 Purdue Engineering helped me tremendously in that it allowed me to start over. I started, as I mentioned before, as an architect with an architectural undergraduate degree and Purdue University took a chance in me. They invested in me sufficiently that I was able to change courses in my career and the result of that is everything I've achieved professionally thereafter from the people that work in our company to the mentorship I'm able to do here on campus they are all the results of Purdue's investment in me allowing me to chart my course. I was able to get my master's degree in two years and the reason was I quit my job full-time and came back to Purdue and by doing so the university supported that by offering me a partial fellowship which supported some of my financial need and able to be able to do that and as I said before that's one of the reasons why I am constantly working to repay the investment that university made in me some 25 to 30 years ago. Regardless of your age, get a mentor. It is fundamental to our career, to our progression, to advise ideas to improved outcomes by having a sounding board for the things that we do and the second is, it sounds a little corny, give back. I just got through spending an hour with senior students here at the university talking about my life experience and giving them an opportunity to find out from me how they too can accomplish better in their careers and so that would be my advice to students, make sure you have a mentor and give back. The three small steps that come to mind in my engineering career were one, choosing Purdue University for my graduate degree. The second was working under great mentors and the third was having the faith to go out into business as a business owner. The one giant leap that relates to my engineering career is the current business that I have started that has grown from 10 people to 40 people in six years. My name is Ken Beach. I have a Master's of Science in Civil Engineering from Purdue University in 1994 and I am a Purdue engineer.