EP. 26: Timothy Roemer - podcast transcript

Announcer (00:03):

Welcome to the Purpose Nation Podcast...inspiring conversations with Christians in science, technology, and industries of the future. For more information in order to make a tax deductible contribution, visit purposenation.org

Brad Cooper (00:16):

This is Brad Cooper with Purpose Nation and welcome to our first podcast interview of 2020. Really excited about bringing you more and more Christian leaders in science and technology and engineering in this upcoming year. So lots of exciting things going on with Purpose Nation. So thank you for joining me and happy new year to all of you. Well for today's interview, really excited our guest is an engineer and he's a husband and a dad and he has all kinds of projects going on and really great organization connecting Catholic engineers together. So just really, really excited to welcome Timothy Roemer.

Timothy Roemer (00:48):

Thank you. Looking forward to our conversation today.

Brad Cooper (00:50):

Likewise, likewise. Now, I think you're up in the Northeast there in the New Hampshire area, so enjoying the winter. I imagine you've had a little bit of snow?

Timothy Roemer (00:59):

A little bit of snow, a lot, a bit of cold. Had about 10 degrees days. So nice looking forward for the summer.

Brad Cooper (01:05):

Nice. I remember those days vaguely from my days in upstate New York. But you know, here we get down in the 40s in Southern California. So that's what we complain about when it gets cold.

Timothy Roemer (01:15):

Yeah.

Brad Cooper (01:16):

And so I know you have a young daughter, I think she's, I want to say 19 months old or so. So did she enjoy that?the snow? I guess it wasn't her first. No it was, she probably had some last year. But is she getting out there and enjoying things in the snow?

Timothy Roemer (01:27):

She is, yeah. My daughter, Lucia really enjoys the snow. She struggles walking in it cause it can be so deep at times, but she thinks it's pretty cool. She likes the snowballs. So we make mounds of snow balls and she likes playing with those.

Brad Cooper (01:38):

Very cool. What other kinds of things she is she into?

Timothy Roemer (01:41):

So it's pretty funny. My so my wife Olivia, she works in gymnastics and our whole family on her side works and owns a gym and our daughter spends a lot of time there. And so she, even though she's 19 months, loves the gymnastic stuff. We actually brought home one of the bars and she's doing all kinds of things that you really shouldn't be doing at this age. But she loves it.

Brad Cooper (02:08):

That's awesome. That's great. So a future gymnast, I see.

Timothy Roemer (02:12):

Hoping engineer, but maybe both right.

Brad Cooper (02:17):

Can still do the Olympics and then go off and build things. Yeah. So, and also sounds like you just started a new job real quick for the folks. Kind of tell us a little bit just about some of the work you do, not necessarily maybe at the new job, but just sort of what what do you do? So mechanical engineer, what are, what are the things you work on and what kind of work do you?

Timothy Roemer (02:34):

Both of my jobs have been senior product engineer roles. So what, what we do with that is looking into maintaining the products that you sell. So in one case I worked for almost three years in the automotive lighting industry. Your headlights, your tail lights led halogen. So I spent a lot of time there and I had a mixture of projects that were related in the R and D area. One of the things we looked into is if put different types of coatings, can you get white or light that helps you see further down the road, makes things clearer. And then the goal of that was really just safe, safer driving. And right now I'm, I'm now working in the advanced photonics area and the company I work for has technologies and medical imaging. They also have scientific instrumentation and some equipment that works in the telecommunications area.

Brad Cooper (03:23):

That's cool. Yeah, I definitely want to dive into a little bit more of that and some of those, you know, kind of specific skills and things that you have and have developed. First before we do that, a bio on Tim and as he mentioned, he's a product engineering has been that field for a few years and as he said, working in advanced photonics and an automotive lighting prior to that and entering the engineering field, he worked as a high school STEM teacher. I think you mentioned that as well with math and physics. I guess it sounded like as well as a part time youth minister. He got his BS and MS in mechanical engineering from the University of New Hampshire. And as if being in doing all these things, you know, isn't enough. Being the full time husband and dad and engineer, he also founded a group called Catholic Engineers and they have a group on Facebook and have a website.

Brad Cooper (04:00):

Definitely want to hear a lot more about that in a minute. And he's also given talks to various Catholic groups around the country on topics like faith and science and the intersection between those two things and has been very interested in that area. And Oh, I think, well I think I briefly mentioned it, but expecting the second in July 2nd child, is that right?

Timothy Roemer (04:19):

Yes.

