YPAB Spotlight

Each quarter we will feature one our YP's!  Check back to meet another YP just like you!

Name:  Rob Sanders

Alma Mater: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Most people know it as Virginia Tech)

Company: UOP, a Honeywell Company

Job Title: Process Advisor, I will be traveling worldwide for 3+ years and directing refineries how to run process that they have bought from us.  In short, I will be professionally homeless.

Favorite Thing about your Job: The variety of what I can do.  I started in R&D and have switched between three different technologies in a span of 1.5 years.  There is never a day where I know exactly what I will be doing going into it (minus the days with meetings...).

Favorite Class Ever: I was one fo the few people who really enjoyed UO lab.  It was the first time I had a chance to play with distillation columns and  manipulate control systems  without someone yelling at me.  It could also be because VT holds it over one summer session, and I did not have to worry about any other classes.

Hometown: Olathe, Kansas (It's not as rural as you think; its population is over 120,000)

Things most people don’t know about you: I was the VT paintball club president during my senior year at college, and I am known to put 25,000 miles on my car a year.

Personal Curse: Anytime I go to a VT bowl game or championship game, VT ends up losing.
2005 ACC Championship - loss
2006 Chick-fil-A Bowl - loss
2007 Orange Bowl - loss (Special note: we lost to KU, where my sister happened to be going at the time.  Worst drive home ever.)

The years I did not go to the game:
2008 Orange Bowl - Win
2009 Chick-fil-A Bowl - Win

Dream Vacation: Hiking any mountain range, that was one thing I do miss from school.

Your Hero: Outside the obvious like MacGyver, it would probably be my grandmother.  Without her, I would be only a fraction of the person I am today.  (It's up for debate if that is a good or a bad thing.)

AIChE Member Since:  2007

AIChE Involvement:  Chem Day 2009, Dupage Eweek 2010, STEM Career Fair 2010 and a few other outreach programs.

Why you like being involved in YPAB/AIChE: I love the outreach programs.  Very few people understand what a chemical engineer does.  I like the challenge of trying to educate those people on chemical engineering.

Past YPAB Newsletters:

Fall 2005 Newsletter

Summer 2005 Newsletter

Spring 2005 Newsletter