Student Experience: Frank Juarez

“I’m interested in renewable energies — that’s the future and where we’ve needed to go for a long time. That’s solar, wind, thermal, geothermal and hydroelectric power. Mechatronics is the basis for all those; any one incorporates the same mechanical principles to end up with the same result: power generation. 

“From my Mechatronics class, my skills will be applicable whether I’m working as a technician in the field or in a power generation center. I’ve also realized from taking Mechatronics how much I like to teach the younger kids, mentoring them in learning how to do things from the ground up. I’ve never had any formal practice in teaching, just some on-the-job-training and writing several employee manuals for TI. 

“I may even head to work in Albuquerque, N.M., where they have wind and solar farms that incorporate these improved solar and thermal technologies. For all of them, mechatronics will be the basis of how things work, and I’m excited about that.”

Frank Juarez worked as a yield enhancement engineering technician, doing quality control and assurance, for 15 years at Texas Instruments; he also served as a cryptologic technician, encoding and decoding messages, in Navy intelligence for nine years. He began a Mechatronics class after his entire department was laid off at TI in March 2008.

Read More