

[just the cowboy]

Started in the good old days.

I took basic electrical classes in 8th and 9th grade.
I then went to Vo-Tec for industrial machine control repair.
After high school I served an apprenticeship in Industrial electrical/electronics machine control repair.
I was lucky I was one of the in between guys, we still had tube drives for DC motors up to CNC machines that I repaired as well as relay logic controls. I also learned to do the installs.
Went to many repair schools for CNC controls.
Became a project manager of ten electricians and self-taught myself PLC HMI and ACAD.
Started my own business in machine upgrade and retrofit.
Had midlife crises and became a cowboy and bought a ranch with 50 horses, bottom fell out in 2010.
Now work as a plant electrician doing everything, it is great as I get older, vacation, sick, holidays and steady check

 

[jvdcande]

Started out with a high school degree in electricity and electronics back in 1980. Got involved in industrial automation right away: I had to convert the control systems for capacitor winding machines, first from DTL to TTL and then from TTL to PLC. Only did the wiring at the beginning but it got me interested and my team leader saw some possibilities. He urged me to do some training, so I took two 3-year skimmed-down (only math and technology) bachelor trainings on Saturdays, one in electronics and one in industrial information technology. I ended up designing machines and construction/wiring/programming the prototypes.

Since then it never stopped: when I was asked to file all my degrees and certificates for our ISO9001 file, I had to enter 50+ pages. I took whatever I saw as usable: manufacturers crash courses, vocational training, webcourses and of course a lot of reading.

Have been a vocational trainer for 23 years now, first 16 years in PLC and visualization, last 7+ years in the maritime field as trainer for maritime engineers and electricians. As I have been involved in getting people into a job, I've found that a degree is nowadays (at least over here in Europe) almost nothing more than an entry ticket into business, but how you perform and what experience you gather is decisive in where you end up.

 

[BobB]

Started an apprenticeship as an electrical fitter in 1959. Wound motors, built switchboards, thrown out on my first service call 1 month after starting with no idea - rang the boss, worked through the control problem on a machine.

Suddenly they found I had a bent for control - second year apprentice I finished up doing control circuit design - went to a job I designed - told the foreman what I wanted done - got back to the office - all hell had broken loose! Second year apprentice telling a foreman what to do? Oh dear!

Third year apprentice started designing HV transformers - pad mounts and hangers - designing to specified copper and steel loss figures - learned a lot of maths all on a slide rule - drawings - ordering - managing construction.

During my apprenticeship I also did a lot of service work, installation work, wound a lot of very fancy motors.

Then went into sales and management - obtained business management and marketing management degrees. Ran some divisions of very large multi national companies over those years - got sick of the **** fights and went back to sales - found it very hard to get a sales job as I was 'over qualified'!

During those latter days of sales I had to learn about PLCs as I had to sell them. Started self teaching with an Omron step controller on a bench. Then Hitachi D series black boxes and then Hitachi J series - the first with software - all the others were keypads on the front of the PLC or on an umbilical cord. Burning EPROMS - even had to have an interface to a printer to print the program out - no comments of course.
The company then took on Omron and all changed. Some decent DOS software - CAPS - it was the best PLC software around.

Started moonlighting and writing software nights and weekends for some of my clients.

Then another sales job with no PLCs.

A customer tapped me on the shoulder and said come work for me as my engineering manager - had to take it on.

That was 1993 - have been designing, programming and commissioning systems ever since.

2003 the company went broke and I started out on my own doing the same thing but also designing and building my own power and control panels myself. I was 59 then. Best thing I ever did.

Self taught on Hitachi, Omron, Mitsubishi, Siemens, Alan Bradley, Square D, Schneider, April (swallowed up by Schneider), Modicon and a few others. Also self taught on Citect, FIX32, Wonderware, Wizcon.

No formal engineering qualifications but love taking the mickey out of engineers because they do not have a clue most of the time.

No formal qualifications on PLC software either but I did spend a few years at night teaching PLC programming at technical college - the students with very few exceptions were extremely 'thick'!!! Got frustrated and gave that away - could never be a teacher - I would ring some buggers neck!

A large company approached me a few years back with a view to me setting up and running an automation division for them. Went for an interview and finished up with HR! Told them I was there for an interview with the chief engineer and managing director and was promptly informed 'you have to be interviewed here first'. 5 minutes in I told them I was not going to waste my time with 'hopeless retards' and walked out the door never to return. Great feeling.

73 now - still doing all my own work including panels - loving it - would be very bored if I had to retire. Best thing is only 1 boss - she who must be obeyed.

You learn a hell of a lot over the years if you want to learn and you are given the opportunity. I find it very funny when I go to a controls/engineering meeting and turn up in 'daggies'. The all the posturing and the like starts - they do not know where I have been - i hear all the management and keeping ones arse covered **** going on all the time - they disregard me as they think I am just a dill. Big mistake - when the time is right I cut in and tell them do do not have a clue and do not know what they are talking about - I will do it my way and it will work! Oh so funny.