Brad Cooper (04:19):

Fun times, fun times. It's a lot of fun, but a lot of work. So God bless you. [inaudible] Oh, and I also saw, now I didn't see this in the bio, but I think I may have seen somewhere you're a bit of kind of like a Jedi Knight kinda guy would like the swordsmanship...

Timothy Roemer (04:36):

(Laughing) Yeah.

Brad Cooper (04:36):

What's that all about?

Timothy Roemer (04:37):

Well, I've, I've, I've always been a Star Wars fan and actually but my, my interest in sci-fi is how I got into engineering and we can talk more about that later. But I've always loved Star Wars and of course you always loved the Jedi. And so when I was younger we used to fight in the backyard with broomsticks and hurt one another's fingers pretending they were light sabers. And when I was younger I was like, I want to do this, I want to like take lessons on sword fighting. And eventually I stumbled into fencing. And so I did fencing from I think middle school to the end of high school. And I picked it a little bit up in college and a little bit post-college time. It was hard to manage with family and school and work, but because my family owns it, gymnastics gym, I made the offer to my father-in-law and said, Hey, can I do a class that's light sabers for the kids? But at the same time they can learn some fencing skills and we mixed in a little bit of Ninja warrior with it and I, so we call it Saber Ninja so it's a, it's a fun class.

Brad Cooper (05:34):

That's awesome. So Catholic Engineers, tell me a little bit more about that. So you started that group not too long ago. What is it and how did it come about?

Timothy Roemer (05:41):

Sure. So I started it back in December of 2014. I was actually home on Christmas break. I was in graduate school and when I was at UNH we had a really great Catholic student organization and there's something I joined in my junior year, made a lot of great friends, eventually met my there and as time progressed I decided to stay at UNH for a mixture of reasons. But one was all the friends that I had in that group the impact that group was having on me. Yeah. Am I graduate program. I do not have any fellow Catholic engineers. So at that, at that higher level of science and engineering, faith is not very common and, and there's a little bit of a stigma against it. And so I found it more challenging then to kind of bring my faith into what I did. And it was almost like I had two separate lives, had my, my engineering life and my, my Catholic friend life at church and mass and all those great things. So when I was there, I, I found a Facebook page that I really enjoyed. I don't know if you've heard of it. Catholic Gentlemen?

Brad Cooper (06:40):

Yeah.

Timothy Roemer (06:41):

They essentially focus on virtues of men and right. And being a man and how to live out your Catholic faith. And so I, I really liked that page. It was something applicable to me and, and had a lot of great information, but it got me thinking like, Hey, it'd be great if there was like a science good for Catholic sir in engineering for Catholics group that I could go and follow. And, and I looked and looked and looked and I found the little one shoot offs and, and I found articles online, but there was never, there was, wasn't something of that same substance. The group, Catholic Gentlemen. And so on my Christmas break in December, 2014, I was sitting at home and I had just recently listened to, I forget if it was a Scott Hahn and Bishop Baron talk about the new evangelization and whomever it was, they had made the statement, the call isn't just for priests, it isn't just for people working in the church, it's for everyone.

Timothy Roemer (07:32):

And, and the mixture of me looking for this group and that kind of nudge got me thinking, well, if I can't find it, maybe I should start it because there's apparently a need at least a need of one. So I started the group. It was very small and, and Facebook is very interesting with that. The tricks you can play to get more, more people to like and follow things. And so eventually we grew it. Now I think we're over 5,000 likes on the Facebook page. Wow. there's several hundred people in the Facebook group, it seems now very active. That was more recent ad had the website for awhile as well. Mixture of blog posts and information about saints that relate to science and engineering and STEM fields. Essentially trying to be a central resource for Catholics in STEM. Right. And to build community and show the world that Hey Catholics can do science stuff.

Brad Cooper (08:22):

Right. That's great. Well I guess they can just go to Facebook and we'll have a link to it, but search for Catholic engineer's and Facebook and then the website URL is

Timothy Roemer (08:30):

www.CatholicEngineers.org

Brad Cooper (08:33):

Easy to remember Catholic engineer's dot org. Okay. Yeah. Cool. And so mostly been kind of conversations and posting information and blog posts, any of the, and you obviously have a lot of other things going on. Like me, I tend to sign up for too many things. But anything in the kind of the company year that you hope to expand or anyone want to grow it in any way or is it kind of kind of where you want it to be right now?

