Alex Moseson - December 2006

For six months, I was a Project Engineer at Boehringer Laboratories, Inc. As a Drexel University Co-op student, I brought little experience but a lot of enthusiasm. Boehringer invested in me, helping me grow personally and professionally while contributing to meaningful projects.

At Boehringer, I used hands-on engineering to design and develop innovative new medical devices. We worked to alleviate widespread medical ailments, which yet had no strong treatments. Our main focus was the healing of chronic wounds, a condition which claims many lives, causes a great deal of discomfort, and costs many billions of dollars annually. Working in this field certainly motivated me to wake me up in the morning. The ultimate reward of our research was healing several patients in an ongoing clinical trial, each with unique and ruinous chronic wounds.

In a single day I would spend time in a lab coat, get dirty in the machine shop, and do a multitude of things at my desk. In these three hands-on places, my colleagues helped me learn everything from running a lathe to purchasing negotiations. I was able to take business critical projects through several phases of development, even seeing some go from concept to clinical trials. After earning the responsibility, I had my own project to manage. I was an important part of the team, and saw the fruits of my labor daily. My ideas and perspectives were valued, and I was encouraged to build on them.

I felt like family in this small business, as the President intended. Far from being a cog in someone’s machine, we worked together to solve problems which had never been solved before. They taught me how to be an engineer in the real world, something no textbook can offer.