Tom Santangelo, Principal RF Engineer
At CAES, our people are our most important asset. We sat down with several of our engineers to learn more about their career paths, interests and why they enjoy working at CAES. Read on to learn more about Tom Santangelo, Principal RF Engineer.
When Tom Santangelo was younger, he enjoyed learning about electronics. He was interested in radios and learning how to take things apart (even if he didn’t necessarily put them back together). He was always very handy growing up, learning a lot from his dad. His older brother graduated with an engineering degree and Santangelo followed in his footsteps.
While in college at Drexel University, Santangelo was able to learn a lot from a number of different people. He did his co-op work experience at a powerplant, and over the course of the co-op he learned that wasn’t where his career path was headed. There was a group of students at Drexel that had started working on RF, and Santangelo was one of those students.
Santangelo got a job at CAES straight out of college and has been working here ever since, contributing to CAES for over 20 years now. He started in the antenna lab and is still there now. Santangelo got involved in many of the test chambers here at CAES. He learned all of the equipment and how the computers and software work, so that if it broke he would know how to fix it.
He now works as a sustaining engineer, reporting to tier meetings and sharing any products that may need any kind of sustaining engineering.
“I really like sustaining engineering, I could stay in sustaining forever,” said Santangelo.
Santangelo shared how he enjoys working at CAES as it gives him a chance to be hands on. He also shared how he very much enjoys the people who he works with. He always wants to share his knowledge with his team and is always willing to help them out.
“The sustaining engineers always have a bucket of knowledge that they can bring with them wherever they go,” said Santangelo.
On the weekends, Santangelo is the coach of both his kids’ teams and can usually be found at the soccer field with them Saturday mornings. He shared how he enjoys watching his kids learn new skills, the same way he enjoys watching his team learn new skills at CAES.
Want to learn more about life at CAES? Visit our Careers page here.