Timothy Roemer (08:53):

So there's a lot, I'm hoping to expand on that. The big challenge is time and right now it's kind of a one man show. But one of the things we have in the works is with the local university my Alma matter UNH University of New Hampshire. We are talking with the Catholic group there to maybe put on a, a joint faith and science interdenominational conference. Well we have some speakers come and, and kind of show the campus like, Hey look, faith and science can be compatible and, and, and get, get the word out there.

Brad Cooper (09:22):

Very good. Yeah. I mean it sounds like you've you've had a lot of people connect. Yeah. And yeah, I mean it's kind of like the story with my wife and I and Purpose Nation and we kind of did the same thing exactly that you did. Which is to just go to the web and see if we can see anything. There's really nothing out there. It was kind of surprising. There wasn't a whole lot of other groups out there. I mean there are definitely a few and there's even more now. So you, I'm sure you know now there's a Society of Catholic Scientists I think is, it's called, which is only a couple of years old now. Their focus I think is a little heavier on this. Obviously based on their name and based on your name, you're kind of more engineering in there. They're kind of more focused on the sciences. But I imagine there's some overlap with those folks, right?

Timothy Roemer (09:58):

Yeah. I've tried to join the group several times, but I don't have a PhD in a natural science. So, I haven't gotten accepted. (Laughing)

Brad Cooper (10:02):

(Laughing) I haven't either. I haven't gotten in either!

Timothy Roemer (10:07):

So one of the things that like when I think of them and what I'm kind of going for, I think of like the Knights of Malta, very prestigious group that is hard to get into. And then the Knights of Columbus kind of the more everyday man . So I'm trying to be the everyday man or the non PhDs. Build up community that way

Brad Cooper (10:26):

There ya go. Absolutely. Very cool. So I want to take a step back again to just your childhood and kind of growing up and what got you interested in STEM and engineering. So you mentioned the science fiction, but kind of if you can think back, what are some of the key moments for you in your life that really kind of set you off on this journey into, into STEM and then into engineering?

Timothy Roemer (10:43):

My love of Star Wars and Sci-Fi, it was rooted in just a wonder for creation and, and just the intricacies of our world around us. I've always loved to know why, why things happen the way they did, how things work, just that finer detail. And in a way I've always said I wanted to be a scientist. Growing up I ended up not being a scientist, I ended up being an engineer. Yeah. That, that was always the, the, the subject in the course that always interests me. Diving into the why's and the how's. So when I was younger I drifted toward the science classes and I started taking a bunch in high school and, and at first I was like, yeah, I want to be a chemist. And then I started getting stuck in stuck geometry and confused and wasn't able to really see everything going on.

Timothy Roemer (11:26):

Just changes in colors. And so then I decided, all right, I'm going to be a physicist, that then the math is starting to bog me down and I got worried. Then I wanted to be an astronomer and I didn't want to sit in a dark room somewhere in the middle of the desert. So eventually I kept going through all the options. And my particular high school had a program called project lead the way, and this is a essentially an introduction to engineering. And so they have an introductory design course that focuses on using CAD software, so like solid works or Autodesk inventor and things like that. Then they had electronics course teaching in the basics of circuits and computer logic. And then they had one that kind of focused more on that thermal dynamics and mechanics and fluids and then a final sr design project. And so taking those courses really set me on the course of well I want to be an engineer.

Brad Cooper (12:18):

So I mean how would you describe it as sort of in the differences between the science and engineering is kind of more of just, is it more practical application of the science I guess? Cause you still need a decent amount of math and kind of understanding right, of physics and materials and chemistry just maybe not as deep as you might get in being in those fields. Is that right? I mean is that a good way to characterize it?

Timothy Roemer (12:40):

Yeah, I would say so. I think the big differences, the scientists might invent the new thing. They might discover the new thing that they're, they're pushing the boundaries of the bubble of knowledge the engineer says, all right, now that you've discovered this crazy thing, what can we make it into that helps society and people on a daily basis.

Brad Cooper (12:58):

Because normally when I think of mechanical engineering, I usually think, Oh, this is probably somebody who like built with Lego or something or you know, tore things apart or built things. Was that you or not?

Timothy Roemer (13:09):

So I built with Legos I was not the mechanically minded tear things apart. And actually it was funny my dad said to me, cause he, he was that kid growing up, you'd be statically minded, loved tearing things apart. When I was going off to my undergraduate school, he, he asked me if I was making the right choice because I wasn't that stereotypical.

Brad Cooper (13:30):

Hmm.

