David works at NanoScience Instruments. Hear how David went from working with computers to working with advanced nanotechnology characterization and fabrication instruments. David talks about how important completing a 1-year certificate from Rio Salado Community College was to his professional journey.
The Talking Technicians podcast is produced by MNT-EC, the Micro Nano Technology Education Center, through financial support from the National Science Foundation's Advanced Technological Education grant program.
Opinions expressed on this podcast do not necessarily represent those of the National Science Foundation.
Join the conversation. If you are a working technician or know someone who is, reach out to us at info@talkingtechnicians.org.
Links from the show:
The Micro Nano Technology Education Center (MNT-EC): https://micronanoeducation.org/
Nanoscience Instruments: https://www.nanoscience.com/
Rio Salado College Certificate of Completion in Nanotechnology: https://www.riosalado.edu/degrees-certificates/applied-technology/nanotechnology-and-manufacturing-5276-ccl
Episode Web Page: https://micronanoeducation.org/students-parents/talking-technicians-podcast/
David works at NanoScience Instruments. Hear how David went from working with computers to working with advanced nanotechnology characterization and fabrication instruments. David talks about how important completing a 1-year certificate from Rio Salado Community College was to his professional journey.
The Talking Technicians podcast is produced by MNT-EC, the Micro Nano Technology Education Center, through financial support from the National Science Foundation's Advanced Technological Education grant program.
Opinions expressed on this podcast do not necessarily represent those of the National Science Foundation.
Join the conversation. If you are a working technician or know someone who is, reach out to us at info@talkingtechnicians.org.
Links from the show:
The Micro Nano Technology Education Center (MNT-EC): https://micronanoeducation.org/
Nanoscience Instruments: https://www.nanoscience.com/
Rio Salado College Certificate of Completion in Nanotechnology: https://www.riosalado.edu/degrees-certificates/applied-technology/nanotechnology-and-manufacturing-5276-ccl
Episode Web Page: https://micronanoeducation.org/students-parents/talking-technicians-podcast/
Peter Kazarinoff 0:02
From MNT-EC, the Micro Nano Technology Education Center, this is Talking Technicians. The podcast about technicians: who they are, what they do, and where they come from. I'm your host, Peter Kazarinoff. I teach technicians and engineers that Portland Community College. In each episode, you'll meet a working technician and hear their story. That means real interviews, with real technicians, about real jobs. At the end of each episode, you'll hear actions you can take if you want to be a technician too.
In this episode, you'll meet David. David works at NanoScience Instruments in Phoenix, Arizona. David, welcome to Talking Technicians.
David 0:50
Thanks Peter, I'm happy to be here.
Peter Kazarinoff 0:54
David NanoScience Instruments is in Phoenix, Arizona. Is that where you live to or do you live close by?
David 1:02
I actually live in a suburb called Peoria, but it's, you know, just right around Phoenix area.
Peter Kazarinoff 1:08
And how long have you been there?
David 1:11
You've actually lived here for over 20 years.
Peter Kazarinoff 1:14
And what brought you to Arizona in this region.
David 1:18
I actually came here in high school and then went to College up in Flagstaff and left. But then when I started having children and stuff, my family was here. So I wanted to come back here.
Peter Kazarinoff 1:32
And how old are your kids right now?
David 1:35
Oh, they're both college age. I have one that's graduating in this May. And then I have another one that's graduating in about a year. So
Peter Kazarinoff 1:43
Congratulations! That's a big accomplishment in parenting when they're almost done with college. Yes, it is for sure. So David, we've talked a little bit about where you live, and your family. Can you tell me about where you work? What is nanoscience instruments? What are they do?
David 2:02
Yeah, so NanoScience Instruments is a value added reseller of sophisticated lab equipment, which is used in many different industries. Some are medical and biological research, semiconductor companies, national labs, police and federal bureaus for forensics, material science research, and we actually have some of this equipment in high schools, colleges and universities.
Peter Kazarinoff 2:28
And when you say a reseller, where does the instrumentation come from? And what kind of instruments are we talking about?
David 2:37
We have various suppliers, the primary ones I work on are the Phenom scanning electron microscopes, and they come from the Netherlands. The other ones that I work on our preparation for the T em, which is a transmission electron microscope, they we have equipment that prepares the samples for those and that's also out of the Netherlands. So.
