SAE Update - June 2021 - 12

COVER STORY
SAE Recognition Day 2021
organization. " It's a pretty ornery critter
that takes a lot of management and care. "
His main priority as chair of the steering
committee is " sniffing out key topics of the
times that need to be addressed, " and then
forming a committee around them, if
deemed necessary.
Getting the right people to chair the
various committees is crucial. Galyen
recently had a major success in recruiting
someone from Europe to head a committee
addressing battery labels because " Europe
will be way ahead of the U.S. over the next
decade in electric vehicles. "
One of his ongoing goals is to encourage
greater use of SAE battery standards
among automakers and governments
" because there's a lot of good work going
on in that area. "
Jason Rounds has Baja SAE in
his blood
For 25 years, Jason Rounds has been
involved either as a student, judge, lead
technical inspector, and/or event organizer
for Baja SAE, one of the organization's
many collegiate competitions.
" As a student, I saw inconsistencies in
how technical inspection was being
performed at all three Baja SAE events,
even though they all had the same rules, "
he explained to Update. " This was a
concern and challenge to me as a student,
and I wanted to do something about it. "
And so in 2003, he partnered with
another student, Adam Hussemann (UCF),
" and we pitched a proposal to our employer
12 June 2021
Pictured here conversing with a student competitor is Jason
Rounds (middle), a mainstay at Baja SAE collegiate
competitions as event organizer.
at the time, Honda, to work with us on
leading technical inspection for all Baja SAE
events. This has expanded over the years,
and now we have over 45 engineers from
various companies that go to these events
with us to make sure we have one set of
rules that are enforced at all events. We
have also expanded over the years and my
group now runs all of the Baja scoring
activities and Cost Events.
" So, trying to solve a problem was a big
reason for me doing this, but the other
main reason is that I see Baja SAE as the
most important thing I did while I was a
student to build the foundation of my
career. What you learn at Baja cannot be
learned in the classroom. "
Rounds, Director of Maintenance &
Modification Engineering at TTX, said he
spends about 200 hours a year in Baja SAE
activities when he is not organizing one of
the competitions. Closer to 350 hours when
he is. n
By Patrick Ponticel, Update editor
UPDATE
SAE Update - June 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of SAE Update - June 2021
