07/26/2022
“I grew up here in Saginaw, went to Saginaw High School, and graduated in 1993. After that, I went up to Michigan Technological University to pursue a mechanical engineering degree, and then began working in the automotive industry for the big three here in Michigan.
After about 12 years, I moved to Los Angeles and got a job with SpaceX.
I was blown away by just walking into the SpaceX building. To be building a rocket was mind blowing to me. It’s intense—everything has to be right because if it isn’t, the rocket can blow up in one second. My role in that process was to make sure that if we told the government or NASA we were building ‘Rocket A’ with certain parts, I had to check those parts and make sure they were all correct to the latest revision. If they weren’t, I had to confirm who authorized them not to be. There's a lot of boxes to be checked when you’re doing that type of work.
Elon came to work one day and out of the blue said, ‘We need to have landing legs on the rocket, so we can land it back here and reuse it.’
Then six months later, we started testing out the landing legs. A year later, we nailed it and landed the rocket back here and started reusing it. So, just having that thought process and the futuristic vision is what inspired me working with Elon both at SpaceX and Tesla.
Seeing all those successful SpaceX missions, I was just ecstatic. Those were proud moments and just life changing, really. It was something bigger than myself that I was a part of and helped to accomplish.
But I really wanted to put my years of automotive experience to work…and Tesla was right next door.
I prayed and prayed about it…and then I got a job at Tesla. I worked on the Model X, which is the SUV with the doors that go up like a Lamborghini. Those doors were having issues with intersecting when I got there so my role was to fix that issue.
When we got it fixed, I got an email from Elon Musk, which was pretty cool! He said how much my contribution to that resolve that issue meant and how happy he was to have me there. I still have that email!
The interesting part about working there was Elon doesn't have a huge office. He had a cubicle, right by us and was very accessible. The only thing he had was a table in the cafeteria that no one else could eat at. It's not labeled. You just know that’s Elon’s table. He's awesome, approachable and obviously very, very bright and smart.
I worked at Tesla for about two years and it was an awesome experience, both jobs were unbelievable experiences. They inspired me to start thinking about how I was going to inspire someone else in the world? What was I going to do to create something bigger than myself?
With that in mind, in 2019 I created Saginaw STEM hoping to give back to my hometown community by helping younger kids get into STEM careers. I wanted to help kids here in Saginaw get some of those same opportunities that I had, like meeting Elon Musk.
I've had an awesome life just based on my love of cars. It all started out from some advice from my guidance counselor at Saginaw High back in 1993. He said ‘Hey, you got all A's in math and science. You should be an engineer.’
I said, ‘What's an engineer?’ At that point, I thought that's just the guy on the train that does the choo-choo thing. He showed me a list of all the different disciplines in engineering and their respective salaries. So, based on my love of cars, those respective salaries, and my grades in math and science, I said, ‘Hey, if I pick this one, can I work on designing cars for a living?’
He said yes, so I picked mechanical engineering. I looked up all the engineering schools, and Michigan Tech was one of the top in the country. So, I got some scholarships, got recruited for football and I went up to Michigan Tech to get my mechanical engineering degree.
One of the teachers that inspired me was Mrs. Maggie Mack. She was a teacher at Saginaw High, though she is retired now. She's still the inspiration in my life. I still keep in touch with her and she's aware of what we're doing with Saginaw STEM and she's proud.”
—Dante Davis, Saginaw STEM
