Matt Guilfoyle had friends who threw around the term “fire protection engineering,” but he didn’t know much about it until his junior year when he attended an information luncheon. A mechanical engineering student at Worcester Polytechnic Institute at the time, he had been looking for new electives that would expand his existing engineering knowledge and give him more career options. He was immediately drawn in and signed up for a class on sprinkler systems.
“It hit my interests pretty well,” he said. “I felt like I was bringing not only just one side of mechanical engineering, but doing a little bit of multiple disciplines together to get one outcome.”
The more he learned about the field of fire protection engineering, the more Matt realized it was exactly what he’d been looking for in a career path.
“Fire protection let me apply my knowledge of basic engineering principles to something that I could see in my head,” he said. “It gave me a very practical end point for the knowledge I had learned in my undergrad classes.”
Matt graduated from WPI in 2012 with a BS in mechanical engineering, and the following year he completed his master’s degree in fire protection engineering. Since finishing school he’s worked for two different firms in New York, and in July of this year he made the move from the Big Apple to the Peach State. Harrington Group is thrilled to have him on board in the Duluth, Georgia office as one of its newest fire protection consultants.
“The work and the work environment seemed to match my career goals pretty well,” he said. “It seemed like a place where I’d be able to use my degree in fairly diverse ways, and the environment is one that I would be challenged in and push me to do a better job.”
Acclimating to so much change isn’t easy for anyone, and on top of getting to know a new city and settling into a new job, Matt’s also studying for the PE exam. Nights and weekends are pretty much spoken for until after the test, but when he’s not working or studying, he loves doing just about anything outdoors. He does a lot of hiking and backpacking when he’s got the time, and in the past he’s played disc golf and competitive ultimate frisbee.