Peter Kazarinoff 3:01
Can you provide a ballpark of a salary for a technician that would start at nanoscience and instruments?
David 3:09
Yeah, so salaries vary a lot, depending on your experience, but you know, ranges between 50 and 70,000 a year.
Peter Kazarinoff 3:18
So, for that 50, kind of $70,000 a year. Could you describe a little bit to me what you do day to day at work? What is your day look like when you go into nanoscience instruments?
David 3:31
Yeah, so like I said, I primarily work on the Phenom scanning electron microscope. And but I also work on some instruments that prepare samples for the T em so these this equipment is in the labs, in schools and such, what I really do is preventative maintenance on those machines and diagnostic and repair. So if a machine comes into our depot, or I'm on site, there's times I go on site, I evaluate and diagnose really what the maintenance is required. With that with that hardware. I coordinate with the customer. And I talked to them about recommended repairs, required repairs. And then I actually disassemble, clean repair, reassemble and test the equipment. And make sure that it's in top condition before it goes back either goes back to the customer or the customer site.
Peter Kazarinoff 4:29
David, we've talked a little bit about microscopy looking at things which are very, very small. You mentioned the Phenom, and then you also talked about a TEM. Can you explain what type of microscopes those are and what is T E M stands for?
David 4:44
Sure. So the scanning electron microscopes what they really do is they shoot an electron beam at a sample and then there are detectors when those electrons bounce off of the sample. And there are detectors that will look at those electrons. And then computer hardware and software will develop an image of it. So for example, a regular optical microscope can go down to something like 100,000k, maybe more, these can go down to 150 to 200,000x, right? magnification, some of our electron microscopes actually go down to 1,000,000x. So you can look at very, very tiny things. Obviously, the transmission electron microscope, or the TM is a little bit different, it can actually look at smaller almost down to the atomic level. The main differences are that the electrons go through the sample and they don't bounce off the detector is actually under the sample. So that's the primary difference. The T FM's are also extremely expensive, and they're extremely expensive to run. So there's this whole industry to prepare samples to make sure that they're correct. And they're going to give the, you know, the data that they want. And they easily use the scanning electron microscope to pre look at the sample to make sure it's going to work before they even put it in to the tee. So that, you know, they're like I said, they're very expensive to run, and not everybody has them. So they want to make sure that those samples are prepared correctly.
Peter Kazarinoff 6:27
David, are there any opportunities for professional growth in nanoscience instruments? Could you move up or move to a different role within the company?
David 6:36
Yeah, absolutely. So I'm actually called a service engineer, because I have a little bit more experience. But we're a small company, and we have ambitions to be a medium company. And at least I don't know if we'll ever get to a large company, but at least a medium sized company. So we do have field service technician roles. And they can actually work into field service engineer roles. And then we can actually even move into, you know, into leadership roles. We have as a small company going to a medium sized company, we do a lot of promotion inside the company, to retain our talent and to make sure that the company succeeds.
Peter Kazarinoff 7:18
David, we talked a little bit about the salary. But are there other benefits to working at a place like nanoscience instruments, things like health care or dental or retirement?
David 7:31
Absolutely. So this company, even though they're a smaller company, they have all of the benefits that you would get ended up at another company, we have health care, we have dental, we have vision, we have a 401 K for for retirement, and they actually contribute. What's really cool about a small company is that they do profit sharing also. So part of the profit goes to the employees. Since we're not a publicly traded company, we don't have stock options or anything, but we do have profit sharing. And that actually goes into our retirement account, which is really nice. The other thing is that our health care at this company, the way they work is almost free for us. I mean, it's that's kind of unheard of these days, but so there's, you know, there that benefit, which is really great. And then we also they also contribute to some money to our healthcare savings account that we use for paying for our medical, so lots of great opportunities and great, great benefits for this company.
Peter Kazarinoff 8:31
David, NanoScience Instruments sounds like a interesting and great place to work for you. What did it feel like your first day there? What did it feel like going into nanoscience instruments for the first time?
