Meet Juan Antonio Rodriguez Heredia, also known as Tony. He’s rocking our world in the Engineering Department after being named its 2016 Outstanding Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EEE) Student. And this spring, he is obtaining his dream-come-true degree from Sacramento State.
Born in Mexico but raised on California’s central coast just 20 minutes south of San Luis Obispo, Rodriguez has grown to appreciate cultural diversity in people and places. And he is not afraid to ask questions.
“If someone speaks another language, I’ll ask them to teach me a word or tell me more about how I can learn more,” Rodriguez says. Already proficient in Spanish and French, he hopes to pick up Mandarin and master Japanese after graduation.
His curiosity about people eventually led to a deeper interest in how things connect on a harder, scientific level.
“I’ve always had a fascination with learning how things work,” Rodriguez says.“I like to think I have a very logistical brain, and so I like the problem-solving aspect of engineering.”
Rodriguez has represented Sacramento State through his internships at Gallo Winery and Keysight Technologies, the former test and measurement division of Hewlett-Packard. He has been active on campus as a member of the power engineering society Tau Beta Pi and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). He is a positive source of encouragement and a study buddy to his classmates, according to the EEE Department Executive Committee. To top it all off, Rodriguez has maintained a stellar GPA.
He is currently working on microelectronics for the Defense Microelectronics Activity (DMEA), an internship he obtained through the help of his lab instructor Jeff Siddiqui.
According to DMEA Chief Ted Schantz, a majority of its degreed engineers come from Sacramento State.
“DMEA has 99 engineering positions that are occupied by multiple disciplines such as Electrical, Mechanical, Chemical, Material, and Industrial. Of those, 43 are CSUS graduates, some with two CSUS engineering degrees,” Schantz says, “So if you do the math, 43 percentof all DMEA engineers graduated with at least one engineering degree from CSUS.”
Rodriguez is graduating with highest honors, several full-time job offers, and bright eyes about where he’ll end up next. But first, he will embark on a summer backpacking trip in Europe.
Rodriguez is one of our outstanding students for 2016. Furthermore, he is an outstanding person who was proudly Made at Sac State.
Made at Sac State 