Simpson Strong-Tie branch engineer, Dante Khachadourian discusses his journey from student to engineer. From his childhood days of playing with wooden blocks to earning a degree in civil engineering and obtaining his P.E. license, Dante’s path led him to Simpson Strong-Tie, where he found fulfillment in a diverse range of responsibilities as a branch engineer. Today, Dante navigates his day-to-day duties with enthusiasm, supporting designers, builders, and collegues alike to accomplish our mission of helping people build safer, stronger structures. 

My engineering journey began back in the early 2000s in the living room of our house, playing with wooden blocks and building towers as high as I could reach without letting them fall over onto little brothers (the authorities having jurisdiction [aka my parents] had a set a restriction in our home on the maximum height of unreinforced wood block structures). My nascent construction skills could have gone towards either architecture or engineering, but thankfully the latter won out as I evolved into a Lego fan, like many aspiring engineers. Pop is a civil engineer, so whether my tendencies toward engineering were founded primarily in nature or nurture may forever be in debate as I was encouraged to consider engineering as an enjoyable, profitable and generally amazing way to become an upstanding member of the community.

When I came of high school age (I was homeschooled K-12), I expressed my interest in engineering, and additional rigor ensued as I focused on STEM classes, and my parents accelerated my curriculum so that I could begin taking Advanced Placement tests before starting college. I also started taking classes full time at Modesto Junior College during my senior year. After taking a one-year stint at MJC, I transferred to CSU Sacramento. There I plunged full force into the general engineering and civil engineering classes, glad to have the general education courses behind me. In my senior year, I finally was able to take eagerly awaited elective design classes like wood, steel, and concrete design, with of course the associated labs that allowed us to touch, smell, and build with the materials we discussed in the classroom and learned from the white board. Those classes gave that final reassurance to me that I had chosen the right profession, because despite the long days and short nights, I loved what I was doing.   

I especially appreciated that most civil engineering classes at Sacramento State were taught by licensed engineers, who had real-world experience that they incorporated into the classes. Many of them (Dr. Fell, Dr. Armstrong, Dr. Fogarty) were also kind enough to give me extracurricular advice on my future and my transition there from college. It was during my senior wood design class that I first encountered Simpson Strong-Tie on a professional level, when Professor Scott-Hallet had a Simpson guy named Sam Marcoux come in and talk about engineering with our class. In my entire college experience, Simpson was the only company that ever came into a classroom to speak to us, and it made a distinct impression on me, that these Simpson people thought that students were worth the time and efforts to go out of their way andto engage with us.

After two and half long (but somehow also short — I’m convinced time flows differently on a college campus) years at Sacramento state, I graduated with a B.S. in civil engineering scl in the fall of 2019 (barely dodging the COVID scholastic experience, thank God). Despite my dad working at Simpson for 20+ years, my ending up at Simpson was by no means a foregone conclusion, primarily due to my ignorance of the wide variety of roles available here at Simpson. I finished my last college assignment on a Friday, and Monday I started full time at the structural design firm in Modesto where I had interned the previous summer. I was there for three years working on wood and steel structures, but just after obtaining my P.E. license, Pop happened to be in a meeting with Louay Shamroukh (my current supervisor) and mentioned offhand that I had just become licensed. So I found myself in  Louay’s office a week later, and after he opened my eyes to the type and scope of work I could expect, I started shortly afterwards as an associate branch engineer at Simpson Strong-Tie.

It’s hard to typify a workday at Simpson because my responsibilities as a branch engineer cover such a wide variety of activities. I could be behind a computer punching numbers on a calculator to determine the load of a misinstalled product, walking the shop floor with a tape measure taking measurements to improve warehouse efficiency, or making presentations out in the field to help our customers better understand how to specify and use our products. Or you might find me building and crushing test specimens, on the phone with a homeowner who isn’t sure what the actual dimensions of a 2×4 are, and then on another call with the principal from an engineering firm discussing the nuances of an obscure code section. From preliminary product development and exploration to leading product demos for code officials or middle schoolers, or on a video call helping a specifier leverage our online web apps and resources to achieve higher productivity, there’s always something I can do to engage with our customers and elevate ourselves as a company.

Collaborating with our sales folks, problem-solving with people in the engineering department, or learning from senior members of the team are all part of the continual exchange of knowledge that allows us to learn together as a company in our quest to help people design, build, and live in safer, stronger structures.  

I would say that my schooling did a commendable job in preparing me for life as a professional engineer. Juggling class and assignment schedules, working together on projects and assignments with other students, and learning from professors and textbooks, all translated into my post-college career. Those skills correlate directly with managing a schedule as a professional, collaborating with coworkers and external clients to find solutions, and continuous learning from my colleagues and on my own to improve myself in my field. An innocuous-sounding class I took in junior college that became revolutionary for me was “Public Speaking,” and I would say that being able to communicate effectively and coherently in front of an audience is potentially the single most important soft skill that a professional can possess. Another step I took that I would highly recommend to any aspiring engineering student would be to get an internship at a company in your career field. Preferably, the internship would be at a company you might want to work for in the future so you can get a feel for the culture of the company, but pretty much any internship will give you a feel for what a professional environment is and how you can better prepare to enter that environment when you graduate. 

I’ve been here at Simpson over a year now, not enough to claim complete knowledge about it but enough to have a pretty well-developed perspective. For me, there are two main factors that determine your satisfaction with your job: the work you are doing from day to day, and the people or environment where you’re doing it. For me, I really enjoy the type and variety of work that I get to do here at Simpson, and that keeps me engaged and motivated; going to work without dreading it and finding fulfillment in that work is an awesome feeling.

However, the people and culture here at Simpson are the best part of the job, penultimate to none. The company culture is well summarized in Barc’s Nine Principles, and there’s a camaraderie in the air reminiscent of a sports team. The folks around here are kind and  supportive, and it is amazing to know that your coworkers have your back and are available to help. With all this in mind, it’s easy for me to understand now why my dad and so many other people have stuck around for the long haul at Simpson Strong-Tie. 

“When people join our company, they don’t come for a bus stop. This is a career.” — Barc Simpson