David 8:45
So I was obviously very excited to get into the company. The first day of work at the end of it, I felt like I had gone through a whole semester class in one day. To be honest with you, there was so much to learn about these machines, even though I had had an overview. I, on the first day I was learning how they worked, how to work on them, how to test them, to make sure that they were you know working well for the customers. So it was quite a bit of information. However, at the end of that first day, I was excited for my second day, I was really excited to come back here and start working on the machines. So
Peter Kazarinoff 9:24
David, do you work in a team? Or do you just work by yourself?
David 9:29
I work in a team. So we have a team of eight service engineers. Most of them are here in Phoenix. We have one office in Virginia that we have one of the service engineers out there. But beyond that we actually work with so we're more of a hardware people right they work on the hardware part of the of the equipment. We also have application scientists that are more on the software side so we call them scientists because most of them are either masters or PhD's and they know how to run the machine better. They know how to work with the customers to get the customers data that they're looking for that certain image or that certain Sample Prep or whatever the customer is looking for. So not only do we have a field engineer, team that we work with, but we also work with the application scientists really closely on the customer interactions.
Peter Kazarinoff 10:26
So David, we've talked a little bit about the technical skills that you have in maintenance and repair of these fairly complicated scientific instruments. What about professional skills that you use at work? Things like communication tools with email, or being able to work in a team during meetings? What kind of skills do you use of professional skills at work?
David 10:53
I think any company these days, in any job you have, you have to know how to do email, you have to know how to use spreadsheet, you have to know how to use PowerPoint, those are just N word. You know, being able to write documents. A lot of that is just a given an NDA industry, so on the thing that I add to that, for this particular industry in this particular job is computer skills. So a lot of these machines are not just an optical microscope, they are a microscope that has a built in computer and operating system, and software networking. There's all kinds of information about computers and networking that you have to understand to get into that. So those are other skills that are really important in this industry to
Peter Kazarinoff 11:47
David, we've talked a bunch about nanoscience. So I'd like to maybe transition now and talk about how you got there. So what was your work experience before your current role, and then we can also talk about education experience.
David 12:05
Sure, so I'm a little bit of a different I've actually had three different careers since college. So my first career was as a manufacturing engineer, and I worked at companies like Boeing and Orbital ATK, and actually building equipment, manufacturing engineer position. When I was there, I started getting into 3d solid modeling with some software companies. And that guided me into a career with as a computer engineer, and I spent a number of years in computer in it, which ended up being my second career. And then this one is actually my third careers working in the nanotechnology industry.
Peter Kazarinoff 12:48
So going from working in the software industry, to working in nanotechnology, you probably need to acquire some technical skills, as well as some of the professional skills you talked about. So what education helped you with that transition between that career and what you're doing now?
David 13:09
I received a certificate of completion in nanotechnology from Rio Salado College. And that was, I mean, I could not have done this without that certificate, I learned so much in that program about how post silicon is used to make chips. And you know, how they build things on to wafers and all of the processing in how how things are done in the chip manufacturing and that kind of industry. So without that certificate of completion, I never would have been able to get this job. So even if I had the other skills necessary, like the mechanical skills and being able to take things apart, and you know, I wouldn't have been able to do it without that certificate of completion.
Peter Kazarinoff 13:58
David, how long did it take to do that certificate of completion at Rio Salado community college?
David 14:05
That was the beauty of it. It only took me nine months, I was able to take you know, three classes a day, I did it full time. So I was able to get it done in nine months instead of a 12 month program. But that's the beauty of it is I didn't really need the other humanities. I didn't need a full two year degree. I just really needed the specific skills. And so it was a great program. For me.
Peter Kazarinoff 14:30
That sounds like a really good fit for your role that you have right now. So what was the hardest part of that certificate program? When you went back to school because you mentioned you already had a couple careers before that. What did it feel like going back to school and what was difficult there?
David 14:49
So going back to school was not as difficult as I thought it was going to be to be honest with you, because I treated it kind of like it Did my job so every day I would get up and I would do my work and I would do my schoolwork and eight hours a day. And then I would, you know, kind of take a break for the day. So I treated a kind of like a job. And so that wasn't it wasn't a hard transition. For me, the hardest part for me was actually ended up being the most fulfilling to was that I actually got the chance to go to two different workshops in and actually was able to work in clean rooms. One of them was at Asus, solar fab, here in Phoenix. And there's another one at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. In both of those, I actually got to work with the equipment that's used in every industry, like for chip manufacturing, and you know, all of these other industries that do nano technology. So that was probably the most challenging. It was a it was not it was a little difficult. But it was also very exciting to be able to get my hands on on the equipment and make things so.