Timothy Roemer (13:31):

That the mechanic, the, the, the tear part, the electronics I did, I didn't really care how the, the thing on my desk worked. I wanted to know all the technology in it, what was kind of the theory behind it. And so what I found is in engineering you have those two camps. You have the kind of more sciency side engineers and you have the more hands on building making a mess engineer's.

Brad Cooper (13:52):

Got it. Okay. So did you also, I mean, were you like an artist like graphically and kind of growing up, did you draw things or does it, you know, design things?

Timothy Roemer (14:01):

So when I was younger I actually did take, it took a lot of art classes I didn't have, it may be a very strong art skill set. I definitely use less of it as I got a little older. So for more of a, I guess I'm more on the R and D side. Okay. So part of that. So in my undergraduate, one of the things I did that kind of set me apart from my peers as I did undergraduate research and one of those areas that I did research in was funded by NASA and it was looking at their MMS Mission had a satellite that had these large long booms. I don't remember the exact distance. It was like 42 meter length. Maybe it could be feet, I don't remember. But there are really long thin wires. And the whole problem was when you have these thin wires way out there in space, how does the movement of the main satellite effect the sensor packages on the ends of those long thin wires. And so we were working with the graduate student building physical models and doing some tests, programming or micro controllers. Cool. So, and then I also had another deviation down the the heart valve research. So I did a lot of had an internship in the biomedical area related to the heart and doing a heart valve repair for the ventral ventral side of the heart. No, the mitral valve and specific. And it also had some artificial heart valve, a senior project that we did in college as well. That was, that was fun. Doin the fluid dynamics and testing.

Brad Cooper (15:23):

OK, Yeah. So I can see what you're saying. So there's more of the kind of scientists there that's kind of looking at different scenarios and kind of try and, and that maybe haven't been tested before or done before with certain things and kind of seeing how the mechanics of something will operate in those in different environments. And so you get a little bit of a mixture of existing products or things that you know exist versus a scientist who kind of maybe use imagining things that don't exist yet and testing them and thinking about how they handle. And so there's still kind of that questioning and wonder, even though it's about man made things versus about nature. Maybe that's one way to think about it.

Timothy Roemer (15:59):

Yeah, I'd definitely say it's a lot of engineering is taking things that already exist and finding new ways of combining them and make something completely different.

Brad Cooper (16:07):

Yeah. And so also just tell me a little bit about your Catholic Christian background. Did you grow up in a, in a Catholic home or sort of, what's the history there?

Timothy Roemer (16:16):

I, I think it's a similar story to so many people. So I was raised Catholic. I went to Catholic school, I think around elementary school time. We, we had a move and we ended up falling away from the church. After that move. It wasn't until in high school I had a girlfriend and she introduced me back to the Catholic faith. I got involved and I got more and more involved and invested as I moved into college. And then in graduate school, I think it was that, that experience of the community in college that really built up my faith. Another huge component to that was Bishop Barron. He has the word on fire. Right. And so I downloaded all of his podcasts and I had a really long commute. And so I would just listen to those podcasts every day for about an hour one way. And just getting all that information and knowledge really kind of built me up and set me on the right course and fed my interests. So it was really great experience and definitely put me on the right track.

Brad Cooper (17:12):

Right. And that got you somewhat more committed. It sounds like more committed to your faith. And so for your graduate, you said you weren't. Now, was it just that there were any Catholics or just wasn't any Christians in general, are they? Or maybe they were there and you did just didn't know.

Timothy Roemer (17:25):

So in my undergrad, the exposure you get to your peers there, there were so many opportunities to find out the Catholics. And there was actually one of the other motivations to starting Catholic Engineers was in our group. There were I think four other engineers who were Catholic. And so from from a large secular school state school, to have a small group of Catholics and then at least fourth of them be engineer's kind of stood out to me. Okay. and so, but the, the issue arose when I was in graduate school where you didn't get that diversity, you didn't get the raw numbers. And you've got a very select group of people in a very focused area, right. In graduate school. I definitely understand that idea of Catholics kind of keeping their Catholic identity private. And one of the goals of Catholic Engineers was to kind of flush people out that you're not just sitting on an Island all by yourself and there are other Catholics out there that do science to technology and hopefully getting people to start to crack the shells a little bit.

Brad Cooper (18:24):

Right.

Timothy Roemer (18:25):

Maybe have a, a crucifix in their cube or something that kind of shows it or whether you wear ashes to work on Ash Wednesday, whatever it might be.

