Hoellein Presents Engineering Career to Students
By Lincoln Woodring
Consulting engineer Brian L. Hoellein gave a presentation to the Northwestern High School student body in Mrs. Denise Clemen’s room on Tuesday, Oct. 24 about what it means to be an engineer, the education and skills required, and his background.
Hoellein is a former Northwestern Wildcat who grew up on a farm just 10 miles southwest of the school. After high school, Hoellein attended South Dakota State University to major in civil engineering. Other schools with engineering majors in the area include NDSU, South Dakota School of Mines, and Southeast Tech among others. Some classes he took include mathematics courses, sciences, and even public speaking. Once he graduated from SDSU, Hoellein traveled to Fresno, Calif., to work for Boyle Engineering for five years.
After those years, he traveled back to the Midwest to work for Bartlett and West, an employee-owned engineering company he stills works for to this day. Bartlett and West has taken him to Kansas, Iowa, and throughout South Dakota. In his presentation, Hoellein stated how finding solutions to problems using different sciences and math is not the only skill engineers must have, but also cooperation skills to communicate with businesses.
To become an engineer, he recommends doing many internships during college and doing research on companies beforehand. Hoellein states that the first five years of engineering are primarily technical, the next 5-12 years include full design and layout, and more than 12 years includes project management and full client responsibility.