As novelist George Eliot wrote, it's never to late to be what you might have been. Perhaps no one knows this better than Eli Nelson, associate product manager for Schweitzer Engineering Labs (SEL; Pullman, Washington, U.S.). Today, Nelson is realizing his dream of working with cutting-edge technology and influencing the innovations of tomorrow — a far cry from his days of changing oil and cleaning cars.

A native of Washington State, Nelson grew up in the woods near the Canadian border, where his father worked in a lumber mill. Home schooled by his mother, Nelson displayed a mechanical bent from an early age, trying to repair broken toys, constructing functioning Lego cranes and forklifts, and using salvaged electronics to build motorized toys.

When Nelson was 15, his father quit his job at the lumber mill and moved the family to Pullman. There, his father attended Washington State University (WSU) to earn a bachelor's degree in forestry and an MBA. Nelson's mother took a job at WSU to support the family. At the time, Nelson didn't appreciate his parent's drive to better the family's finances — never dreaming he might one day find himself in a similar situation.

After high school, Nelson entered WSU, unsure of what he wanted to study. “My parents placed a high value on education and encouraged me to go to college, but I had no idea what I wanted to be,” Nelson said. Although he was interested in engineering, Nelson decided to try his hand at architecture. After one year and several failed classes, he left the university.

Nelson spent the next few years in a string of dead-end jobs, including stints at McDonalds, delivering pizza and finally an auto repair shop, which he eventually ended up running. “Working at the repair shop gave me an opportunity to mature and recover from the sense of failure I had from dropping out of WSU,” Nelson said. During his years at the auto repair shop, Nelson married and purchased a home. Still, something was missing. “Although I had some success in this position, it was not my passion.”

Shortly after Nelson and his wife found out they were expecting their first child, he met Jim McCreary, his wife's relative. McCreary was visiting WSU to recruit electrical engineers for Xicor, where he served as vice president of engineering. Soon after, McCreary invited Nelson and his wife to his home outside Silicon Valley. “This visit opened my eyes to what it can be like to do something you love,” Nelson said. “Jim had been a part of inventing and finding solutions to problems I didn't know existed. Electrical engineering had opened doors for him and given him the freedom to pursue his dreams. For the first time, I saw a path to being fulfilled in a career.”

A few months later, Nelson started classes at WSU to earn a degree in electrical engineering. The transition was not easy. Nelson quit his job at the auto repair shop, which meant his pregnant wife's job was their only source of income. In addition, Nelson had to readjust to studying and test taking after being out of school for 10 years. Nevertheless, he was encouraged by the enthusiasm of his instructors. By his third year, Nelson decided he was most interested in power engineering. This choice led to his senior design project working with WSU facility operations and SEL.

When Nelson saw that one of the available senior design projects involved a protective relay replacement study, doing real-world engineering and working with state-of-the-art equipment, he jumped at it. The project's goal was to develop relay settings for a number of the relays that protected several distribution feeders at one of WSU's aging power plants. The existing protection included electromechanical relays and mechanical recording devices. Started a few years earlier by John Yates, lab coordinator for WSU's EECS department, students had been doing a few feeders each year. Nelson's team was to work on the last nine feeders.

“I worked on the project my entire senior year, dedicating about 20 hours a week to it,” said Nelson. “This, in addition to my other classes, meant long evenings and weekends away from my wife and son. However, this project gave me opportunities to work with real-world solutions.”

The first week of the project, Nelson's team was invited to attend two training classes at SEL — the same ones engineers and technicians take to learn the latest practices and techniques in protection. In their zeal to use the tools of the trade, the team contacted Sherman Chan, founder of ASPEN Inc., who donated a temporary license to the full version of ASPEN OneLiner software for the team to use.

“Once I discovered what excited me, I knew I could reach my goal through hard work,” said Nelson. After graduating from WSU, SEL hired Nelson as a product manager. “Now, I work with cutting-edge protection technology every day. I also influence the innovations of tomorrow using input from customers and other engineers. Best of all, I am able to spend more time with my family. We are expecting our second child in February.”