Downing reflects on diverse career

1/25/2017 Christina Oehler, MechSE Communications

  MechSE senior lecturer and adjunct associate professor Stephen Downing has worked in the mechanical engineering field for 46 years, for numerous companies and in a variety of positions— and there isn’t a single one he hasn’t loved.    Downing grew

Written by Christina Oehler, MechSE Communications

 
MechSE senior lecturer and adjunct associate professor Stephen Downing has worked in the mechanical engineering field for 46 years, for numerous companies and in a variety of positions— and there isn’t a single one he hasn’t loved. 
 
Downing grew up in Massachusetts and lived there until he graduated from high school, when his family moved to Illinois. He attended the University of Illinois and graduated in 1971 with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in theoretical and applied mechanics. Following his studies, he began as a research engineer at John Deere, where he worked for 16 years. While working at Deere, he completed his PhD in 1983 at the university in mechanical engineering, studying the fatigue of cast iron.
 
Just four years later, Downing did a complete 180 in his career. He left Deere and moved his family of four to Champaign to work at SoMat, a small, Champaign-based startup led by two MechSE professors. At SoMat, he worked to create data acquisitions systems, and software that collects information about a piece of machinery to prevent technical complications in the future. Due to SoMat’s small size, Downing was not only an engineer for the company, but also did sales, marketing, and electronic design. 
 
“There are advantages to both big and small companies,” Downing said. “While big ones usually have better resources, you might find yourself getting lost in the shuffle. Small companies often lack resources, but you’ll certainly have an impact.” 
 
Although the stark contrast between the two companies forced him to work in two very different environments, Downing enjoyed both positions and the opportunities each of them provided. 
 
“I liked every place I’ve ever worked. I’ve never left a place because I was dissatisfied,” Downing said. “I’ve only ever left companies because I have a strong belief that you should reinvent yourself every once in a while. I had a great time at all of my jobs, but after a while, I want to try something totally different.”
 
He stayed at SoMat until 2004. In 2005, he began as a visiting scholar at the university, where he taught courses part-time for about a year, when he was hired as a full-time lecturer. Over the past ten years, Downing has taught a variety of courses at the university, including classes in engineering materials, machine design, and mechanical component failures. Though he said he has enjoyed every class he has taught, he finds that his particular niche has been the mechanical component failures class, because it closely correlates with what he did at Deere and SoMat.
 
Independent of his current work, Downing has an interest in human mobility, particularly the lack of mobility in the elderly. He said that the intense workout regimen he and his wife have adopted has not only helped him physically, but has sparked an interest in devices for assisting others’ physical mobility and posture—and he said this field may be a potential future endeavor. 
 
“Reinventing myself wasn’t some plan I had out of high school. You work at places and do things, but then along the way you find an opportunity that seems really neat that you can’t necessarily do where you are,” Downing said. “And when you find something like that, you have to take it.”
 
 
 

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This story was published January 25, 2017.