Isaac Ansah’s fascination by the Wright brothers’ invention and engineering
Isaac Ansah completed his studies at one of Ghana’s premier universities studying BSc in Mechanical Engineering at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in the capital of Ghana’s ‘Garden City’; Kumasi. He remained unemployed for a while after completing his national service obligations until he chanced on an opportunity to leave the shores of Ghana for the UK and eventually the USA.
When Isaac first left Ghana via Kotoka International Airport located in the country’s capital city of Accra, his mode of transportation, the airplane, left him in awe and fascination. Being an engineering student both of Ghana’s KNUST and the prestigious Howard University of Washington DC, Isaac says he’s always admired the genius of the Wright brothers; Orville and Wilbur.
The Wright brothers’ invention of the airplane in 1903 and subsequent successful experiment in which a machine (aka airplane) carrying a man rose by its own power, flew naturally and at even speed, and descended without damage is something that Isaac describes as one of the greatest invention in modern human history. The brothers have always been the reason behind Mr. Ansah’s desire to enhance his knowledge in engineering. For this reason, Isaac left the UK after dabbling in menial jobs after saving enough to move to the USA for further studies.
In the United States of America, Isaac promised himself to make the most of his life because he wasn’t going to dabble in menial jobs to sustain himself like he did in the United Kingdom. This promise paid off after fully submerging himself in studies with Howard University in Washington DC to obtain a masters in Engineering.
After his studies with Howard University, Mr. Ansah looked back on his days as an elementary school student in Ghana attending St. Francis Demonstration Primary and Junior High School at Hohoe, Ghana’s Volta region (completed in 1992) and St Augustine’s College in Ghana’s coastal town of Cape Coast in the Central Region (completed in 1995) to finishing his masters degree at Howard University in the USA and said to himself the time to make an impact in the world of engineering has come for him because this is what he always wanted to do ever since he was a child growing up in Ghana.
Armed with inspiration from influential persons like Colonel John Gharang; former President of Sudan, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah; Ghana’s first President and Jerry John Rawlings; former president of Ghana and the positive influences they respectively wielded in their heydays, and seeing a whole bunch of friends he attended school with in Ghana practicing engineering in the USA with acknowledged corporations like Cummins, which is where he started working himself, Accenture, Rolls Royce, GE, Pratt and Whitney, Intell, Microsoft and to mention but a few, Isaac felt he’s at the point where right now there’s more room for career advancement.
Isaac now works as an applications engineer in the Valvetrain group of EATON Corporation. Eaton is a diversified global energy corporation. The group that Mr. Ansah works with produces Valvetrain components for engine and vehicle manufacturers like Caterpillar, Cummins, Honda, GM and Ford.
Written by Oral Ofori
