Georgia Tech Scheller MBA students with an engineering background bring unique perspectives to the classroom, and eventually, the wider business landscape. After graduation, they pair an innovative outlook with finely tuned business skills to navigate the interconnected spaces between industries.
Starting a company pushed me to pursue an MBA. I had spent my whole career on the technical side of aerospace and defense. Then, when I co-founded Lola Vision Systems, I was suddenly the one reading partnership agreements, sitting in on investor calls, and building the project plans that decided how much we needed to raise. I could keep up in those rooms, but I wanted to lead them.
This year Purdue University named me to its 38 by 38 class, and that recognition made me stop and think hard about what the next ten years should look like. Engineering got me here. The business side is what gets me where I'm going, and I didn't want to wait for the company to get bigger before I started.
The calendar has been the biggest challenge. A full-time engineering job, a startup, and evening classes all want the same hours. What's worked is treating my week like a budget: everything gets an allocation, and if something new comes in, something else moves. I also keep one night a week completely off-limits for work and school. I've watched good engineers burn out by skipping that, and I'm not interested in learning that lesson the hard way.
Systems engineering trains you to ask three questions about everything: What does this need to do, how will we know it worked, and what happens if we're wrong. I catch myself asking those same questions in class, whether the topic is a marketing strategy or an operations decision. The adjustment has been accepting that most business problems don't have one right answer. An avionics system either passes verification or it doesn't. Business is messier, and I'm learning to be comfortable with that.
I have not begun taking electives yet, but I already know where I'm headed. I'm pursuing the TI:GER concentration (Technology Innovation: Generating Economic Results) because it's built for exactly my situation: You have a technical product. Now turn it into a business.
I'm also taking AI and the Digital Frontier this fall, which lines up almost perfectly with what we're building at LVS. Outside of class, the CHARGE Leadership Program has been a good complement because it's built around a personal leadership plan.
Engineers are adept at breaking things down. Engineers get trained to take a big, fuzzy problem and chop it into pieces small enough to actually solve, and that habit has carried me through every case study and group project so far, especially the ones where five people have five different ideas about the deliverable.
A close second is comfort with data. Foundations of Data Analysis felt familiar right away, because I've spent years staring at test results and asking whether the numbers support the conclusion.
Accounting and finance were areas I needed to strengthen. I'd already been through fundraising conversations and contract negotiations at LVS before I could confidently read a capitalization table or a set of financial statements. I felt that gap in real time.
If I could go back, I'd spend a few months on the basics of financial statements and startup finance before day one. It would have made the first year of the company easier and the first semester of the MBA less of a catch-up.
I’ve been intentional about showing up to what's already on the calendar instead of trying to add more to it. The Evening MBA cohort is a built-in network of working professionals from every industry, and the program's social and leadership events have made it easy to meet people outside of the defense industry.
The 38 by 38 recognition has also connected me with a group of Purdue alumni doing interesting work across engineering, which opened conversations I wouldn't have had otherwise.
On the startup side, every customer and investor meeting is networking, whether you call it that or not.
Short term, I’m focused on growing LVS from a founding team into a real company and growing into an executive role that spans both technology and business. Longer term, I'm drawn to senior product and program leadership in defense technology, where people who can speak both engineering and business are still hard to find. I also keep an eye on the investing side of deep tech. I've sat on the founder side of that table now, and I have a much better sense of what it takes.
Technical credibility can get you in the door, but it doesn't close the deal. What employers want is an engineer who can translate, meaning they can explain a technical risk in terms of schedule and cost or tell a customer what a requirement means for their mission. Engineers who can do that get pulled into business decisions fast.
I've seen it from both sides, as a candidate and as a founder who hires engineers. Recognition like the 38 by 38 award helps because it signals that the engineering community sees leadership, not just technical depth. The MBA is how I make sure I can back that up.
Two books I'd hand to any engineer heading toward the business side:
On the people side, my co-founders have been the biggest resource because they pushed me into business conversations before I felt qualified for them.
Three organizations have been constants for community, mentorship, and service: the National Society of Black Engineers, the Purdue Engineering Alumni Association, where I serve on the board, and Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.
First, AI is moving to the edge, onto aircraft, vehicles, and sensors instead of living in a data center, and that changes where value gets created and who captures it.
Second, non-traditional defense companies are changing how fast technology reaches the field and how startups compete with the big primes.
Third, model-based and digital engineering is quietly changing how complex products get designed and how teams work together.
The common thread is that the line between a technical decision and a business decision keeps getting thinner. If you can stand on both sides of it, you're going to have options.
At LVS, almost every business decision has an engineering dependency. When we review a partnership agreement, I'm the one flagging what an acceptance criterion or an export control clause actually means for the product. When we build a project plan, the engineering scope drives the budget, and the budget drives the raise.
At L3Harris, I lead change processes across engineering, configuration management, and contracts has been an unofficial course in cross-functional leadership. In both roles, the engineering background is what gives me credibility in the room. The MBA is teaching me what to do with it.