Here at 3M, we break things … to make things. At the 3M Electrical Markets Division High Voltage Laboratory, located in Austin, Texas, we break things with electricity.

EMD manufactures and markets a complete line of products for the underground power lines that bring electricity to homes and offices. In the EMD High Voltage Laboratory, we design and test these products to make sure that they meet international electrical engineering standards – and then we blow them up. We don’t do it just for the dinner table conversation, although it always impresses my daughters. We blow them up to understand their limits, so that we can make future products better.

I was responsible for the daily operations of the High Voltage Laboratory for about seven years. I destroyed a lot of our products with electricity. Now I use that experience to help design a new family of products for 3M to address the automation of the power distribution grid of the 21st Century. But don’t worry – I still get to break a lot of these new things I am making.