Brad Cooper (18:33):

Right. Start small. Yeah, at least. So, I mean, when you, maybe you, you've always been out front about it, but like in your workplace, I mean, I don't know what your experience has been and kind of, you know, you have been in the workplace, you know, for a few years now. So I mean, what has your experience been so far? I mean, I'm guessing you haven't had people say, "Oh, you're, you're a Catholic guy. Okay." I'm guessing mostly been positive, but I don't know. What would you say about your experience so far.

Timothy Roemer (18:56):

Sometimes you get those people? UI actually just [inaudible] just today had an experience where,usomebody noticed that I had my Catholic engineer's logo on a mouse pad on my desk [inaudible] and somebody asked me if that was a school that I had attended emblem and I mentioned it was a group that I was in and immediately they started the discussion of the crusades.

Timothy Roemer (19:15):

And so I think, huh, what you need to do as a Catholic is when those opportunities come up and when somebody challenges you or, or asks you about your face, that you don't shy away, that you, you have the discussion, you bring truth to the conversation because those are the experiences that they might not be expecting response from. And those are the moments where maybe you have the potential for conversion or sort of change of heart or even open the door for a later conversation. Because there's a lot of fallen Catholics out there in the workplace and in the world. And sometimes they just need to meet the right person and hear the right things. But if you're, if you're quiet and you hide, you're not going to be the one to help them.

Brad Cooper (19:54):

Yeah. And obviously do it in love and respect and hopefully, and hopefully not get into too deep of a debate. But but yeah, not shy away from it either.

Timothy Roemer (20:04):

Definitely keep your workplace professionalism.

Brad Cooper (20:07):

Right, and if they ask you, you know, that opens the door and when someone's having a hard time, you know, ask if you can pray for them or something like that. Something as simple as that seems like in the workplaces is cool. And yeah, I mean I, in my workplace in my many years it didn't really have too much pushback. But yeah, you go occasionally we get somebody who will might give you a hard time, but I found it to be mostly the exception. And it sounds like that's the same for for the most of the guests I've had on as well. So talking a little bit more about engineering and we talked about a little bit, but I mean if you could kind of give a little bit of a breakdown because there's mechanical engineering and computer science and you know, there's all kinds of different engineers. I mean, if you could give just like a real quick overview of the potential types of areas that folks go into, young people, if they're thinking about it, they like science, they like building things, whatever they like to do, that engineering might be for them. What are the different types of engineering? Kind of maybe highlight what you do and I'm sure article engineering

Timothy Roemer (20:58):

I would say there's kinda the, the four main types. So there's mechanical, which is what I am to any other engineers listening there. There is the bias of my engineering is better than everybody else's engineering. If you're an engineer and in college you, you see the Wars, the civils get picked on by the mechanicals and electricals become everybody else. And so it's, it's, it's all in good fun. It's all because we're all suffering and we think we're suffering. So I, I'm mechanical. I actually chose mechanical specifically because it was so broad. You get a little bit of electrical, you get a little bit of chemistry, you get a, you can do a lot of different things with it. So there is that law. The mechanics sides of it, but there's also fluid dynamics, thermal dynamics, all kinds of different industries wrapped into one.

Timothy Roemer (21:45):

And so because I didn't know what I wanted to do when I got out of college, I thought that choosing the broadest field might give me the most opportunities. The next really big one is electrical engineer. He kind of put the two in camps. So electrical engineering is covering all your circuits and the computers and telecommunications, all kinds of different cool new technologies definitely has a lot more math in it. And that's why I steered away a little bit from it. My math background wasn't as formidable. I would say. Another big one is civil engineering. So that's all your, your roads, your concrete, your asphalt, your bridges, your buildings. There's also some branch in there where there's some, sometimes some environmental engineering. And then the other one is chemical engineering and chemical engineering be a mixture of biomedical, pharmaceutical, all kinds of things. Anything that really uses chemistry definitely has a big focus on manufacturing with chemicals. Right. And then from there you can get into specifics too.

Brad Cooper (22:43):

Yeah. And I was just gonna say, so I guess it would be an electrical, but I, it almost seems like it might be a fifth one, which is kind of software engineers. I don't know. I mean that's sort of, I'm not an engineer by trade. I've worked with a lot of engineers, both on electrical and even some mechanical, but definitely deepen the software engineering side. And they still call themselves in engineers, but they're not necessarily doing any circuitry. They're mostly programming and a computer. But when you hear, you know, a lot of people these days, just with the explosion of computer engineering and computer science, you hear engineer now and it almost seems like that's the GoTo.

