Alumni Stories

Darrin Kotecki ’89 ‘90
Civil Engineering
Darrin Kotecki, PE, went from being a teenage entrepreneurial house painter to the President of GPD Group—an employee-owned engineering and architecture firm headquartered in Akron.

Paul Wischt ’15 ‘17
Mechanical Engineering
As a product design engineer in the Consumer Tire Technologies division at Bridgestone Americas, Wischt’ s job includes engineering design, prototype tire builds, experimental testing, and working through process to release a safe and reliable product to mass production.

Andrew Ditto ’04, ‘10
Biomedical Engineering
At the end of the senior year of his undergraduate program at UA, Ditto found out that a new professor who specialized in nanotechnology was joining the department. He applied to the master’s program to study under Dr. Yang Yun.

Yongqing Cai ‘19
Chemical Engineering
He leapt thousands of miles from Jiaxing, China, to study engineering in the United States. Then, after earning his bachelor’s degree in Iowa, he leapt another 700 miles to pursue a master’s degree in chemical engineering at The University of Akron (UA).

Clayton Reakes ‘15
Mechanical Engineering
As a research scientist at Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio, Reakes uses finite element analysis to solve engineering problems for commercial clients in various industries, including aerospace industry and government.

Daniel Shy ‘19
Engineering
Daniel Shy enjoys the rare distinction of having actually reinvented the wheel – and the rarer distinction of having done it three times. Sometime Air Force serviceman, carpenter, engineer and businessman, he is currently a technical account manager and senior customer engineer at Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.

Joshua E.J. Thomas ’14 ‘19
Civil Engineering
While attending high school in Columbus, Ohio, Thomas decided he wanted to design and construct rollercoasters. His altitudinous aspirations carried him, instead, to the Air Force– with deployments spanning the globe – before deciding he wanted something a bit more “grounded.”