Employee Spotlight

Brad Rhee

Why did you choose engineering as a career path? When did your career shift to Information Technology?
Both my father and older sister have engineering degrees in the mechanical and aeronautical engineering fields. Knowledge of their accomplishments helped give me the drive and ambition to pursue my own career in the engineering field. Also, I have always loved to draw with drafting instruments. My interest in drafting started in the 8th grade. Ever since the 8th grade, I have taken every drafting and CAD (Computer Aided Drafting) course that was offered in high school and college. When I was in high school, I would just pick up miscellaneous items around the house and draw assembled details of them with drafting instruments in my spare time for fun.

Initially, my career started in the CAD department. Eventually I made the career change from the CAD department to the information technology network administration area during my employment at a former company. The former company’s IT Network Administrator resigned and one of the office managers asked me if I was interested in trying out the open position in IT. I didn’t have any background or prior experience in information technology or the information services fields at all, but I thought I would give it a try because it sounded interesting and because I have always enjoyed a good career challenge. Although the first couple of years were very difficult in the IT field, things eventually became easier as I taught myself how to learn more about solving daily IT issues. I’m still presently working in the IT field as the office Network Administrator.

Where did you get your degree and in what discipline?
I earned my Associate’s degree at Vincennes University in Industrial Drafting Technology. I also took two years of drafting at a vocational school during high school.

How long have you worked at Applied?
I have been working for Applied for 8 years.

What is your specialty? Field of expertise?
CAD (Computer Aided Drafting) and IT (Information Technology).

What has presented the biggest challenge in your career?
When I started in the Information Technology position, I didn’t have any prior training or experience in the IT career field. The first two years of my IT job position were exceptionally challenging because I didn’t have anyone internally that could help answer any of my IT technical questions, so I basically had to learn about research methods and how to figure things out on my own. After the first few extremely challenging years, solving issues in IT started to become much easier. However, making sure all server operations and individual computers are always up and running correctly is still challenging. New software and hardware environments still continue to present newer and bigger challenges on a daily basis.

What do you enjoy most about your job and working at Applied?
The Principals of the firm are very down to earth people, and their doors are always open if I want to talk to them about any issues of concern. I also appreciate the opportunity for personal and professional growth that has been made available to me since I started working for the company. Allowing my position to further shift from CAD to IT has really challenged me and enabled me to learn so much throughout the years.

Another great thing about my position is that I get to interact with all employees in our company on a more personal basis while helping resolve their individual IT issues. It’s also fun to be the person that gets to deliver new computers or programs to staff members; everyone is always very happy to receive a new computer.

Do you have any hobbies or outside interests?
I like to run to help me stay healthy. I run somewhere around 4 to 7 miles per day most days of the week, and I’ve been doing this for about 5 years. Sometimes I run before and after work all in the same day. The hard part about running is that it takes up so much dedicated time each day; typically each time I run it takes at least a half hour and can take up to two hours when I run 10 miles.

I also love spending time with my dogs; they’re like big furry kids to me. They mean everything to me and I spend a lot of my free time playing and interacting with them. My four dogs are Kaylo (a Norwegian Elk Hound), Blanca (a white German Shepherd), Misha and Nikku (both Boston Terriers).

Is there anything else about yourself that most co-workers and client contacts don’t know?
I’ve been a member of a Mazda RX-8 Car Club for two years. We travel about once a month during the summer to local and regional car shows and performance events (usually in Indiana). The Indianapolis club is one of the largest RX-8 clubs in the region based on the number of members and cars.

I also have a black belt in Tae Kwon Do; I earned it during high school and college. I used to fight in a lot of tournaments. In high school I won 1st place in the state of Indiana in the Junior Olympics two years in a row, and I also won 2nd place in a national Junior Olympic tournament.