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Damani Proctor: aeronautical engineer career. Human action and reaction in motion

Do you want to be inspired by the successful and passionate people in aerospace and aviation?
Test if you can handle this domain, see what they did right and where other leaders went wrong. Look clearly at this path and you will immediately feel if you resonate with the personality that steps into our interview today.

He is a genius man, who went from staring and chasing planes as a child to hopping into real adventurous flights with historical figures. He trained a lot to enter the qualifications for Air Force ROTC. It’s heartwarming for your parents and relatives to see you as the first person from the family that got into NASA, to work as a representative for your community, whether through the national society of black engineers, helping promote STEM programs, working as a panel judge for the math engineering, science achievement.

5th force: ambitious aerospace engineer

Damani Proctor is the most significant and attractive intersection with ambitious aerospace engineers, space launches, and future exploration. 

He was inspired by Howard Hughes and trained by the engineer Mr. Wysong, who developed an engineering program at Portland community college because he felt that young minds needed to be trained and disciplined. His childhood was influenced by planes, designing vehicles, and playing around with rocketry. Everybody felt that he wanted to go to work at NASA, that wanted to get into the space program. 

The most precise expressions that are in harmony with Damani

Corporate Executive Officer – International Space Agency
Observatory Site Technician
Aerospace Engineer
NASA Student Ambassador

We recommend you follow his professional path, his career, and the dedication that can be felt in his life story and big inspiring professional achievements.  Damani studied from 1993 – 1997 with an Associate’s Degree, in Mechanical Engineering Tech, then continued his studies at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University with a Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering. Most recent studies took place at Portland Community College, Associate’s Degree in Microelectronics. Activities and societies: NASA Oregon Space Grant. Worked at PCC as a Tutor, Lab aid, and student.

Damani Proctor -aeronautical engineer career

The iconic Howard Hughes still changes lives

The little boy Damani had the chance to look into the sky and truly live the emotions of every perfect lift, constant altitude, and breathtaking landing. He felt this was his second home and wanted to go for a ride. 
His dad introduced him to aviation. This feeling lived and bloomed in Damani’s heart, so he started looking for friends with similar interests. Here was the starting point for his quest to become an engineer.

Howard Hughes was an American business magnate, record-setting pilot, engineer, and film producer. Damani was inspired by Howard Hughes, who not only designed airplanes but also tested them and was a great entrepreneur of his time.

Hughes acquired enormous wealth and celebrity through his various ventures. He set numerous aviation records, and his Hughes Aircraft Company built such notable planes as the Spruce Goose.

On September 12, 1935, in an airplane of his design, he established the world’s landplane speed record of 352.46 miles (567.23 km) per hour. On January 19, 1937, in the same craft, he averaged 332 miles per hour lowering the transcontinental flight-time record to 7 hours 28 minutes. Flying a Lockheed 14, he circled Earth in a record 91 hours 14 minutes in July 1938. The following year Hughes bought a share of Trans World Airlines (TWA), and he eventually acquired 78 percent of its stock.

Balanced forces helped Damani get career altitude

Can you share with us some insights from the first jobs you engaged in? I mean what you have learned from each of them? ( like how to handle stress). 

I started work pretty early and part of it was working with my dad and helping him out while he was cleaning the church and started out doing custodial work right around third grade, and this moved on to doing some work for the urban league. My introduction to the workforce taught me that it was definitely environment based if there were some politics that you had to be aware of, and in our town, at the very small time, it was a very tight and somewhat exclusive network. The challenge was making sure you knew the right people to get into the right kind of jobs. This town had its quirks, which were pretty much very cliquish. But also that you had to pay attention to the jobs that were in demand and see if you could meet that need and that either meant finding someone that could teach you to do those skills we’re getting some kind of an internship program.

aeronautical engineer career

Understand the work culture

Most jobs come with a certain amount of stress what’s important is before you get the job kind of study the environment, understand the work culture see who and what kinds of people you have to deal with, and understand the situation at hand, and sometimes that might require reading up on the company, talking to employees learning a bit about your interviewer and boss finding out what kind of people they’re looking for as well as departments to be aware of. With that said some companies would put marketeers against the engineers, and how that would work is the marketeers would promote and sell their services and pass that project around to management. That project would later on be pushed to engineering and deadlines would be put on it, whereas if it had a 10-week deadline and six or seven of those weeks were put into marketing and promotions. 

Then it gave the engineers a lot less time to design it and get it into production and get it out the door that can cause a lot of stress, but it’s also something to be aware of when looking at companies and sometimes this meant that the engineers would have to spend long hours like 80 hours to get that project designed and pushed out in time so that production had enough time to make it and then the engineer may have to shadow that project until it’s out the door to make sure that marketing did not come back and mess with it.

Understand and test the software

Students must be proactive about the types of software that each company uses. 

 

Usually, schools are about 5 to 10 years behind the industry when it comes to software, and sometimes they are untrained, and they expect the employer to provide all software training. On that note, you also want to make sure that you have a lot of skills to offer so that even if you are an engineer, you can still do redundant work, and this can also be good leverage because unskilled people cannot do your job and such colleagues can work faster when an engineer works alongside them.

Free will or influence?
Aeronautical University Doors

A great example is the engineering professor Mr. Wysong, who resigned from the CEO position at Boeing to start the engineering program at Portland community college. 

Damani found inspiration from his professor, who wanted to help young minds to become engineers, and Mr. Wysong poured his heart and soul into this program. After this, he opted to go to Embry Riddle Air Force ROTC program, and he wanted to get into the military and get access to space qualification.

No unbalanced forces in steady, straight flight to fulfillment

Damani decided to enter the film industry, and he thought of acting as an alternative rather than going back to working in warehouses in fields because he hoped for higher horizons.

He met Damon Jones, for which he did volunteer work and who allowed him to see behind the curtains. It was only the start of TV shows, commercials, modeling gigs, and even some movies. Being in film and fashion has allowed him to meet celebrities, get to know some of them, and train to get better filming roles.

Tips and tricks for promoting math, science, and engineering programs from NASA experience

Space exploration, engineering, aviation, and young people who want an aerospace career can be a rare topic. Genius people dedicate their lives to research and work for human-kind wellness. 

Get face-to-face with the champions of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics).  Young people need interaction with astronauts, firefighters, engineers, and other professionals from these fields. Kids need to be encouraged to think about how they would solve a problem, get into competitions, and learn about aircraft launches. 

A funny and engaging challenge for kids is the Egg-drop project – they design a contraption using various materials (usually recyclables) to protect a raw egg from a high fall. The “Space Grant” organization offers kids a magical and realistic environment to learn about space. These programs start from kindergarten and go up to the Ph.D. level. 

People are involved in field trips and hands-on activities. Kids get super enthusiastic and curious about this field. STEM has struggled in promoting these activities, mainly because it’s associated with being a nerd, and it’s not cool for kids. 

Action & Reaction: advice for young students

Understand the importance of having a second plan for your career, so you don’t get disappointed by your abilities. Whenever one object exerts a force on another object, the second object exerts an equal and opposite force on the first, as Newton once said.

Don’t stay in one place for the rest of your life. When the opportunity knocks at your door to make decisions and choices, go for them.

“I think the most important thing is there a lot of people that I have come across that wish that they met me earlier so I would not have had the situation because I would be in a network that been able to get me to where I needed to be a lot faster than waiting until I graduated from community college only to find out that the school Embry Riddle did exist. I wanted to take steps to get my STEM classes out earlier”.

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