I have also had people approach me to go and work for them over the years - some very large - and because I have a degree in nothing in the industry I get kicked out the door. i would like to count up the number of times a company has approached me to fix up the mess - at an appropriate hourly rate - that the geniuses have created. It appears that no piece of paper no job is the go with most companies these days - experience counts for very little until they want you to fix it. Quite funny.

 

[BobB]

I should add I am not having a go at people with pieces of paper writing software - some are very good. The main issue is that many of them do not have a feel for machinery - timing - how the thing works. That is a huge issue.

 

[Peter Nachtwey]

BobB, having "The Knack" and a degree from the "University of Hard Knocks" is great.

I got my BS degree in EE and CE ( computer engineering ). I haven't really done any electrical engineering.
I survive nuclear power school and became a reactor controls division officer on a fast attack nuclear submarine. We had to know how all the systems worked on board. I always feel comfortable in a plant because of the machine experience. I seem to have an intuitive feel for things.
When I got out of the navy I was suppose to manage small projects but they found out I could program so I was made software manager. I have been doing mostly software since.

I am basically self taught in that field relying only on the physics, math a numerical analysis course I took in college. The navy helped with the understanding machinery part.

In 1985 I joined Delta Computer Systems. In 1987 I became an owner. In 1992 I became president but I still did mostly control algorithms, software, application support and marketing/sales. My partner actually runs the company, I just like to geek out.

I still go out in the field from time to time but that is rare now. Most of my travel now is for marketing/sales. Sometimes I give presentations. Some times I am invited to universities to talk about motion control.

 

[Tharon]

I should add I am not having a go at people with pieces of paper writing software

It's hard to believe that when you qualify it by saying "pieces of paper". It's not the paper that is important, but the potential it represents. Obviously my 12 years experience is worth more now than the B.S. that got me here. But that B.S. was more than just a piece of paper when I had zero experience.

I am basically self taught in that field relying only on the physics, math a numerical analysis course I took in college. The navy helped with the understanding machinery part.

Would you think you'd be as knowledgeable in your field if you hadn't had that physics and mathematics foundation taught to you? And I don't mean that as a rude comment. I'm just wondering if you think that foundation can be learned on the job.

Personally, without my college education, I don't think I would have been interested in what I do currently. It built that foundation and not just opened the doors, but showed me where those doors were. I'm not just saying a traditional 2 or 4 year education though. Any sort of post-secondary school training or education.

 

[Robobob]

"The Knack" and a degree from the "University of Hard Knocks" Describes me perfectly. I graduated high school with a Machine Trades diploma. That got me a job at a small machine builder. Later I started working for a large machine builder with clients all over the word. Spent many years as a service tech and engineer where I learned to program PLC and HMI.I am now the Senior Controls Engineer at an nice small family run shop.

 

[ndzied1]

I got a BS in Mechanical Engineering and started my career at one of the companies I co-oped at doing mechanical design for transit door operator systems.

However, I have always had an interest in computers. Our high school had a programming class in BASIC on a computer much like the one in the movie War Games. I had a TI-99/4A at home that I messed with (also BASIC language). In college I took an assembler class for "fun" and it was on the IBM System/370 . I think just a little newer than icky812 experience...

I started off with Mainframe programming on the IBM System 36 before I left high school. (Yes, I am that old...)

I also worked in the computer center at university answering student questions and working on small projects for professors.

Anyway the most I ever leaned in a single day was at my first engineering job the first time I designed something and was called out to the floor where the assembler there asked me to show him how to put it together. Luckily I was humble enough to listen to his comments and suggestions and did some re-design that made this assembly much easier to put together.

I left that company after I listened to a salesman lie to a customer's face.

Then I went to a small Machine Tool Builder again to do mechanical design and there started getting into solid modeling. That lasted for 11 years until the machine tool market tanked but during that time I went at night to get my master's degree in mechanical engineering. It was also there that I got started in PLC and HMI programming. The owner/electrical engineer was very old school and truly afraid of computers. He got by hand drawing logic and having someone else enter it into AB SLC/150's with a hand held programmer for a while. Eventually we started making system that required more power than a SLC/150 and we moved into SLC500's and APS software. This started, again, with him writing out logic on paper and now me typing it in. Eventually I picked up on what was going on and began making changes. Then I started writing the programs from scratch (I mean ladder is really visual assembly language anyway )

After the machine tool market tanked, I was low man on the totem pole of this 5 person company with only 11 years in so I left (on good terms) and took a job at my present employer. We're an industrial distributor with a systems group that does hydraulics, electrical control panels, pneumatics, and aluminum framing as well as combinations of all of the above with programming/HMI etc. Now I'm the engineering manager here but still get involved with some programming especially when it involves hydraulic motion control or something new to us so I can figure it out and then pass the knowledge on to the rest of our group.