Timothy Roemer (23:16):

If I had to say there's a engineering field of the future, I would say electrical engineering is, is the, the category you want to be under. And then you could say sub categories where you get more focused. There's computer engineering. So it's a mixture of the software and the hardware. And then there's the software engineering like you mentioned. So maybe you're going to be on the more software side. Right. And then you got computer science where you're heavily in the programming, Each one of those branches can do that as well. Like so for mechanical you can have aerospace. So there's a lot of similar tools, but now you're going to focus in,

Brad Cooper (23:49):

Yeah, absolutely. You know, I was going to say too, I can imagine with all of them, even including like civil, I would imagine computers now are like ingrained like everything else ingrained pretty deeply in all of those in. And I guess you can avoid it, but it doesn't seem like you can avoid it very much.

Timothy Roemer (24:06):

So I think a lot of the tools [inaudible] engineer's use are embedded in the world of computers and technology and programs. So definitely that's why I say it's kind of the best field to be in right now is because you have an opportunity in every industry, in every workplace. Cause they always need some kind of software in some kind of computer system to do something. Right.

Brad Cooper (24:27):

What are some of the areas like that you, I mean, and I'm guessing in design, I don't know if you do any three D printing. Is there like modeling? Is there like stress testing and what kind of things do you use computers for predominantly?

Timothy Roemer (24:37):

So I've used a mixture in my undergraduate, I did a lot of the computer design. CAD software has the computer aided design. And so that's the three D modeling. And whenever you make a three D model, usually it's three D printed. And that can be from a just a, Hey, look what I made. Or it could be a functional prototype or you can even just use it to make sure the dimensions are right and everything lines up. From a industry standpoint. There's sometimes simulation softwares. So one, one type of software is called finite element analysis. Essentially you break a part down into little tiny elements and then you can see how they act from a thermal standpoint, from a mechanical standpoint. And you can find things like stress concentrations or areas where maybe you're not getting rid of the heat as easily. Right.

Timothy Roemer (25:22):

And then another thing you can do is it's kind of the data processing side. So that's kind of where I've been more of. So in, in all of our technologies, they're collecting data so that way you can get feedback on how they're performing or just the raw information that the design to collect. So statistics is a big area in that and there's a lot of statistical software out there to make things run faster and Excel is a huge component of what people do in the workplace. There's a computational software like mat lab where you can write a program to do out some calculations and make plots and do simulations that way. So there's definitely a lot of programs and technology in the daily work that you do.

Brad Cooper (25:59):

And as you mentioned, it's kind of like overlapping a lot of different areas. So math, I'm guessing some physics, we talked about heat, bad chemical properties, sounds like materials as well.

Timothy Roemer (26:11):

Yup. So I mean it all depends on what area you're focused in. So if your technology has a heavy influence of the materials that they're using, like I know what I'm, where I am now, we use a lot of gold because of certain properties. A very advantageous for us. It again, it all depends on what you're, your industry is.

Brad Cooper (26:29):

So you recently did a lot of work in the automotive, it sounded like lighting area. So what's hot in automotive lighting? So what sounds like LED?

Timothy Roemer (26:39):

Yup. So in the U S actually we have this a little bit of a challenge, right? So to have a replacement forward light that's an led is actually illegal. And so there's a bunch out on Amazon that you can buy and come from overseas. You're not supposed to be able to pop one in randomly. They're not approved for regulation.

Brad Cooper (26:59):

Okay. So main reason you've been approved, but will they be at some point then?

Timothy Roemer (27:03):

Hopefully they will be soon. Before I left my employment. I know they were working on that with the government to get approval to allow that. And they actually have a little statement that says you have to have a filament that runs your light bulbs. So a, an led chip. It's not a filament fine details, but the technology is coming. It was already exists, but not legally, although unless you design a car with LEDs in it, then you can continue to use those types of ladies. They've designed it around this government specifications. So that's new. Another big one is, and this hasn't been approved yet, but it's kind of like a smart headlining. So say if you're, you're driving, right? You want your high beans on cause you get the most light. But if you have a car coming at you, you need to turn off all your high beams. Well this technology identifies where the car is and it only turns off certain LEDs. So that way the driver on the other lane is not being blinded, but you still have all your high beams on everywhere else.

Brad Cooper (27:57):

Right. That's cool. Yeah.

Timothy Roemer (27:59):

And definitely the smart car stuff is kind of new when upcoming. With the automatic driving and how to integrate new led systems into that so they can interact with each other.

