8 minute read
THE ORIGINAL EAST STUDENT: Max Young, EAST Alum
NAME: Douglas Max Young II
TITLE/PROFESSION: IT Help Desk Specialist /Corporate IT
EAST PROGRAM: EAST at Greenbrier, Class of ‘98
CONTACT MAX: myoung@cteh.com
MEET MAX YOUNG,Corporate IT and Help Desk Specialist at the Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health, LLC. Max is an EAST legend. He is among the first few students that experienced EAST before it even had a name. Max attributes his open mindset and career in STEM to the seeds planted during his time as a student in the classroom of EAST founder, Tim Stephenson. Read on for a firsthand account of how this Class of 1998 Greenbrier High School graduate continues to live the EAST ideals through his day-to-day actions.
Hi,I am Douglas Max Young, but please, call me Max. I have been involved in various forms of STEM/STEAM for the last 23 years professionally. I have worked with mechanical, wireless, and electrical engineers, artists, designers, developers, toxicologists, epidemiologists, pilots, first responders, and various other agencies and trades. I spent 10 years in the cellular industry alone. Currently, I work with the Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health (CTEH, LLC) which is a branch of the multinational Montrose Environmental Group Inc (NYSE: MEG). We live on the cutting edge of technology as it relates to our industry. We make use of tools such as Boston Dynamics SPOT robot dog, DJI Drones, Balloon aerial photography, FLIR, Rae Systems Multi-Gas and VOC detectors and monitors, mass spectrography and many other innovative and exciting technologies. None of this would have been possible without the intervention of opportunity through the EAST program, and, particularly Mr. Tim Stephenson. I had troubles at home going into my junior and senior years and found myself acting out in response to those stressors. After making a few bad decisions at school, I faced expulsion or my agreed participation in a new program, which was not even called EAST yet. Back then, it was just a big experiment where Tim Stephenson took some of the knuckleheads like me and paired us with some more well-behaved and more scholastic peers. Before solutions like 3-D printing and other high-end peripherals were commonplace, we were doing computer-assisted design with basic single pen plotting output. Mind you, at this point, I had already hacked the school’s older terminal systems and caused some upset, all without getting caught, so in hindsight, I am not sure it was so smart to put me in that class. It turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me. If any of my old teachers ever wondered who sent a broadcast alert message “Loki Rules!!!” to every networked PC in the school simultaneously back in 1997, look no further. Mystery solved. I am sorry about that by the way. I did not know, however, that the message was also going to quintuple beep the speaker system on every networked computer simultaneously. That was an added bonus. High school is already one of the most emotionally charged times of a young person’s life and when you have a young person who is going through things at home that ended up being exhibited through poor choices and behaviors at school, you are likely to have an “interesting” story. My first memories, of what is now known as EAST, were sitting in rooms where we worked in small groups. Josh Risk was one of the first people CONTACT MAX: myoung@cteh.com to take me under his wing and show me how to start designing in CAD. At that time, we were using Intergraph computers. Josh has been working in the engineering field for over 20 years and is now finishing his degree
in mechanical engineering. We are still friends after all these years, and I am proud to see him looking at prospects like SpaceX. I ended up being highly successful in the program and because of this I was able to do some traveling with Tim Stephenson and Jim Wells around the nation to places like Texas A&M, Alabama’s Redstone Arsenal, and a trip to Maryland and Washington DC for a specialized symposium for secondary education. Going to the Redstone Arsenal at the NASA Space Center in Huntsville, Alabama was always my favorite time in EAST.
Showing off one of the first GIS projects produced by Vanessa Krisel was exciting. Former governor Mike Huckabee came to see Greenbrier’s EAST program but was particularly interested in our project. We received $30,000 in grant money based on that work. It moved the governor to tears. He had just attended the funerals of several firemen in the state that had lost their lives to unforeseen dangers in a building. That drove home to me just how important and real world these projects could be. I had many family members who were first responders, including my brother (State Police), my uncle (Little Rock Fire Chief), and my father (State Police). I thought about them when we were developing ideas for heads-up displays with augmented reality to show interior maps of places with hazards highlighted on the unit. Our tech was kid’s stuff compared to what students have access to today. Augmented reality is commonplace now.
The spirit of EAST lives on in everything I do professionally. The approach taught through the EAST program, that I know as, is “figure it out” and “make it happen.” No better philosophy could be taught to a young person who is entering the professional workforce. When I go to work, there are many times where exotic and novel issues arise. The critical thinking skills and processes that I learned through my participation in the program have allowed me to outpace many of my peers in my career paths. In my wireless career, I was the guy that upper leadership came to when they did not know anyone else who could solve the problem they were facing. There is nothing special about me; however, there is something special about the way I learned to approach and tackle issues. That special something is the EAST program and the skills and philosophies that I garnered through that experience. I learned to pick up the phone and call professionals and mentors who had the goods or knowledge that could help me tackle problems that I had chosen to address. Today, the Internet is far more robust than it was back then; young people have it much easier when trying to gather knowledge to address an issue. However, interpersonal communication remains a critical part of a successful EAST experience. Just finding the courage to start that communication is the hardest part. But once you find it, your world will change for the better. I live in a world where I am fearless about talking to anyone regardless of their title or claim.
I think that it is critically important that the community at large understands the importance of the program. Young people are such an asset, and communities are filled with opportunities for improvement. The more community involvement that happens, the more press that happens around it, and the more involvement that can spur from such philanthropic ventures, the better. Crowdsourcing solutions is one of the most effective ways of solving problems. Here we have a program that thrives on that fact. It saddens me when I speak to parents who have no idea their students are participating in EAST. I am hoping to help change that in multiple ways. That change also needs to happen in the classroom by getting parents and mentors involved with the students while in the program. This involvement will be critical to the success of EAST!
I enjoy watching this program evolve. Like many things in life, many of the tools will change, many of the faces will change, but the core mission and philosophies will never change. I am hoping to see an EAST project on a ride to space. Virgin Atlantic, SpaceX, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, and many other ventures are out there right now with the technology to take our students and their projects literally out of this world. I would love to see more aerospace and remote sensing projects and see more students on a track to aerospace related technology fields. Not only would I like to see our students or their projects reaching space, but also the depths of the ocean. I am sure there are schools close enough to the seaboard that could do projects to better preserve our oceans and the life therein.
EAST is an evolution of the traditional classroom. Do not stop evolving. In every living system there lies an X factor. Be that factor. Be different. If what you are doing feels too scripted, does not inspire you, does not drive you or keep you awake at night thinking about it sometimes, then stop what you are doing, reevaluate and start again with something new that does inspire and excite you. There are always going to be projects and assignments that help you learn the tools that may not be the thing you dreamed about doing, but once you have a solid grasp of the technology and the need, be bold and go big, and use those tools for things that they were both designed and not designed to do. Find ways to turn old tools into new tools. At my company, we took our custom software CARBON that was designed for mapping disaster zones and tracking chemical levels, and re-developed it into a system to work with Hollywood and Nashville production companies to track COVID-19 testing events and their corresponding results. We have doctors and nurses around the world working with the film, television and music industries. They are working with everyone from A-list actors and singers to the folks that sweep the floors and feed the crews. Our people are working to ensure that everyone who is keeping the entertainment industry alive is staying safe and healthy. I love this company. It was a godsend just like the EAST program was a godsend. I was very proud to learn that both our Director of Technology and our Chief Executive Officer have their young adults in the EAST program. I would love to connect with other people I know with family members in EAST and to learn more about their projects.