Peter Kazarinoff 16:07
So as part of that certificate program, you also got to do some hands on training with some fairly advanced instruments. It sounds like.
David 16:17
Yeah, absolutely. And I think I've talked to a few people in the industry since then, since I got my job and everything, they were kind of surprised that I had that much hands on experience. However, it wasn't part of the program, they were added things. Opportunities that my instructors brought up to me that said, Hey, there's this opportunity, would you like to go. So I would encourage anybody that when those opportunities come up, try your hardest to go and do that i It was such a fulfilling experience for me, both of them were. And I learned a ton about these sophisticated equipment and how to use them and create things. So.
Peter Kazarinoff 16:59
David, what's something unexpected about working in the micro nano industry that you only learned after you started?
David 17:06
I think and I think I mentioned this before, the the most unexpected part was that my experience in computers is still really important. So you know, all of these systems that we work with, they all have a computer built in, and they have computer hardware, and they have computer software, and that display that processes and displays the information that's coming out of the actual microscope, you know, hardware. And so I just really didn't realize how important it would be to have this deep understanding of computers and operating systems. And that's, you know, that was probably one of the most unexpected things.
Peter Kazarinoff 17:45
David, how did your life change, when you started working at nanoscience? What's different now compared to when you were in that certificate program?
David 17:55
But definitely the biggest change is that I'm a lot happier doing what I'm doing. So in the computer industry, it was not a lot of hands on. And I really missed that from when I was a mechanical engineer or a manufacturing engineer at the in the, in the aerospace industry. So really being able to come in and take things apart and troubleshoot and put them back together and get something that's broken to be working again. That's the thing that I really love every day about my job and it really makes me want to come in and you know, be excited about working.
Peter Kazarinoff 18:31
Yeah, David, that sounds pretty fulfilling, I would enjoy doing that too. So what advice would you give to current students or people who want to transition careers and work in the micro and nano industry like you do?
David 18:45
So the number one thing is if they haven't taken it yet take physics and chemistry. If you don't like those subjects, then this probably isn't the industry for you. This industry is all about atoms and electrons and atomic interactions so and then if they do like that and they want to pursue something definitely find a good program in that nanotechnology similar to what was it Rio Salado? The these industries like the chip industries and things like that, medical biological research, battery research, things like that. Are all using this equipment and they're all exploding, right? There's going to be so many jobs in those industries. And they're gonna need these tools to be able to do the work that they do. So I would say you know, definitely look up for a nice and technology program. Also, I think I mentioned this again, take some computer classes, not necessarily programming but maybe networking and things like that just to understand computer hardware and software and operating systems. And probably the the other last advice I'd give is network with people Um, the people that I met at these workshops I'm still in contact with and, you know, these are the kinds of people that are going to help you with your references and recommendations. So I would just say network with a lot of people go to job fairs and just talk to people and things like that.
Peter Kazarinoff 20:17
David, do you have a final call to action for students or people who want to transition careers and work in the micro nano industry that you just talked about has got a lot of growth potential?
David 20:29
Yeah, I would say if you have an interest in science, and you know, and would like to work in these industries, these are a great place to work. Chip manufactures, medical and pharmaceutical research. Battery research, like I said, are all national labs are all have a ton of work to do. And they're all growing and they need these sophisticated tools. So it's a great long term career, and it would be it would keep you challenged every day, I believe and will keep you interested every day. David,
Peter Kazarinoff 21:01
Thank you for being with me on Talking Technicians and sharing your story about different careers that you've had, the certificate program, and now ultimately your work at NanoScience Instruments.
David 21:13
Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Peter Kazarinoff 21:15
Please keep in touch.
David 21:17
I'll do that. Thank you.
Peter Kazarinoff 21:26
Talking Technicians is produced by MNT-EC, the Micro Nano Technology Education Center through financial support from the National Science Foundation's Advanced Technological Education grant program. Opinions expressed on this podcast do not necessarily represent those of the National Science Foundation. Join the conversation. If you are a working technician, or know someone who is, reach out to us at info@talkingtechnicians.org. We're always looking out for great guests to share more stories with you.