Andrew Salinas is trading his wrench for blueprints, a day he never imagined when he first started on 737 assemblies. He moved from the line into fabrication as a mechanic and then into manufacturing planning for fabrication, all while completing Boeing’s Learning Together program at the Oregon Institute of Technology. Now he’s graduating as an engineer with a rare blend of shop‑floor know‑how and manufacturing planning insight, able to bridge design and assembly in ways few engineers can.
“Good engineering begins with talking to the people who do the work,” Salinas said. “It's probably the most important part of our job.”
Salinas says the shared background lets him have more technical, theory-based discussions with his wife, which helps him connect practical shop-floor experience with engineering concepts when he returns to the office.
Talking shop isn’t limited to just his own house. His brother, yet another Boeing employee, ended up joining the Mechanical Engineering program at OIT around the same time.
“Having him there to encourage me and kind of compete to get our degrees together was fun,” Salinas said. “He graduated last year, so he won this one.”
