Students in Allie White’s and Pam Montemarano’s seventh-grade honors science classes welcomed a special guest Tuesday morning. Brandon Peifer, an electrical engineer for Orange and Rockland Utilities, met via Google Meet with the students at Crispell Middle School. Mr. Peifer has been with O&R for six years, developing autonomous electrical switches to help people get their power on faster when there is an outage.

He explained some safety information to the students – like when a live electrical line comes down from a pole to stay 30 feet from it or, if you’re in a car, stay in the car.

He also answered questions from the curious science students about his job. For example, the hardest part of his job is when he’s working on switches and has to find and fix a problem. He has limited information to fix some very tough problems. He looks at it like a puzzle, something he is very good at.

His biggest fear going into the job was that he would be bored. He couldn’t have been more wrong. “I’m never bored! I get to do so many different things each day,” he told the students.

Peifer responded to a question from one student about his education. He explained that he was interested in engineering but went to SUNY Geneseo, a school that didn’t have an engineering major. Instead he majored in physics and went to NYU for a master’s degree in electrical engineering.

And yes, there is danger on his job. Mr. Peifer talked about the most dangerous thing he’s dealt with – an explosion! There was a problem with a switch and when he went to close it, it blew up. That’s not a normal day, of course.

His advice to anyone considering the engineering field as a profession: Do really well in school.  

Good advice!