Brad Cooper (28:09):

Okay. Well I notice even in our car, our newer car, so we have an old really an old car and we have a newer one. The the lights seem to tilt like depending when you're turning the steering wheel. So like you said, there's like, you know, so it doesn't shine, it'll shine more into the curve or the, or you're going to versus like straight ahead, which isn't very helpful if you're turning a corner. So stuff like that. It seems like they made some, some improvements and yeah. So my oldest son, who is also the star Wars fan is also into like taillights and like the design of them and stuff like that. I don't think he's as interested in like the electrical stuff, but just how the stuff looks. That's like, I guess for, for some people, for like for me it's like, ah, I just look at a car and I'm like, okay, it's got some taillights. But other people are like into the design of stuff.

Timothy Roemer (28:48):

Yeah, I definitely was originally in that category of the just tell lights. But after working in it for almost three years also now you're watching every tail light and headlight that comes by.

Brad Cooper (28:58):

(Laughing) Too close to the work. It's like you're always looking at that. Oh yeah. And you've talked a little bit about just the different skills are required and things like that. So somebody is like thinking, Oh yeah, this might sound interesting to me. I mean what are some of the ways that you explored it as well? You talked about it, there was a program, it sounded like in high school where you got some exposure to it. Then what would you recommend to either parents or somebody who was thinking of a career in engineering and what were some of the, what would be some of the things you'd you'd recommend for them to do to kind of explore that area?

Timothy Roemer (29:25):

Sure. So I think that the easiest place to start in the most accessible in high school physics, you're your standard physics class and your, your standard precalculus class. What you do in those classes is very similar to what you would be doing in college engineering if you hated both of those classes. Engineering might not be, I wouldn't, I wouldn't a hundred percent rule it out. I mean I had my struggles right at the beginning, but if you're passionate and willing to drive through things, then you can really do anything. But those two classes really I think embodied the, the approach to how you do engineering, at least from an academic standpoint. Outside of that you can job shadow. So if you have a family friend who's an engineer or sometimes you can contact your school and say, Hey, is there anybody that's a local company that's willing to take my child for a day, for half a day?

Timothy Roemer (30:17):

And then usually a company will allow them to, to follow a few engineers around and see what they do on a daily basis. The different technologies, those are two ways, at least in high school, I think that you can really try it out. Some high schools offer engineering like courses, so it might not be the project lead the way, but there's other opportunities. Sometimes there are homegrown courses. Some tech ed courses can kind of be engineering in nature. So there's definitely opportunities and then I would encourage anyone to try it out. Yeah, definitely. Worst of cases you come away with some, some neat skill that might be helpful in another industry.

Brad Cooper (30:49):

Absolutely. Yeah. You're always using some kind of math or science or some, you know, some kind of engineering faculties throughout daily life even if you're not, even if you're in marketing.

Timothy Roemer (30:59):

Yeah, actually am I old employment I would say about half of the marketing team were former engineers. Yeah. And it's because of that strong mathematical background, the exposure to the product and that ability to talk technically, but then also use the tools and skill set from Excel and physical software does to help out.

Brad Cooper (31:19):

You know, this issue, we kind of talked offline about it and I know this is kind of one, you know, the whole faith in science, you know, quote unquote debate and quote unquote conflict kind of issue for you. And we didn't mention it at least, but growing up it didn't sound like, Oh, I don't believe in this God thing because it doesn't kind of match with what I know about science and things like that.

Timothy Roemer (31:38):

So I would say from a, what you learn in engineering, it's not going to impact your beliefs. It's not gonna turn them upside down, prove that God doesn't exist or something like that. There is no topic that really would ever bring that up. So there's no opportunity for bias to be brought in or misinformation in sciences. A few times I've heard concerns of parents say in high school for middle school, they have a concern that their child's learned something about the origin of the universe or, or I'm about evolution and there's some miscommunication in there, misinformation and that's caused some questioning in their son or daughter. And so what I would encourage is to, to have a discussion with you, with your child and, and figure out what those specific concerns, confusions, questions are that they have about a specific topic and, and do the research, find out why evolution is not an issue. Find out why our understanding of the creation of the universe is not an issue and doesn't conflict with science and then bring to your child and disgusting with them and, and, and, and gain a mutual understanding.

Brad Cooper (32:43):

Was that an issue for you? It didn't sound like it.

