SAE Southern
California Section
Outstanding resource for people involved in all aspects of the vehicle mobility industry in and around the Southern California, as far north as San Luis Obispo and as far south as Orange County.
About SAE SoCal
SAE is the leader in connecting and educating mobility professionals to enable safe, clean, and accessible mobility solutions. We promote education in automotive and aerospace technologies for today’s and future engineers.
Ways you can get involved:
Develop valuable career skills that will benefit you on the job through a leadership role
Offer a tour or event at your facility
Suggest ideas for future events or meeting topics
Connect with engineering students and young professionals in your region
Get Involved!
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Are you a local member and not getting SoCal Section notices? If so, please e-mail us your contact info at info@saesocal.org.
Past Event Highlights
SAE SoCal hosted its first Spacechat within Virgin Galactic and The Spaceship Company! The event was led by CJ Sturckow, one of Virgin Galactic’s pilots. CJ’s career started as a diesel mechanic at age 16, where he then went on to pursue a mechanical engineering degree at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. At Cal Poly, he was heavily involved in the only student professional off-road racing team that competed in both the Baja 1000 and Mint 400, and in fact, won the SCORE World Championship Class 7 race in 1981. From CJ’s experience, he became a United States Marines fighter jet pilot, a NASA astronaut, and today is a pilot for Virgin Galactic, a company that will one day take commercial passengers to sub-orbit.
Do you have an event suggestion for SAE SoCal?
Members are invited to propose speakers or topics for presentation as an official SAE SoCal event.
To propose a speaker or topic, please copy the form in the link below to a Word document, fill it in with your name as the contact party and email it to: info@saesocal.org.
The Governing Board will review proposals and select those of greatest benefit the membership.
Member Highlight
In Memorium: John Mason, Ph.D.
Our good friend, Dr. John Mason, passed away on June 3, 2019.
Dr. Mason was a tireless supporter of SAE serving twice as SAE International president as well as filling numerous roles in our SoCal SAE Section, most recently as secretary of the governing board. John was very interested in mentoring and guiding young people throughout his career. In the recent past he helped develop and taught a unique A World in Motion module on electricity for several years at the Monroe Middle School. He was also very active in the Section’s Mac Short College Engineering Presentation Competition.
Outside his SAE activities, John met with several retired Garrett employees for coffee on Thursday mornings to discuss engineering topics such as electric and autonomous vehicles, carbon sequestration, black holes, and the design of trebuchets.
His vast experience and wise guidance was very helpful to the Section governing board and the local engineering community, and he was a premiere ambassador for the Section’s activities. We will all miss him.
In John’s memory, donations can be made to the SAE Foundation (www.sae.org/donate).
LA Times Obituary
