Episode 7: Dr. Steve Moyer, Electrical Engineer

Estimated read time: 1:20

Summary

In this episode of EGR Pod, host Nina Lord interviews Dr. Steve Moyer, an electrical engineer with over 20 years of experience, currently serving as the chief engineer for Customs and Border Protection. Dr. Moyer shares his journey from an early aspiration to be an engineer, through a challenging academic beginning in math, and an unexpected but rewarding path through the U.S. Navy. Despite starting his education focusing on nuclear engineering, he later pursued electrical engineering due to his prior experience as an electrician. Dr. Moyer discusses his continuous learning and adaptability, which led him from electrical engineering to optics and human factors research at the U.S. Army Night Vision Lab, and now systems engineering at CBP. He emphasizes the importance of lifelong learning and embracing new challenges.

Highlights

Dr. Moyer's journey shows that being adaptable can lead to diverse experiences and success across fields 🚀
Foundational skills, like those acquired in the Navy, enhance educational and professional pursuits 🔧
A passion for learning can drive successful transitions between different fields of engineering 📚
Facing and overcoming educational challenges can fortify one's professional and personal growth 🏆
Connecting disparate ideas and concepts can innovate existing systems and methodologies 💡

Key Takeaways

Adapting to change can lead to unexpected and rewarding career opportunities 🚀
A foundation in a trade or skill can provide security and confidence while pursuing higher education 🔧
Lifelong learning and curiosity can guide a versatile and fulfilling career path 📚
Failures and setbacks in education or career can build resilience and new perspectives 🔄
The ability to abstract and connect concepts across different domains is invaluable in engineering 🤝

Overview

Dr. Steve Moyer has certainly taken a unique path to his current role as a senior engineer at Customs and Border Protection. From aspiring to be an engineer at a young age to stepping through rigorous experiences in the Navy, his story is a remarkable showcase of resilience and adaptability.

His academic journey includes overcoming challenges in math, which didn't come naturally at first, to thriving in electrical engineering and subsequently specializing in optics. Along the way, he discovered a passion for interpreting human factors in engineering scenarios, bridging the gap between technical skill and human interaction.

Throughout the interview, Dr. Moyer emphasizes the importance of lifelong learning and adaptability. His unexpected career transitions, driven by curiosity, reflect on the broader idea that technical expertise paired with an eagerness to explore new domains can carve a diverse and fulfilling professional trajectory.

Chapters

00:00 - 02:30: Introduction and Early Life The chapter titled 'Introduction and Early Life' discusses the beginnings of an individual's career journey. The narrator reflects on their academic challenges, particularly in math courses, feeling consistently behind. Despite such setbacks, they express astonishment at eventually becoming a leading technical authority in a major federal law enforcement agency. The narrative emphasizes how the experiences throughout one's life shape who they become. The chapter serves as a welcome to the EGR podcast, where engineers share their personal stories, specifically featuring Steve Moyer, an electrical engineer with over 20 years of experience.
02:30 - 05:00: Educational Path: Bachelor's at Penn State Steve has an extensive educational background with a Bachelor's, Master's, and PhD in electrical engineering. He is currently employed at Customs and Border Protection and has been with the organization for eight years. On the podcast, he discusses his career journey, explaining his initial interest in engineering, which dates back to his childhood, leading to his decision to pursue a Bachelor's degree at Penn State.
05:00 - 07:30: Transition to the Navy The narrator shares a childhood memory of wanting to become an engineer, likely inspired by train locomotives observed during field trips. Over time, the narrator developed a proficiency in science, although math was not a strong suit.
07:30 - 10:00: Return to Penn State The chapter titled "Return to Penn State" discusses the narrator's experience with standardized testing. The narrator excelled in science modules, indicating a strong proficiency in this area, but only performed above average in math. This serves as encouragement for students who might not feel like 'math whizzes' but still perform above average. The narrator recalls dedicating significant time to studying math when they began their studies at Penn State, reflecting on their academic journey.
10:00 - 15:00: Graduate Studies at Georgia Tech The chapter recounts the author's academic journey beginning in 1987 when they were not excelling in their studies, achieving mostly B grades. However, a recruitment opportunity led them to join the Navy, specifically in the nuclear power program. Although their initial college preference was nuclear engineering, this program provided them a practical learning experience. During their six years of service, they were trained to become an electrician. Notably, this occurred after spending a year at Penn State.
15:00 - 20:00: Research with the Army The chapter titled 'Research with the Army' begins with the narrator detailing their academic journey. After being suspended and dropping out of school, they joined the Navy and trained to become an electrician. In 1994, they returned to Penn State, leveraging their prior experience and the GI Bill to pursue a degree in electrical engineering. They were able to get their credits from seven years prior accepted, facilitating their return to academia.
20:00 - 25:00: Role at Customs and Border Protection The narrator discusses their return to college and the courses they chose to undertake, which included 'the history of theater' and 'art history', to avoid overburdening themselves. They explain that they had previously completed the lower division electrical curriculum during their time in the Navy. This prior training afforded them the time to focus specifically on their math studies, like courses in differential equations.
25:00 - 30:00: Reflection and Advice for Students The chapter discusses the challenges and opportunities faced by students in education, particularly focusing on the advantage of returning to studies as a slightly older student. The speaker reflects on the need to regain lost math skills and suggests that maturity and wisdom gained with age can positively influence discipline and approach to learning. This narrative emphasizes resilience and the ability to leverage life experiences to enhance academic performance.

