Unexpected paths can be taken by an engineer with an engineering degree.

“I figured I’d start this as a little hobby job and it took off,” said John Blichmann, founder and president of Blichmann Engineering, a design and manufacturing company that sells engineered beer and wine brewing products. “I started this in my garage.”

After graduating from Loras College and Iowa State University with a degree in mechanical engineering, Blichmann, now 59, was born and raised in Dubuque. Technical sales was where he started his career at Caterpillar in Peoria, Illinois.

“Our CAT dealers would call in and have questions about a product: ‘How do I size a radiator for this? How do I install a generator?’” he said. “Just lots of different questions like that.”

By 1992, Blichmann was back with Caterpillar and again in the Midwest, this time in Lafayette, Indiana, after a similar career in the petroleum business in Texas providing oil field drillers.

“We were thinking it’s time to settle down and have a family,” he said.

Blichmann’s career path as an engineer was still quite conventional until he and his spouse received an invitation to a coworker’s house for supper. After tasting homebrewed beer for the first time, he started making his own. He used his technical skills to create a few conical stainless-steel containers for his new interest after realizing he needed a tiny fermentation tank.

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SOURCE: The Gazette
PHOTO CREDIT: Blichmann Engineering