Day in the Life: Miguel Quintero (Text Version)

This is the text version of the video "Day in the Life: Miguel Quintero."

My name is Miguel Quintero. I'm an ocean engineer for the Naval Surface Warfare Center at Carderock Division, West Bethesda, Maryland. I'm an ocean engineer who works on several different projects with model scale ships and full scale ships.

I grew up surfing, and I was told if I'm an ocean engineer, I could always be by the ocean. So now I work in a large indoor ocean, but I don't necessarily live by the ocean. I work for the Navy, so we test a bunch of different ships. We work for the Department of Energy and a bunch of other entities that are testing wave energy devices that could further the energy for the United States based on the safety of sailors and the possible use of alternative energy in the future. 

I would say the work we do is pretty important. I'm pretty lucky to be involved in it. Being able to capture energy from the ocean is pretty crucial for our mission.

I got into working here when I was in school. I learned about the David Taylor Model Basin in class, and I came up here for an internship and fell in love, and that's where I knew I wanted to come work.

I don't have a typical day at work, 9 to 5. Every day I come in and I'm doing different tasks; I could be writing a report, working hands-on to build a device, testing a device in the tank behind me. I could be traveling to go on a ship or to go to a site to go test a different device or test a different model. So I don't have a typical workday, but that's what's so great about working here. The best part of my job is being able to work hands-on and then be able to do all the analysis as well. It's not just a one-stop shop, where I do one task every day.

The ocean covers 70% of the world. There's a lot of potential of energy for underwater turbines to wave energy devices to thermal devices that can be implemented at different areas.

I would say to a young person considering a career like mine, if you like working with your hands and doing different projects and not doing the same thing every day, being an engineer, especially an ocean engineer, is a great career path to go. You can work pretty much anywhere; you just have to find what you're passionate about and go for it.

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