Episode 7: Dr. Steve Moyer, Electrical Engineer Transcription

00:00 - 00:30 it seemed like in every one of my math courses I was two weeks behind in my understanding coming from that environment I never dreamed that I would be the lead technical authority of the largest law enforcement agency in the federal government the person we are today has been forged over a lifetime of experiences welcome to EGR pod where Engineers tell their stories today I'm talking with Steve Moyer an electrical engineer with over 20 years in the field
00:30 - 01:00 he holds a bachelor's Master's and PhD in electrical engineering and currently works for Customs and Border Protection where he's been for the past eight years welcome to the podcast Steve and thanks for joining us today thank you for having me Nina I would love to hear about where you started out why did you choose engineering think back to your childhood or whenever the inkling first occurred that you wanted to be an engineer this is not a firsthand memory of on my own but this is what I've been
01:00 - 01:30 told by my parents was that ever since I was 6 years old I told everybody that I was going to be an engineer now I am sure when I was 6 years old that meant of a a train because I grew up very close to strawber in Lancaster County and there were countless field trips and day trips down to see the locomotives however as time progressed I was very good at science not as good at math really believe it or not yes my father
01:30 - 02:00 recently passed and I found all of the standardized tests and I just tested out of the world on the science modules but not on math right I'm above average in math but no wow that's probably heartening for some of our students because sometimes they don't feel like Absolute Math whizzes though they may be above average well and you know for those students I spent a lot of time studying math when I started down in Penn State date uh was
02:00 - 02:30 1987 I was not doing well I was doing okay right I was pulling bees and you know recruiter got a hold of me next thing I know I'm off in the Navy in the nuclear power program nuclear engineering was my first choice in college went into the nuclear power program in the Navy spent six years there came out uh they taught me actually when I was in there to be an electrician so this was after Penn State after one year of Penn State I uh
02:30 - 03:00 dropped out of school well suspended how about that uh and joined the Navy where they trained me to be an electrician so 1994 I get out I come back to Penn State and I said well I'm already an electrician electrical engineering seems the lowest hanging fruit to get done in two to three years right cuz I had the GI Bill okay and back at Penn State back at Penn State so they were they were good with you coming back they were good with me coming back accepted all those credits from the seven years earlier so
03:00 - 03:30 yeah went back there I my first semester back was I took two classes the history of the theater and art history because I did not want to over tax myself and what I found was that when I went back there I had already completed the lower division electrical curriculum in the Navy right that they had already uh provided me that training so it allowed me that time to just study math I was kind of going to the the dou courses but but you know differential equations are
03:30 - 04:00 not for the faint of heart and and never will be right uh and so it allowed me that opportunity to spend extra time getting those math skills back up because I had lost a lot you were six years older at that point do you feel like the wisdom of being a bit older helped you kind of in those math classes in terms of discipline I would say it helped overall right and I wouldn't specifically point to any single class one I had a skill I had a trait that I
04:00 - 04:30 could fall back on I do remember before I joined the Navy that was my overarching fear was what if I don't make this what in the world am I going to do with myself now going back the second time I'm already an electrician you had something I I worked in a power plant for four years I had that to fall back on I felt relief it took a lot of pressure off not that I goofed off or anything but it just allowed me to relax
04:30 - 05:00 it a little bit and to you know really put forth a good effort in a more relaxed manner which is how I work best what an interesting path so why did you choose to go back and get the bachelor's knowing that you had the trade was it just something you said I was going to do this and now I'm going to go back and finish it or yeah absolutely uh wanted to go back and finish it you know uh I may have still had a little chip on my shoulder that yes you know I I said I was going to get this degree yeah I'm
05:00 - 05:30 going to get it and you did and I went and I did so you were originally nuclear but then you said okay electrical because I already have all this Electronics background during those years that you were finishing the undergraduate degree did you ever reconsider something else or were you focused and electrical engineering was what you wanted I was focused into electrical engineering because as I got into the program I learned more about it and found out my specialization was actually in the field of Optics and Optical engineering
