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Temecula Valley STEM Patent
As your neighborhood real estate professional, I’ve had the opportunity to work with amazing professionals. Today I will introduce you to another local expert to provide meaningful information. I’m Mitchell Jones, and Mrs. A low down on Temecula Valley. The first time that Jim and I met to interview for the first episode, it went so well that I asked Jim Richardson to come back. He just is a wealth of knowledge. He is a servant in our community. He is truly someone who just has vast experience that I it’s hard to even capitalize everything that he’s done. But the last time that we met, you shared everything that you’ve done here on a local level. Today I want to talk more about the engineering background side of it. There were students exploring this career path, Jim, we’re honored to have you here. And we’d like to know in our Valley, who could benefit from your advice, as an in
Well, I think anybody who is looking at a career in engineering, could, you know, I, I’d be happy to, you know, give them a little insight. You know, my career has taken a very interesting path. And I think there are a lot of different paths, you know, the one thing, I think you get an engineering degree, you still don’t know exactly the direction your career is going to take. So that’s part of the fun of it. I don’t do the same thing every day. So if you’re a person who who couldn’t stand doing the same thing every day, then being an engineer and a problem solver is something that, you know, it really appeals to me.
Tell me about this. What What got you started and what led you down this road?
So when I was young, I thought I wanted to be an architect. But when I went to Cal Poly Pomona, I ended up selecting the major of aerospace engineering and I always had always loved airplanes. And so I went down that road and got an aerospace engineering degree and went to work initially as a systems engineer soon transitioned over and started writing my own software and worked many years as a software engineer. But systems engineering has always been my passion. And in the last few years of my career, I’ve really gone back more to a core of systems engineering.
Okay. Okay. I would doubt that many engineers can ever say that they have nine us patents under their belts. I mean, that, to me sounds very impressive.
Well, I work with people who who have more and it’s kind of, you know, you can say it’s being in the right place at the right time. You know, and actually, I started my, my innovation work. So patents come out of innovation. And the first innovation opportunity I had at work came when Toyota approached my company Raytheon about doing a joint project. And that opportunity in that multi year project working with Toyota on a pedestrian warning system led to a series of patents and really kind of got me into the traffic safety technology area. And so I pursued that and worked research and development in that field for, you know, close to a decade after that.
With the Temecula Valley STEM Patent project. I’ve heard of this. I’m like, What
is this? So the stem patent project came out of my coaching high jumpers. That’s turned into coaching and 22 years later, I’ve been coaching highjump for 22 years. So, but recently, I had a young lady who was interested in technology, you know, we were looking at measuring devices with infrared beams. And could you measure how high above the crossbar you were when you pass over? So I looked into it a little bit, there was already a patent for that. I said, Well, we can still try to build one and maybe use it so starting to build some parts. And when I showed him to her, she said said something about well, does it know where you are? And can it tell you when to kick up your legs? And I said, No, that’s so not what it does. It just measures how high but the next day I was driving my car and I realized her question contained a vision that I didn’t grasp. right away and her question about you know, having a device that knows where you are and can can give you cueing it during the athletic jump attempt that I realized was patentable. So we set down this road four years ago of trying to get a patent this concept and from an idea of a from a 17 year old girl makes it even more special, that you know, someone someone like that can actually have an idea that is that unique and worthy of a US patent, which was just granted in the last couple months here.
Jim also has been a basketball referee for 20 plus years. I
did it for over 20 years. I’ve taken a couple years off now you can always go back But yeah, I was a basketball referee. And you know, it’s really interesting. Being a basketball referee really complimented my engineering engineers can lack people skills. But when you have a coach yelling at you, you need to develop people skills. So it was It was great being a technical person helped me with being an excellent referee. And being a referee helped me with my people skills for engineering. So it was really good synergy and now there’s nothing that can happen in a design review that scares me. I’ve had I’ve had to deal with difficult coaches for years and
but if there was one thing, you know, we probably have a lot of people in this community who are thinking about maybe wanting to coach maybe coach, their children’s soccer team or softball, what what advice could you give them if there was one single piece that you’ve learned to the greatest degree? What advice could you give people pursuing that?
It’s got to be your passion to you can’t do it because you feel like you have to do it. High jumping is a passion for me. I’ve I’ve loved coaching, high jump, you know, I did it in high school, and I wasn’t very good at it. But as I was going through school, getting my degree, I realized, oh my gosh, that’s why that works that way in highjump. So I’ve really kind of developed a whole approach That’s kind of non standard, whole new vocabulary. And, you know, you got to be able to articulate your knowledge. And I would say that’s a, that’s a key I would give people you know, it’s one thing to know your stuff. It’s another thing to be able to articulate it in a way that kids can really grasp it.
Well, I have to say, as a real estate agent, I could benefit from your coaching I’m sure, too. So you know, that’s probably why we’ve been friends over 10 years, you know, what we always learn and we grow from one another and point so it’s the journey. Yeah,
absolutely. Well, thank you for sharing your journey with us. We are so honored to have you in our community. And truly, this has been a pleasure interviewing you again today and thanks for giving your time.
Temecula Valley STEM Patent Temecula Valley STEM Patent
