We recently caught up with Mr. John Puskar and you can read his stories and advice for students below!

John Puskar Bio
John Puskar is a professional engineer and entrepreneur. He received his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from YSU in 1981 and an MBA from Case Western Reserve in 1985. In 1984, he started a company that managed the risk of fires and explosions in industrial facilities (manufacturing and process plants). Since then, he has traveled over 4 million miles and has been in and out of more than 400 industrial facilities in more than 20 countries.

In 2011, he sold the business to Honeywell. Today, he runs another company called Prescient Technical Services. In his current role, he provides corporate risk management programs, employee trainings, and forensic work for large fires and explosions (those you probably see on nightly newscasts when they unfortunately happen) for large multinational clients by. He also serves on several technical codes and standards committees related to fuels and combustion systems safety.

How was your college experience at YSU? 
My time at Youngstown State University was transformative, filled with rigorous academic challenges and rewarding social experiences. As a Mechanical Engineering major, I was fortunate to learn from dedicated professors who were not only experts in their fields but also genuinely invested in their students' success. My YSU professors always had a good dose of real-world work experience that I cherished. I chose Mechanical Engineering as a major because I was always a car guy. I thought that would be something I would learn a lot about. What I discovered is that mechanical engineers are the Swiss army knives of the engineering world. The field is very broad, and you can do just about anything.

What are some fond memories you have from YSU?
I recall a time as a senior sitting in a heat transfer class with Dr. Damshala, looking out the window and seeing the beautiful sunny day and thinking, “Will this ever pay off? My friends are all out working for GM at Lordstown and I’m sitting here another day hoping to scrape together money from my part-time jobs to get pizza and a beer at Inner Circle,” when someone in the class said something about letting us out of class early because it was so nice outside. Dr. Damshala said, “Someday soon, you will all be Mechanical Engineers, and every day will be full of bright sunshine and warmth for you”.

Dr. Damshala was correct! It’s hard when you’re a student looking down the long path or journey that you’re undertaking to have patience and to have confidence in yourself about what you can do and what it will take to be successful. It’s a huge leap of faith to trust in the system at YSU and believe that you can do something significant in the world with your education. I am here to tell you that YES, it is not only possible but very likely. YSU and their engineering programs have produced world-class people. You don’t know this now because you have no perspective, but YSU is renowned for its mastery in undergraduate teaching. It’s not a research place, it doesn’t pump out lots of graduate students. It’s just a fantastic place to get your engineering bachelor’s degree.

Shown Above: Mr. Puskar recently traveled to Shanghai, China to train Goodyear's Asia Pacific Region engineers 

How did YSU challenge you or change you?
I started my career in downtown Cleveland at SOHIO (Standard Oil of Ohio) in corporate engineering. SOHIO was the Google or Apple of the day in 1981. Flush with cash from finding all the oil at Prudhoe Bay Alaska, they had the money to hire the best of the best. I showed up with my degree from YSU and was instantly intimated, as my office mates were all from exotic schools all over the country that were the household elite names you would recognize. I was not only able to compete but able to thrive. It was life-changing to understand that with my education at YSU, I was good enough to compete anytime and anywhere, with anyone, regardless of what big-name school they were from. I also realized that the work ethic I got at YSU was irreplaceable. These two things, self-confidence in the education I had and the learned work ethic, allowed me to achieve lots of wonderful things over the past 40 years.

How has YSU helped you with your career/relationships?
The friendships I created at YSU have lasted a lifetime. I was fortunate enough to be part of a social fraternity, Sig Eps, and still to this day I have a band of brothers at my side from over 40 years ago. I was also fortunate enough to stay connected to a couple of my engineering classmates. They have both been very successful and we still confer with each other periodically. One of them, Mike May, has gone on to start several successful businesses the other, Dr. Peymon Givi, is a world renown researcher and distinguished professor at the University of Pittsburgh. Again, both from very humble beginnings like me, as YSU mechanical engineering graduates. My story was not an isolated one. I would think that if you really looked at the majority of YSU engineering graduates, many have changed the world and most are anything but average in their career success. This is all not an accident. It’s testimony to the quality of learning and the experience that’s still happening today.

Shown Above: Mr. Puskar speaking at a recent National Fire Protection Association Conference

What advice/recommendations would you give YSU students now?
Be a sponge. Volunteer for everything. Get everything you can out of this experience. Make lots of friends and get involved. YSU is very much a commuter school, and you can choose to get in your car and leave the campus and leave everything that is YSU behind every day. Try really hard not to do that. There are lots of things to be involved with on campus. 

I also like to say that there’s an extra little slice every day that you need to find and use when you’re exhausted and have nothing left. That little slice is the difference between success and failure. Dig down and find that slice every day and use it in class as part of a lab, or part of an engineering competition, or simply by providing a little more quality on an assignment than you typically provide. Go see professors when you don’t completely understand something. They will all help you. Most of all, try to be anything but ordinary in everything you do. The world does not need any more ordinary. Try to be extraordinary, choose the tough roads, like Robert Frost said, find the road less traveled, then run down that road!

We thank Mr. Puskar for sharing his success stories and advice for our students with us!

PS. Mr. Puskar would also like to give a shoutout to his YSU MechE friends, Mike May and Dr. Peymon Givi.