05:30 - 06:00 which is what I studied for my masters in PhD so tell us about how did you get to that Masters in PhD because it wasn't at Penn State it was at Georgia Tech so was there a span of time or was it a direct transfer afterwards oh it was direct transfer uh because since I already had a year of college I had an extra year of GI Bill funding which expires 10 years after you leave the service or it used to expire 10 years after you left the service uh and I thought I'm going to burn it up as as quickly as I can and uh Georg Tech
06:00 - 06:30 was offering a one-year Masters program a paper Masters where you take courses and uh do the projects during the classes after a year you have a master's degree and I thought well isn't that swell so I had just enough uh GI Bill to get the Master's Degree so I wound up in the PHD program um a good friend of mine was studying to take the U I think it's called the preliminary exam to be a doctoral cand Georgia Tech allowed you
06:30 - 07:00 to have the previous five exams and you could work the problems and then once the administration saw that you had attempted the questions they would allow you to examine the answer key in the office you know was not allowed outside the office so I was on academic probation as a master's degree student okay as yes football season was challenging time for my academics so a friend of mine he was studying for it he said you know what it's an anonymous test why don't you sign up the worst
07:00 - 07:30 that's going to happen is that you lose 4 hours out of your life fair enough I said okay fine so I signed up and promptly told no you can't because you're on academic probation so I thought that was it Friday before the exam is given happen to be on campus and the secretary comes in and says Steve wonderful news you're off academic probation here's your code I'll see you 8:00 Monday morning in the auditorium had you prepared no and and Nina I could not have handpicked better questions for
07:30 - 08:00 me to answer that's amazing it was a 16 question exam you had to attempt eight and pass Six and between my Navy experience and teaching digital design as a TA at Georgia Tech that was part of my ta Grant I mean they were asking me questions I had just taught two weeks prior and obviously the optic section had its two questions and I answered both of those I assume I got them correct you you never really find out which ones right what what happens after
08:00 - 08:30 this uh but yeah everything is coded you know I was given a four-digit code it's the questions are split up between the Departments and graded uh in two days was your friend also taking it at this time or had he he did please tell me he also got it he did not make it that's so devastating yeah and I I just felt so bad because he was putting the time in he was doing everything you should do I hope your listeners don't take this as well that means I can just blow everything off it's f driven well it's
08:30 - 09:00 an interesting so of ju to position of maybe my grades aren't the best but I have this knowledge and so you know sometimes students struggle with that that they're focused on a grade when really in reality it's the knowledge that's going to be of import yes and you know I say that to my my children now is that you know I don't really care about the grades what I care about is them learning and getting that knowledge you know the the logic is that if you have the knowledge the grades will follow right but that is not necessarily always
09:00 - 09:30 the case it is not no no it it isn't I do remember an undergrad it seemed like in every one of my math courses I was two weeks behind in my understanding and that you know as soon as that exam was over about a week and a half later I got and I understood everything that was on that exam that's what counts in in the long run yes in the long run That's What mattered well I was going to ask you what your most Vivid memories or experiences in college were those are fairly Vivid in memorable are there
09:30 - 10:00 other things maybe other academic or non-academic or anything else that really just football stands out well there was the Georgia Tech UVA game where I believe Georgia Tech we were down 35 nothing or 35 to3 at the half and then came back to win the game it's memorable we ripped down the goal posts physically yes yes we charged the field and was it a home game it was that's good because been somebody else's go post so so you did you ever return to
10:00 - 10:30 the Navy after that I did no okay no um there was a time I was considering going back in as an officer uh in undergrad money was getting tight and the RC scholarship would have really helped out but toughed it out through those times you know living on the GI Bill and sure you know made it through I believe that was one of the government shutdowns that occurred I was also working at at Penn State on a research project that was funded by the department of the Navy after your PhD at Georgia Tech no no no this while you were at while I was a
