 A first small step in my career was winning a graduate research fellowship from the National Science Foundation to pay for my graduate education. A second small step in my career was going to Purdue and using that graduate fellowship to get a PhD in mechanical engineering. A third small step was taking a leave of absence from my research career to go to the National Science Foundation, which is the agency that funded that original graduate fellowship, and serve a two-year rotation as a program director for the combustion program. The giant leap in my career happened several years later when I returned to NSF to be an executive leader of the Directorate for Engineering. I am Linda Blevins, PhD, mechanical engineering, 1996. I am a Purdue engineer.