In January 2003, I began my career as a designer apprentice at Northrop Grumman and after completion of this program in 2006; I enrolled in the drafting and design program at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College. In 2007, I graduated from MGCCC with an Associate of Applied Science degree in Drafting & Design.

This was a major milestone, respectively, due to hard work and dedication by receiving multiple degrees. Prior to obtaining these goals, I was a Pipefitter. I worked in the pipefitting craft for over a decade.

MGCCC’s program provided me with the skills to draw plans on paper and computers. Some of the courses that the curriculum exposed me to was elementary surveying, architectural, mechanical, structural, pipe and civil drafting.

MGCCC’s program promoted flexibility in drafting skills and provided a well rounded background in drafting for the graduate. This education has been immensely helpful in my career by allowing the liberty to gain fundamental to advance levels of drafting and design in several disciplines.

As a pipe designer at Northrop Grumman, I operated in the knowledge and awareness of the processes and technology that are employed by the company. Northrop Grumman’s LHA6 Design Group was responsible fortaking the Concept or Preliminary Design as an input and developing the Detail Design during Functional, Transitional, and the Production Drawing and NC Aid Development phases as well as supporting Engineering Test,Field Engineering, Supply Chain, and Ship Construction. . This is accomplished by reviewing and using computer layouts using pipe specifications, administrative and technical practices, design instructions, pipe diagrams, and supplier information. These tasks are performed on computers using drafting software called AutoCAD.

The following software was utilized during my work as a designer: AutoCAD Calma Catia Microsoft Office Suite (Power Point, Access, Excel, & Word) Adobe PDF

After attending Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College (MGCCC), I went on to further my education at the University of Southern Mississippi. • Bachelor of Science, Applied Technology, Cognates include: Design, Technology, Project

Management, and Business, University of Southern Mississippi, Gulf Coast Branch

– Honor Graduate 5/2010  

Photo Above: Elementary AutoCAD drawing I completed while attending college

• Northrop Grumman’s LHA6 Design Group had the ability to modify its AutoCADsoftware for personal use. A project manager has been assigned the responsibility to meet the current needs of the group with application upgrades that further automate and improve company processes of design. This was done by using AutoLISP or Visual LISP. AutoLISP is a powerful programming language that allows you to create your own commands and routines, tailored to the needs of the group. VLISP is an integrated development environment that provides an easy-to-use interface that helps create code, debug errors, and test programs.

• I was presented with exposure to gain a familiarity with this process.

An accomplishment I am proud of is as a project manager and mentor , I was able accomplish as the lead, thebenchmark, for professional accountability in my department.

Strategy and project managementAs my former company faced a slow and stagnant economy, I was able to lead projects with 100% accountability and my personal score was the highest within the entire department. I was placed on projects for project management leadership and counsel for professional strategies to be implemented within specific projects.

• I have been involved in high-level projects. The steps within one particular project called for me to be in the initial, ground-breaking, design for the LHA & LHD Navy Amphibious Ship at Ingalls (formerly Northrop Grumman) Shipbuilding.

• The project required the ship to be designed using AutoCAD 2D design. – interpret the requirements and design the ship from the system drawings that were constructed from

military specifications. – the first phase required to create composites based on different piping systems that could in later phases be

used to develop detailed piping drawings per piping systems.– detail drawings were created and submitted to planning and later to the piping department for construction

purposes. – respond to field problems that made the initial design impossible to install. – change papers had to be created to document and track changes to design/reconcile changes – revision of the drawing and the composite to indicate that the baseline drawing had been changed to meet

the specs and field issues that prevented the initial design to be installed as first designed.

• A group of five employees were tasked to by upper management to assist in the conversion and training. Within this hand-picked selected group, I emerged as the leader of the selected few.

– We were tasked to find a solution of how our department could become more efficient of certain files which were initially Calma 3D files into AutoCAD files. We were put into a team of five people who were pretty efficient doing the conversion work due to software conversion.

– We were asked to evaluate our co-workers by inquiring what was their process and why a large number of employees were having irreconcilable issues with the conversion.

– After formulating what processes would best work together, we had to write the process and instruct others how carry these processes out so we could have a unified process system and produce efficiency in the turnover of these drawings.

– The conversion process consisted of – Once the program converted the file to the AutoCAD file, there were no standards for each item on the drawing. We were tasked to make the drawings come up to AutoCAD standard for Ingalls shipbuilding which required us to make sure everything was in its proper layers, proper colors.

– We had to put the file, initially, in the model and as it progressed and/or required everything that did not go within the model we had to bring those things into the layout tab out of the model then whatever the requirement were within the model we had to leave it in the model

Although I began an extensive journey to become a seasoned professional design engineer, I must admit my love for drafting was unearth early on.

While in high school, I hand drafted a couple’s dream home. Although they offered to pay me, I was not allowed to accept any financial compensation for my drawings yet it motivated me to fulfill my goal of becoming a drafter/designer.

Above: Drawings I provided for remodeling a home

I have shared with you how I worked my way up from being a Pipefitter. When I first came to Ingalls Shipbuilding, I was a young adult that went through the pipefitting apprenticeship, then I earned two Associate degrees. While earning those degrees, I worked in Weight Control, (as shared earlier) Design Apprenticeship program, then Design Engineer for over a decade afterward, I became a Systems Engineer II.

As I am recommended by peers, colleagues, managements, and departmental leaders one of my greatest accomplishments is having the respect of them because of the integrity and quality of my work.

Having stated this, its always my goal to bring added value to any company that has provided an opportunity for me to be employed by them. Just as they have invested in me, I invest in them by producing quality and efficient work.