10:30 - 11:00 student at Penn State um again because of my Navy background in electrical power one of the uh mining professors up there had won a grant uh and he brought me on to run his lab so this was in the mining department yes as an electrical engineer though yes so maybe you can talk a little bit to the breth of what electrical engineers might do and what particularly you did because it seems like as you progressed through your career you had you played many many different rules is that fair to say or
11:00 - 11:30 did you yeah that is very fair to say in the beginning when I went back to college most of my electrical engineering discipline or education was done in power generation and power usage you know because I was on active warships in the Navy that's what we did right we took the steam that the mechanics made and we converted that into electricity and then we used that to power the entire vessel so coming back to college thought well you know I've done that do I really want to
11:30 - 12:00 pursue that and uh Penn State's program in power generation had fallen into disrepair in the dou E Department it was much more computer focused uh materials focused uh such as IC chips development and building on growing them and then I found the Optics display I thought well isn't this cool so I went through and you know as I learned more and more I thought well this just keeps getting better and better better right um you
12:00 - 12:30 know foe transforms you know some technique that I'm sure you're familiar with well in the Optics realm you can actually do a Foye transform with a lens and I just thought that was the neatest thing since sliced bread and and it kindled that passion there which carried me through my masters of PhD all in Optics yes and Optical engineering then in 2000 I was looking to leave the PHD program my adviser said well I know this guy up in the Army at Fort belore wanted
12:30 - 13:00 to go talk to him see if he needs a co-op student I came up here now this is before finishing the PHD before finishing the PHD I had all my coursework done okay and so I came up here uh worked for the Army at Fort bour as a co-op student and did my PhD research okay so you were still in the PHD program just doing your research and then six years later few published papers and they declared that I was done so not even being sure after one year of Bachelors you went all the way through into a PhD Yeah by accident I didn't
13:00 - 13:30 intend to well I have I have a question I normally ask if you thought your path was predictable but I think that question has been answered yes now now mine is is much more like the random walk so you're now at Fort belir finished the PHD still doing research there and you stayed uh I did stay on until 2015 it was a really good place it's one of the few government Labs that government employees still do research at and so it was really interesting and I actually got more into the human
13:30 - 14:00 factors side of research rather than the straight up mathematical I was in the modeling simulation division at uh the US Army night vision lab and so that division produced a camera model that was calibrated to Observer responses and so I said well isn't that neat and so I started getting more into the human factor side of the research the construct of these experiments and and
14:00 - 14:30 how do we Faithfully represent the human in this mathematical model so this at this point apart from the actual application what you were doing had very little to do with electrical engineering per se correct and now I'm branching into psychology applications so how does that work I know you can't tell us too much but how does that work in the field that you're in that one can make such seemingly radical transitions to to fields that
14:30 - 15:00 are not necessarily engineering even in a sense or maybe I'm misrepresenting tell us a little bit more what you are able to tell us about those sorts of human factors and and the psychology part because of the goal of the modeling that we were doing right it it was literally when a photon leaves a tank and travels through the atmosphere and goes into a camera and then comes up on a video display through until the point says I know that tank is dot dot dot
15:00 - 15:30 that was the goal of the modeling and so everything up until the human is physically derivable and was it was a first principles model starting from the pan distribution of photons leaving a rough surface up until the photons entered the human well actually up until the point that the signal hit the back of your head you know in the brain right because
15:30 - 16:00 we did model photons into the eye and we modeled the uh pupil response and that the your pupil size changes if you're using one eye or two eyes uh you know all of that was physically known already and so what was what was provided me was in this vast model of 144 inputs I had a single number to represent the decision of a human and so I I looked at I said well challenge
16:00 - 16:30 accepted yeah and so I kind of left the physics driven domain of what most Engineers would be and and said yeah I think I can come up with some conglomeration of Statistics to Faithfully represent the human response to this stimulus and were you able if I may ask I think I did uh I think I did it quite well that was most of my my tenure the in the Army was doing those
