Children’s book author and Engineering Presenter Patty O’Brien Novak shares her motivating story on how she went from engineer, to stay at home mom, to writing her own book. Be sure to visit her site to learn more about her great new children’s book, Engineering the ABC’s. www.pattyobriennovak.com.
Patty shares her story:
My working years: After college, I moved to Michigan to work at Ford as a Product Development Engineer and a Design & Release Engineer. I worked at Ford for 11 years when I decided to switch to “domestic” engineering and stayed at home to raise my 2 young children. Now I’m venturing in a new direction with publishing my 1st book and presenting fun and interactive presentations about engineering to young school children.
My family years: I have been married to Rob for 13+ years and we have two wonderful children, Drew and Anna. Drew was my inspiration for the book, and Anna was my book writing bud. Anna went with me to meetings with my editor, publisher and illustrator. By 5 years old, she had watched the entire book writing process and would often give me hugs of encouragement and tell me “I’m proud of you, Momma.”
My writing years: I have always enjoyed writing, especially poetry. I have always loved to read and love to read to my children. The inspiration for my book came from my son Drew. At 4 years old, Drew proclaimed that “scientists build the space shuttle, Mommy.” When I offered “scientists along with engineers,” he replied “no, just scientists.” How could my young son think that engineers had no part in the space shuttle when he was being raised by two engineers?!
I started looking at his books, tv shows and videos. Engineers were not mentioned anywhere, not even on the NASA channel! How was it that engineers had a part in producing these very books, tv shows and videos that failed to mention them?
Thus began my book and it was meant to be. The thoughts and ideas poured out of me and into the computer. I never dreamed I would ever write a book, but I am glad I did.