Timothy Roemer (32:46):

My favorite thing is if I don't understand something, I want to understand why. I want to understand more about it, want to learn more about it. And so luckily it didn't hinder my faith because when that question came up and said, okay, this doesn't make sense, there's a conflict here. I started asking the questions, I started looking online and I was able to answer my question. So early on, though, I would say my, my interest and my kind of understanding of faith and science was I could see how complex everything was and how intricate and how detailed and it didn't make sense that it was random. It was just too intricate, too detailed, almost too designed to say, 'Hey, this was just randomly dropped here, like a set of dice and it landed perfect numbers and that we won the lottery and everything fell into place.' So I think that kind of awe that I had for the world and nature and, and just how people grow and develop, it was enough to always push me and say, Hey, this, there's something behind this. Keep looking, keep asking.

Brad Cooper (33:42):

That's great. And how would you say your faith has reinforced your work and vice versa?

Timothy Roemer (33:48):

So, work in enforcing my faith, every day I learn something new. Every day I see how detailed and intricate something is. And it just further emphasizes that there's a creator out there. There's someone who lovingly designed everything around us and has a mission and a guide. And I just love unraveling that thinking to myself, "I'm getting a firsthand view of how God thinks of how he designs things." It's just so great to experienced that. On the other side, how does my faith help in the workplace? Oh, there's a lot of days where you know, you have hard day. All right, you're struggling kind of with your vocational calling. And, and there's been a few times where I was debating whether or not I wanted to get more education or go back for a PhD, but with a young family, it kind of listen to a, another Catholic talk.

Timothy Roemer (34:37):

And it was about a father who was questioning his vocation and wanted to go off and do missionary work and he ended up talking with a religious sister and he asked her what he should do. And she said, Oh, what are you single? And she said, no. And she says, well, you married, you have kids. And he said, yep, I have, I have a daughter. And, and she said, well, your vocation is to be with your family, so go be with your family. And it kind of helped me focus what I'm doing, my career, that my daily work, bring home the paycheck and doing a good job. It's my vocation just to go out and work and provide for my family and protect my family and, and, and help them to be safe and happy.

Brad Cooper (35:18):

Yeah, that's great. And I would say also, I mean, just using your gifts in the workplace that you're in. Yeah. Just a, you know, hopefully designing something cool, whether it's some headlights that keep people from getting in accidents on the road or wherever you are now, hopefully it's not coming up with something and perfecting something that helps people too. So, yeah. And I hear that quite often. You know, there's a lot of people I talk to who kind of have, are torn, they've kind of want to go into ministry or like you said, kind of going on missionary work or something like that. And they have to make that choice at some point. Between that and a career and Paul's choice. I've heard a lot of them make as well do both, which is, it sounds like it keeps you busy and the end with the family, obviously as you said at the very important vocation. There's no reason you can't be a missionary where you are in your workplace as well.

Timothy Roemer (36:01):

Right. I agree.

Brad Cooper (36:01):

That's great. That's great. Well, awesome stuff. So yeah, so God bless you and your family and we've been talking here with Timothy Roemer, he's an engineer and also has a group called Catholic Engineers. And we'll have a link on the page, our podcast page to their Facebook page and their website. Please do sign up with them, like them, check them out.

Timothy Roemer (36:21):

Thank you. Yeah, no, I appreciate that.

Brad Cooper (36:23):

So I imagine you'd very busy preparing for this, the second child here over the next few months. And so are you continuing with the I forgot what it's called. It's not the Jedi class, but it was something else. What was your class called again?

Timothy Roemer (36:35):

(Laughing) Saber Ninja

Brad Cooper (36:36):

...Probably get into trouble with Lucasfilm if you called it a Jedi class.... Saber Ninja!

Timothy Roemer (36:40):

Yeah..No lightsabers, no Jedi. Keep it nice and vague.

Brad Cooper (36:44):

You got to watch out for those kids though. Right? Did they ever get caught blindsided by, is it a soft thing or is it like a hard sword? I mean, what kind of a sword is it?

Timothy Roemer (36:53):

So, so they're actually pretty intense. They they're metal Hilts and they look just like the, the, the real star Wars hilts and they have a high powered LED in them. And then they're polycarbonate tubes that light up like the light saber. It definitely looked better at night than during the day. And and so we actually have to wear kind of like a full armor suit. So we have chest protectors, elbow protectors, shin protectors, a full fencing helmet. So you're totally decked out. That's part of the fun though. Dress up and they're ready to take on the world.

Brad Cooper (37:23):

Very cool. And it gives kids an excuse to wack each other so they don't, you know, it in a safe environment. It's been awesome talking to you. Thanks so much, Tim, for being on the, on the podcast and God bless you and your family and your work.

Timothy Roemer (37:35):

I thank you. God bless.

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