16:30 - 17:00 type experiments and that started with okay you know what do we need to identify what do we need to U classify you remember 2001 was were the attacks the on September 11th that started something called the global war on terrorism all of a sudden all of these camera models had to be recalibrated from tanks in the field to the urban environment me and my team did all of that research we took it and we we expanded the port folio for the cameras
17:00 - 17:30 to be U measured or predicted their performance in the Urban Terrain uh going against people holding rifles and not tanks uh people holding hand grenades you know people dressed different ways and we calibrated that model to be able to Faithfully compete and and predict the performance of cameras against those different tasks and so the person who is receiving that data the person who you're now studying how they're going to react to it is
17:30 - 18:00 there that vast of a difference in if the image looks accurate and you have 10 people who see the image are the reactions of those 10 people so vastly different that there's usually not we didn't use everybody in the world so we would bring in soldiers and typically these were 18 to 24 year old Soldiers by the time we were doing this research many of them had had combat experience and they came in they said no and they they were actually uh became good partners and offered us
18:00 - 18:30 uh suggestions about how to improve the reality of these tests the model that we're using here the one thing that the model put out is a probability of task completion versus Range and that is where the competition lay in the Army purchasing cameras and camera systems so we would degrade the images and say okay can you see it now degrade some more can you see that I see and all of that right
18:30 - 19:00 so we could map Performance versus degradation and then that degradation we said well the degradation we did here is the same as doing it in distance and that has held up actually fairly well over the years of scrutiny so you're at Customs and Border Protection now tell us a little bit about that I'm a system engineer now oh really yes so back to some engineering I guess it's all Engineering in a it it it is in 2015 I
19:00 - 19:30 transitioned as customs and board protection as a modeling simulation subject matter expert so the Common Thread is this modeling and simulation yeah and which inou there's a lot of modeling and simulation so I get over there as a subject matter expert in modeling simulation CBP at the time said modeling takes too long it's too expensive and not trustworthy so I walked into a very nurturing environment yet they hired someone for it they did they hired me and I had one contractor
19:30 - 20:00 support for a 66,000 person agency oh my goodness and well we did what we could we got it started we built a community of practice we had monthly meetings shared what we were doing you know in this this realm of modeling simulation uh found out that there was about 35 practitioners scattered throughout the agency started pulling them together and about that time is when I left okay and and I became the deputy chief engineer and then the chief engineer of
20:00 - 20:30 CBP which is the position I currently hold is the system engineer for the agency and so I represent CBP in technical matters so this is the day-to-day mostly meetings Communications what what does it look like yeah it's a lot of meetings I am charged with the technical assessment of all acquisition programs all non-it acquisition programs obviously our Chief Information officer takes all the it ones and with the development of
20:30 - 21:00 embedded microprocessors we are now considering almost everything to be mixed and so me and the CIO stand shoulder-to-shoulder uh when these programs come through and say yeah no you got to do your due diligence right you got to make sure that you have operational requirements you got to make sure that you do your functional decomposition down to functional requirements because that's the system of system engineering is making sure that you lower your risk of development so that you get products better products better performing products hopefully at
21:00 - 21:30 a cheaper price that's kind of seeing the big picture there too yeah and actually interestingly I was initially I was not thought of as being able to carry this position because of my PhD and that people assumed that I would be too narrowly focused on cameras and Optical systems and stuff like that I have heard time and again that I I have surprised lots and lots of people more versatile than they expected apparently that's good that's great no thank you what a path it's it's amazing and I I
21:30 - 22:00 guess you did attribute that feeling of the confidence you had knowing you had a trade behind you but that versatility perhaps that was something more innate did you ever reflect on that to think you know some people do get a PhD and they're very hyperfocused on one type of thing and they're not very adaptable not not everyone obviously but you were it was there something that you look back on that says yeah that's how I always was yeah and that and I think that goes back to even the standardized exams
