32 Shark Encounters 96 semester hours into two years and requires an oral board exam to graduate. You are also working the entire time on a nuclear reactor. When the day came for my oral board exam, I woke up to find my time had been moved up. If there is a time change, it is always later, not earlier. I rushed to put on my dress whites and cut my lip while getting ready. I knew any spot of blood would mean a reduction in points, so I removed a small piece of tissue paper from my lip just as I walked in. Most oral board exams take three hours. At five hours in, a member of the panel said he had one last question. “Were his jokes that bad,” he asked, noticing that I had not cracked a smile when a member of the panel attempted to help me relax. I recounted what happened that morning and said that I was worried if I smiled or laughed, my lip might have split and started bleeding on my uniform, costing me points. The officer laughed at my reasoning, and he was the first to reach across and congratulate me for becoming a U.S. Navy nuclear propulsion engineer. I finally felt I had persevered. Being an inventor requires the same perseverance. You may face or experience failure, but you gather everything up again and give it 100 percent each time. o After high school, I figured I would join the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC). During a conversation with the recruiter, he mentioned nuclear propulsion school and talked me into taking an engineering vocation test he said they would rip up if I didn’t pass. I was 17 and gullible, so I prepared and showed up to take the test. While waiting, two officers walked in and stated I needed security clearance first. So, I signed some documents and returned the following weekend to take it. In the meantime, I applied to an ROTC program. In June, I received a letter from the Pentagon thanking me for my ROTC application, but notifying me I was headed to the Great Lakes instead for boot camp. Turns out, only five percent of candidates pass that test. And since I had signed legal documents that were never torn up, off I went. The good news was I would be headed thereafter to nuclear school. But just weeks before I was due to finally start ROTC, I was informed I would have to wait until next year. A petty officer said that the reason was, “We didn’t like your photos.” I started cleaning out my locker, but decided I would not quit. Finally, I entered the school, which basically packs Backstory Llaguno’s Vision: Drive innovation in technology to improve our quality of life and efficiently manage energy. Chuck Olzach, B.S., Culper Technologies vice president, holds the temperature gauge device chip while showing the phone app that allows customers to direct heating and cooling to the room they are in or will soon occupy. Culper’s pilot study in a 2,100-square-foot home showed that the start-up’s system saved the homeowner $212 over three months. Llaguno holds his grand- father’s book on forms, notary publics, and juris- prudence while rattling off other energy inventions already in the pipeline, as well as other ideas in the works. CONTINUED FROM PAGE 29
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