Mike Brungardt
Job Title: Design Engineer
Company: InPwr, Inc.
Location: Aurora, Colo.
Age: 25
Years on the Job: 4
Interests: In the summers, he summits each of Colorado’s 58 14,000-ft peaks. In the winter, he huddles around the boil kettle making homebrew or cheering on the Colorado Avalanche hockey team.
As the grandson of a TV repairman and the son of a professional draftsman, the electrical industry came to Mike Brungardt in what he calls “a happy accident of colliding skills.”
“Growing up, I had a circuit kit turning on lights and making sounds, so when I went to college with little idea of what I wanted to do, I picked the only area I knew a little bit about.”
Raised in Aurora, Colo., he had a diverse spectrum of classes from circuit board design to green energy at Colorado State. The best education he received, however, was having his boots on the ground on-site on back-to-back disaster relief projects.
“Workers from all trades relied on each other under high pressure to complete the project,” he says.
Now at InPwr, he is continuing to learn and expand his skillsets outside of the office. For example, in the past year, he has become responsible for learning how to use surveying equipment to assist the field team with installing electrical underground.
“Seeing the ever-shifting nature of that work has influenced my design in areas I would have never considered before,” he says.
At his job, there is nothing consistent about a day in his life at his company, except for the inconsistency itself.
“Being in a small office in a small company, you are responsible for just about anything thrown at you. Although I have skills in AutoCAD, lighting design, and power design, it doesn’t surprise me when I’m asked to spearhead something completely new,” he says.
Case in point: He has not only learned surveying, but also created a standardized system of as-built drawings and managed other contractors for unique modeling. Recently, his company has won multiple design-build projects, and he expects to contribute to the drafting, power design, and lighting design. He considers himself a lifelong student.
“I am trying to learn and improve my craft every day,” says Brungardt, who wants to thank his coaches, mentors, parents, and fiancée for their support in achieving success in his career.