22:00 - 22:30 right it I'm testing very high in the the concept of science you know and and all of that was just seemed innate right the the workings of the universe now to actually calculate something and tell you that yes verely you need to lower the temperature by this amount to make ice you know that was a little sketchy but being able to put the concepts together uh generalize the concepts right undergraduate I have a minor in physics and it turns out that gravity and
22:30 - 23:00 electrostatics are pretty much the same thing the form of the equations are almost identical and I and I think that's actually where I'm best is that I can look at things and Abstract it and say you know well that's just like this other thing over here that I do know about and so I can take my knowledge of oscillators in AC circuits and apply it to your mass and spring problem because the form is identical I guess it comes through curiosity first and Having
23:00 - 23:30 learned some things before you can make the connections yeah yeah and you know and and that's the thing you know be curious be reading uh I read all the time uh technical reading all kinds of read oh oh yes technical technical the book I just finished was systems thinking from I think it was 2001 I will sit down and read an Alber book now yes for fun yes I'm losing my office we're moving buildings we're losing our lease uh so where we're going is a more hoteling type environment so I brought
23:30 - 24:00 all my library from the office home and I thought oh well here's my old calculous book from undergrad let's crack that open I'm halfway through chapter 2 and I am kicking butt good for you I am doing the problems I'm checking them in the back enough books to last you through retirement hopefully well and that's the thing you know I don't know what my retirement's going to bring right uh I'm 29 years in the Civil Service I'm eligible for retirement in a couple years and and do I take retirement and go do something else I I
24:00 - 24:30 have a NeverEnding list of things I would like to do that's fantastic and I think that is really what has helped guide me is that it's being curious like you said you know looking at something saying how does that work well you've said several times wow that's really neat or that's really cool yeah and and just being open to those experiences I think is really what a good engineer is I believe are there things you would have done differently knowing how the
24:30 - 25:00 trajectory went looking back of course you can't know how if you tweet something how it would affect the outcome but are there things that stand out to say oh I would have absolutely this was this was a misstep next time I would have done it differently no no I I honest honest to God I look at that and say if I had done anything differently I may not be here today you know growing up I grew up in rural lanter County of Pennsylvania uh my dad was a butcher worked at grocery stores and actually
25:00 - 25:30 some of the butcher shops up in that area my mom drove school bus I believe my dad went to the 9th grade and my mother dropped out of school in the e8th grade so you were a first generation college student yes um my three brothers none of them went to college coming from that environment I never dreamed that I would be here as the lead technical authority of a 66,000 member Federal agency which is the largest law enforcement agency in
25:30 - 26:00 the federal government life you know the person we are today has been forged over a lifetime of experiences and yeah did I enjoy the Navy no I did not you know I did not like going to Sea and I spent almost four years on a seagoing vessel but without that experience I do not come back and say you know what school is great you know I get to walk outside and see the sky every day it's all perspective it is a and that is what
26:00 - 26:30 life teaches you anything you'd like to leave our listeners with our listeners are predominantly first year engineering students but they could be anyone out there who's listening to this podcast anything you'd like to leave them with yes don't never give up if you fail that test that's fine put it in perspective uh and you may not have that as a freshman in college but this is an experience right failing that test is an experience re-evaluate look at it if that is the path you choose understand
26:30 - 27:00 that you you're going to have to work harder to get passing grades and and that's fine nothing in life comes for free there's going to be work involved no matter which way you go well thank you so much for being with us today Steve it's been really enlightening and and fun to chat with you I didn't know so much about these things that you've experienced so I appreciate you being here well thank you for having me Nina and thank you to our listeners this podcast is produced by Nina Lord and supported by nor Northern Virginia Community College for information about
27:00 - 27:30 engineering at Nova please visit us at nvcc.edu or on Instagram at _ aore n oova