PACE Alum Paul Nelson of ATK Inspires Student Engineers

Paul Nelson, PLM architect at ATK, presented to student engineers at the recent PACE Annual Forum. He shared his PACE story from his college days at Brigham Young University (BYU). Attending a PACE school led to an internship at GM’s design center where he learned more about Siemens PLM Software tools like NX, Teamcenter and JT. Catch my video interview with Paul below.





In his presentation and the video above, Paul shared how PLM helps ATK address knowledge retention with an aging workforce. He also provided future engineers with this interesting analogy to understand PLM:

“PLM islike a fractal.”

He explained that PLM allows you to look at product development like a fractal – a graphical mathematical repeating pattern.

One way to view patterns is through systems engineering. Paul noted it needs to be a holistic approachencompassing people, process and tools. He is a certified systems engineering professional (through the INCOSE organization) and recommends students learn those principles regardless of what role they have.

One of the best pieces of advice he shared with students was to be a lifelong learner.

“How quickly can you learn and apply that versus your competitors is a key differentiator. And not just in PLM and CAD. In your career the faster you can learn and apply that knowledge correctly the first time, the more successful you’re going to be.”

So follow Paul on Twitter @paulfnelson and find out more about what he’s learning through his career.

Are you a graduate of a PACE school? If so, let me know so we can share your story.

– Dora