CLASS NOTES

Eugene Robinson (AERO, ’55)

1950s

Eugene (Gene) Robinson (Aerospace Engineering, ’55), now retired, had an extensive career as a propulsion test engineer for Douglas Aircraft/McDonnell-Douglas; Sacramento Test Center general manager; project manager for Legislative Aide Water Resources and Ground Water Contamination for the Sacramento Metropolitan Water Authority; and as a contributor with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation for Sacramento’s Moon Rocket and Sacramento Rocket Man by Alan Lawrie.

1960s

Robert Garlow (Architectural Engineering, ’66) retired as a U.S. Air Force civil engineering officer in 1986. He then spent 10 years with the city of North Las Vegas as an engineering design and construction project manager for Capital Improvement Program Facilities and Utilities.

1980s

Louis Garcia (Electrical Engineering, ’80) retired as the director of engineering at Cadence Design Systems.

Valeria Salazar (AERO, ’19)

1990s

Rob Christensen (Civil Engineering, ’99) works at VVH Consulting Engineers in Modesto, California, as a senior civil engineer, where he is lead engineer and manager for multiple public and private infrastructure projects.

2000s

Sofie Leon (Civil Engineering, ’08) is the director of the Diversity Initiative and Resource Centers at Cal State Fullerton. Fresh off her doctorate, she went to Paris to work as the scientific coordinator at the Center for Research and Interdisciplinarity. After two years, she moved to Caltech and discovered that diversity inclusion work was what she wanted to do. At Caltech, she helped create a number of programs, including unconscious bias training in the graduate admissions process for faculty as well as a program to recruit rising junior and senior women to campus and encourage them to continue their education and go on to graduate school.

Kobbe Farwick (EE, ’17)

2010s

Valeria Salazar (Aerospace Engineering, ’19) is a system engineer working on the Europa Clipper mission at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She is part of the system testbed team, performing system-level tests of nonflight hardware and flight software to ensure the spacecraft will work as expected.

Kobbe Farwick (Electrical Engineering, ’17) is a software engineer at Garmin. After graduating from Cal Poly, he started work as an embedded software engineer at Garmin in Kansas City. He is the lead developer for the integration of Garmin’s advanced flight deck in a supersonic Northrop F-5 aircraft. In this role, he manages the configuration of this installation and uses his electrical engineering knowledge to assist in troubleshooting of legacy analog and modern digital sensor solutions, including capacitive fuel probes, DC Selsyn position sensors and limit switches. He also developed leadingedge engine/aircraft system displays and crew-alerting system messages for the modern fighter pilot.

Jacob Reiter (Manufacturing Engineering, ’10) is an application engineer at Mazak.

Harvir Humpal (Biomedical Engineering, ’18) received his 4+1 master’s degree

Jorge Vanegas-Moran (CE, ’15) Christina Seekely (IE, ’14)

Ashley Threlfall (ENVE, ’11)

Harvir Humpal (BMED, ’18)

in 2018 and quickly moved on to work for Abbott Laboratories in Pleasanton as part of its heart failure division. As a development quality engineer, Humpal supports new product development of mechanical circulatory devices for patients with heart failure.

Jake DeBoer (Mechanical Engineering, ’18) works as an analysis engineer at Daimler Trucks North America in Portland. As an analysis engineer, DeBoer is responsible for all aerodynamic simulation activities for the Electric Mobility Group in North America.

Jorge Vanegas-Moran (Civil Engineering, ’15) is a transportation engineer at GHD Inc.

Matt Steensma (Industrial Engineering, ’19) is an industrial engineer at The Spaceship Co.

Christina Seekely (Industrial Engineering, ’14) is a continuous improvement consultant at The Cleveland Clinic. Seekely started as an intern before she was hired full time in 2014. In 2016 she went to the Cleveland Clinic Heart and Vascular Institute (HVI) as a continuous improvement consultant for the HVI Affiliate Team. The team focuses

Matt Steensma (IE, ’19)

on improving the quality of heart programs across the country, and her role within that is to improve operational efficiency and reduce costs in partnership with clinical consultants.

Lindsey Angell (Civil Engineering, ’10) is the senior project civil engineer at Golder in Roseville, California. She works as a licensed civil engineer consultant for a variety of civil and geotechnical products for the solid waste and mining industries.

Jose Comi (Biomedical Engineering, ’15) works as a new product development quality engineer at Biosense Webster Inc., part of the Johnson & Johnson family of companies. In this position, Comi helps design innovative cardiovascular diagnostics and treatments for patients worldwide.

Ariana Torres (LAES, ’19)

Ashley Threlfall (Environmental Engineering, ’11) works for JSR Micro in Beaverton, Oregon, as an EHS engineer. At her company, Threlfall works to develop environmental, health and safety programs for Oregon operations.

Ariana Torres (Liberal Arts and Engineering Studies, ’19) works at Apple Inc. in Sunnyvale as a security engineer, designing and driving resolutions that reduce identified risks. n

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California Polytechnic State University College of Engineering 1 Grand Ave. San Luis Obispo, CA 93407-0350

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Celebrating Graduation in the Stadium — Virtually

Since on-campus graduation ceremonies were postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, students and faculty in the Computer Science and Software Engineering Department recreated Cal Poly’s Spanos Stadium with Minecraft and held a virtual ceremony, where graduates could attend with their avatars.