NES August Employee Spotlight

Andrew Hvizdzak

Andrew Hvizdzak started at Napoleon Engineering Services on August 26, 2019.

It was NES president Chris Napoleon’s birthday.

“We had a big party on my first day,” Hvizdzak recalled with a laugh. “I thought to myself, ‘this place is pretty cool.’”

Hvizdzak walked in that day as something of a wide-eyed rookie with a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Penn State. Six years later, he’s solidified himself as one of the leaders – and an invaluable asset – on NES’ bearing engineering team.

The Randolph native has assumed several responsibilities, including bearing design for manufacturing, application engineering and research and development of bearing technology. He’s come to specialize in bearing optimization and analysis of stress, life and kinematics in turbopump applications. Put more succinctly: He provides wide-ranging technical support regarding bearing solutions for our customers’ applications.

“(That could be) designing a new bearing from scratch for a specific application to meet a set of performance requirements and conditions, and trying to optimize it against the customer’s needs,” he summarized, “or supporting a customer’s existing solution with technical support, whether that’s related to the design of the bearing or analysis of performance, manufacturability, things like that.

“And (it’s) trying to spread that type of support across all of our departments.”

AT NES, Hvizdzak noted, Ralph Brooks is the initial customer contact point.

Brooks, NES’ vice president of business development, oversees the procurement of customers, pointing them in the right direction and signaling, “yes, we can do this; no, we can’t do that, but we can do this instead.”

Over the last few years, Hvizdzak has become the “next layer.”

The 2019 Penn State-Behrend graduate is now the primary customer contact for when those conversations take a more technical turn regarding bearing design, analysis or customer application review. He’s evolved into NES’ lone dedicated bearing application engineer. He has his fingerprints on nearly everything we do from a bearing engineering standpoint.

And that’s what makes him so worthy of NES’ August employee spotlight.

“I like being in that role because you get to see a little bit of everything, from what the customer needs from the ground up and all the way through whatever service and solution we can provide,” said Hvizdzak, one of NES’ two senior bearing engineers, alongside Skip Giberson, “and even if it’s not something that we can provide, at least we have the technical knowledge to point them in whatever other direction they should go.

“It still makes me feel like we’ve offered some semblance of a solution for them related to their bearing (issue).”

ON HIS first day, Hvizdzak found NES to be “pretty cool.”

The same could be said of several of his current engineering projects.

Hvizdzak oversees much of the work we do for the space market, including propulsion support for rocket engines or other vehicle components or mechanisms for the likes of SpaceX and Blue Origin.

“I’ve gotten to do a lot of projects (where) a customer comes to us and says, ‘I need a ball bearing that fits in this space and can handle these conditions in terms of load, speed, temperature and whatever other constraints,’” he said. “We get the opportunity to design it from scratch to perform in that application.”

One assignment on which Hvizdzak is currently working is a liquid oxygen flow control valve for Blue Origin, the Jeff Bezos-owned rocket company, “and that one has been interesting because it’s been extremely challenging relative to what we can realistically offer against the conditions that they’re imposing.”

Hvizdzak enjoys the process involved in meeting those daily challenges.

He’s gratified by the idea that he’s viewed as a solution-provider for several different types of specialty applications – by both our customers AND those with whom he works. What he finds most rewarding, however, is continuing down the path of becoming a mentor to NES’ youthful bearing engineering team.

“So that not only are you supporting your customers like a consultant,” Hvizdzak noted, “but you’re supporting everybody that you work with in certain aspects where … you’ve been exposed to enough to get somebody pointed in the right direction and make them understand a certain problem a little better.

“The most rewarding thing is to be a position where you have some responsibility in creating a solution for the customer that works but also creating a solution that fits within what we do here and is profitable for NES. Then, everybody wins.

“You kind of make both sides win.”

OUTSIDE OF work, Hvizdzak enjoys the outdoors and being active, he said, including hunting, biking, kayaking, riding his motorcycle and ATVs and going to the gym. Next month, he and his girlfriend are traveling to New River Gorge National Park in West Virginia for a white-water rafting trip.

Inside the office, his many skills and expertise in bearing standards are appreciated by his co-workers.

“Andrew’s deep understanding of materials, mechanics and manufacturing processes allow him to solve complex problems and create solutions for our customer base that are both robust and efficient,” said Chris Truman, NES’ vice president of business operations. “This blend of technical expertise and innovative thinking is what makes him a great player on the NES team.

“Funny enough, when a customer’s bearing product fails, most people say, ‘That’s a shame.’ Sensing an opening, Andrew will say, ‘That’s a new opportunity for a stress-strain analysis!’”