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Making Things Work For You

Massapequa Park resident honored during National Engineers Week

BY DAVE GIL DE RUBIO

dgilderubio@antonmediagroup.com

With all the current focus on infrastructure, engineers have never been more highly prized. To that end, the men and women who are crucial to ensuring safe standards for society were recently in the spotlight from Feb. 20-26, a span of days recognized as National Engineers Week (EWeek). And while the average citizen may be unaware of its existence, NEW has been around for 61 years, ever since its founding in 1951 by the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE) as a way of ensuring a diverse and well-educated future engineering workforce by increasing understanding of and interest in engineering and technology careers. This week’s purpose is also to celebrate how engineers make a difference in the world. As a subsidiary of a publicly traded diversified energy company, PSEG Long Island plays a major role in its customers’ lives by providing electricity to 1.1 million customers in Nassau and Suffolk counties, and the Rockaway Peninsula of Queens.

With 10 percent (roughly 250 employees) of PSEG Long Island’s workforce serving in a variety of engineering disciplines, including electrical, mechanical, chemical and industrial engineering, as well as energy management, the utility’s ranks are represented by employees like John Koziatek, a Massapequa Park resident being celebrated during EWeek. A PSEG Long Island employee who was hired in the midst of the pandemic back in April 2020, working for a company whose logo is “We make things work for you” is a satisfying payoff for a kid who grew up in Bethpage trying to figure out how things operate.

“Early on, I was drawn to building things and making them better,” Koziatek explained. “I often took things apart and for the most part, put them back together. As a kid, you obviously mess up sometimes, but I honestly wanted to understand how things worked and make them better. That’s what really drew me to engineering in general—the ability to improve things and solve problems.”

The journey this Bethpage High School alum underwent on the way to his career involved graduating from New York Institute of Technology in Old Westbury with a degree in computer and electrical engineering and considerable man hours working towards the pinnacle of becoming a Professional Engineer (PE). This upper strata of engineering is held to the highest of standards as PEs must continuously demonstrate their competency and maintain and improve their skills by fulfilling continuing education requirements depending on the state in which they are licensed. The road to becoming a PE is equally arduous and includes working under another PE for a minimum of four years and passing a pair of intense exams, which is just what Koziatek did for five-and-a-half years while working for an MEP (mechanical, electrical and engineering) firm in the construction energy prior to landing with PSEG Long Island.

“It was at this position where I had my first interaction with PSEG Long Island,” Koziatek recalled. “My primary responsibility at my last job was to develop site plans and accommodate services for clients, which led to my working with PSEG Long Island a lot. After acquiring the required experience necessary to sit for the PE exam, I studied in excess of 250 hours and passed the last exam in October 2018. By May 2019, I became a registered New York Professional Engineer.”

The time Koziatek spent at his last job working alongside members of the PSEG Long Island stoked his interest in the company.

“When I was studying for my PE exam, I found myself really spending more time on the things I didn’t do on a daily basis on my last job and a

Massapequa Park resident John Koziatek was among more than 250 of his colleagues recently honored as part of National Engineers Week

(Photo courtesy of PSEG Long Island)

Professional Engineer (PE) Criteria

A. An engineer must complete a four-year engineering program and earn a degree from accredited college . B. Work must be done under the supervision of a Professional

Engineer for at least four years. C. Two intensive competency exams (Fundamentals of Engineering [FE] and Principles and

Practice of Engineering [PE]) must be passed in order to earn a license from that engineer’s state licensure board. D. To retain their licenses, PEs must continually maintain and improve their skills throughout their careers.

—National Society of Professional Engineers

lot of that had to do with the utility industry,” he said. “I became really more and more fascinated by it. At the time, I had a review course and my instructor told me that if I was really interested in this stuff, the best place to do utility work was at a utility. I put in a résumé. And who doesn’t want to play with high voltage?”

As a member of PSEG Long Island’s Transmission Planning team, Koziatek works to ensure the electrical infrastructure meets the current and future energy needs. As a PE, this already substantial responsibility is one Koziatek takes seriously while deriving quite a bit of satisfaction at the same time.

“My main function is to evaluate the transmission system from about six months out all the way to 10-plus years out,” he said. “Pretty much on a daily basis, I’m looking to run a whole bunch of analyses to verify if there are any voltage or thermal violations on the system. The best part of my job is that I’m preparing Long Island’s electrical system for the future, which is pretty cool. There are a lot of things going on with renewable

energy—wind, solar and battery—and I’m kind of right in the midst of it all.”

Despite all the challenges engineering has provided, both during Koziatek’s journey and in his current role, he continues to marvel at the multi-disciplinary tools it has provided for him.

“I obviously went to school for electrical engineering and the one thing that really comes out of it is that you are obviously given a skill set,” he said. “But what does that actually mean? Maybe you have other passions in life and you can apply your engineering background and skill set to those jobs. What’s important is that electricity is in every part of our lives as we see it today. A lot of people may shy away because they think engineering may be too difficult. It’s definitely challenging and I won’t say that it’s not. But it’s such a rewarding career because you’re solving problems and I think that’s a pretty incredible thing.”

To comment on this story, email dgilderubio@antonnews.com

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