About me

This is Graffterburner, a personal blog by me: Christian Graff. This is a place to share my work, hobbies, and projects that I'm working on.

Growing Up: I grew up in southwest Washington, in small town just north of Portland, OR. It's a gorgeous, lush part of the world at the confluence of the Columbia, Coweeman, and Cowlitz rivers and at the feet Mt. St. Helens. Summers were spent climbing trees, running cross country, and camping. Since graduating university, I've lived in various parts of Utah.

Education: I earned my BS in Mechanical Engineering with an emphasis in Aerospace from Brigham Young University in 2021. During my senior year, I had the privilege of serving as the President of the Tau Beta Pi engineering honor society on campus, the Utah Beta chapter.

I took a sabbatical to serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in France and Switzerland from 2016 to 2018, which was one of the best experiences of my life. I'm sure I'll write more about it eventually.

Before attending BYU, I attended Lower Columbia College through the "running start" program, which allowed me to graduate with my associate degree concurrently with my high school graduation. Because of this, I was able to work as part of the Associated Student Leadership Council at the college.

Work: Currently I work as the Lead Hardware Testing Engineer with PassiveLogic, where I develop tests, test fixtures, and testing documentation for all of PassiveLogic's hardware. My role is part of the verification and validation team, and I've been able to learn a lot about software through test fixture and report automation, hardware software integration, and software testing.

I've also worked for PhoneSoap, where I first interned, then joined full time, then was promoted to the Head of Engineering. You may have heard of them from Shark Tank! It was a role where I grew a lot alongside the company as it grew, and I gained experience in product development, design for manufacturing, and taking consumer electronics products from ideas to mass production.

Hobbies: I'm a bit of a Jack of All Trades, Master of None. There are so many amazing things to do in this world, and I've been fortunate to dip my toes in a variety of hobbies. The one constant is that all of my hobbies involve projects. I just like making and fixing things, often more than the end result. Sometimes, I'm envious of people who find their niche hobby and are able to go all in. I tend to get very focused in different hobbies for a short period, only to hop to something else, ad infinitum. Maybe you can relate? If you that person who's found their "thing," let me know what you did to make it stick. There are a few things that I keep coming back to.

Distance running is one of those things, maybe because staying fit and going further is a forever project, and it's never really done. Whether it's a 5k, 10k, half-marathon, or marathon, there's always a longer race or a faster time. I enjoy running 4-8 miles a day on the weekdays, though I'm not as consistent as I'd like. Running is a great way to stay in shape, and is sort of the way for me to clear my mind every morning.

Aviation is another one of those things that sticks. Anything that flies is just plain cool. My dad used to take me to the local airport, and we'd just watch planes come and go. Now I'm fortunate enough to do the same with my son. My dad instilled his love for flying through RC planes. One of my best memories with my dad was rebuilding some balsa RC planes that he had crashed years before. I still enjoy building and flying RC planes, especially ones that I've designed myself. I've made several designs, and I'm sure I'll share some of those in another post. I've also had the chance to fly in a few small airplanes, and getting my pilots license has always been my dream. My love for aviation is what drove me to get my degree emphasis in aerospace engineering.

Conclusion: If I had to finish with one thing, it'd be to never stop trying. There are always more things to try, new ideas to be had, and new things to be made. I've made some pretty cool engineering designs, but none of them were perfect. There was a lot of learning, redoing, and starting over before anything worked out. The only time you truly fail is when you stop trying.

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