Alumni Portrait: Bing Knight '05 Th'06

Bing Knight '05 Th'06

Born in Seattle, Knight is part of a long line of Dartmouth grads that includes: his parents Linda Quan MED'69 and Jonathan Knight '67 MED'69; his sisters Kate Quan Knight '01 and Margot Quan Knight '99; and his wife Cameron Houser '07. We asked him about his Dartmouth journey, his best memories, and his life after Thayer.

How did you discover you loved engineering?

I was really into working on cars when I was in high school, and I did an unpaid internship at a garage for a couple of different car manufacturers. I loved talking to all the technicians, and I was always bumming around trying to talk to these guys about the cars they were working on, both British and German. It was fun to hear the technicians talk about what the engineers who designed these parts originally did and why they did it. On a Porsche, for example, the engineers wanted absolute performance. Service cost was not a consideration. There were very different dynamics in terms of how the engineers solved problems in some of those cars, which I found interesting. I think that was my first exposure to mechanical engineering problem-solving.

Why did you choose Dartmouth?

Because both my sisters went to Dartmouth, I initially wanted to find greener pastures. I toured West Coast schools because I was interested in winter sports and snowboarding, and I didn’t think that would be available to me out East. Then, I found out about Dartmouth's ski program, and when you combine that with the rigor of Thayer, I knew I wouldn't find a better fit. The experience that really sold it was when I was out in New Hampshire for US nationals for snowboarding and visited my sister at Dartmouth. It was the beginning of spring term, and there was an electricity in the air with people coming back to campus. That is the best sales pitch a school could offer.

Professor Peter Robbie leads a "Design Thinking" class in 2009. (Photo by Douglas Fraser)

What were some of your favorite professors and courses?

I took a product design course with Peter Robbie '69, which totally hooked me on design. I think what he was trying to create at the time—around 2002—was a course dedicated to understanding what people needed as users and trying to think about the soft side of engineering. I was interested in art, and I wound up doing a modification with studio art as a result of seeing that the way you think about something can benefit the engineering mindset, that it was more than raw technical effort. I really appreciated how much Professor Robbie was willing to give a space for that at Thayer.

In class, we'd sit down and talk through our ideas as a team and as a group. Each of us was pursuing a different problem, but we harnessed the collective mindshare of everyone there. It was collaborative, creative and really, really fun. I was in the first product design course that he offered, and everyone from that class is still very close.

What other Thayer memories come to mind?

The thing that always blew me away was the willingness of people to give you room to be creative along with all the tools and support. The staff in the Machine Shop had such a desire to help. They taught us how to use every single thing. I loved their willingness to coach and wander around and look over your shoulder—not to tell you what to do but to offer suggestions and tips and show you how to produce something with quality. I wound up being a TA there, and eventually earned trust and credibility from Kevin, Leonard, and Mike.

MShop instructor Kevin Baron works with a student on her "Machine Engineering" project in 2008. (Photo by Douglas Fraser)

The other formative experience I had was spending time in the Great Hall. There is something incredible about having a dedicated room where professors and students come through, and you can sit at a giant table to work. You can ask a professor a clarifying question if you happen to see them, or you can work on your problem sets with people in that space. Problem sets were hard and sometimes daunting, but I never felt alone when I worked on them in the Great Hall. This is the same thing Apple does in all of its spaces—they are designed to create spontaneous interactions with people.

What did you do after you graduated?

I boomeranged back to Seattle to work for a company called Synapse Product Development. I joined as an intern and grew into a leader of the company, writing down its company values, helping on the senior leadership team, and managing a meaningful fraction of the company's revenue and staff. I recruited a ton of Thayer graduates because Professor Robbie kept sending us phenomenal, interesting students who wanted to cut their teeth.

The business was effectively engineering as a service for different companies. I spent a ton of time developing Nike's wearable electronic devices. They had the product idea and the product industrial design team, and we handled the hardcore engineering, built supply chains and determined places to manufacture it.

What were you working on at Apple?

I was recruited to work on Apple's autonomous vehicle. I spent a lot of time developing camera systems for data collection—machine vision systems, for example. I spent a few years doing control algorithm development and integration, working with all the different systems that control kinetic energy on a vehicle. It was my first experience thinking about safety as a huge consideration.

I was also involved in building manufacturing relationships with a focus on sustainability. I spent a lot of time learning how Apple did this with other products and then thinking about how it could be applied in the vehicle space. I worked with great people in the environmental supply chain team who do this every day for products that ship in the tens or hundreds of millions a year. A priority was having supply chain partners who were doing the right legwork with raw materials and committed to meeting the aspirations that Apple has around sustainability.

Students working in the Great Hall. (Photo by Catha Mayor)

How has your time at Thayer served your career?

Something I've carried forward from ENGS 290 and ENGS 291 [Engineering Design Methodology and Project Completion] is multi-variable thinking. It's not just about the product but also about how you're going to deliver it, how it's going to be priced, how much it's going to cost to manufacture. That multi-variable understanding has been something I've brought to every single company and every single project I've ever worked on.

I felt very supported at Thayer. The kind of dynamic that Thayer creates really well is a willingness to support people who want to manifest something new. Thayer continues to embrace newness. I've seen this in the expansion of the product design curriculum. They are still offering the courses of yore, but they also know there's a lot of unknowns in the engineering world and in the design world, and they aren't scared of that. They're embracing it and bringing that to students.

What advice do you have for students in engineering?

Embrace the willingness to ask questions and don't feel shy about it. People want to help you. That's why the Great Hall exists. It wasn't put there just because it looks nice. The tables are there because Thayer wanted to create space for you to be able to ask questions and connect with people walking by. Be courageous. Having the willingness to ask questions is going to open more doors than you could ever dream of. 

Want to ask Bing a question? Get in touch at bing.knight@gmail.com