The Definition Of Me

How do you define yourself? It’s one of the most difficult things you can do… There is this idea that a person can be defined by a singular moment in their life, that there was a challenge that they faced in which their entire character was on display for at least one other person. But life is so much more than just a single defining moment. From the most-photographed Hollywood celebrity to the homeless man sleeping on the streets of Los Angeles; from the President of the United States to the CNC machine operator on night shift in a manufacturing plant. We have all faced adversity on numerous occasions that have challenged us in different ways. Just as we are more than the sum of our parts, the definition of who we are is more than just a singular moment in time. We are multi-faceted, and so are our life-defining moments.

When it comes to Anthony Stauffer, me, there are many defining moments that I can reference. It could be the time I saved a pharmaceutical company that I worked for over $50 million in wasted testing costs because I determined the water used for a testing lot was not pure enough. At that same job, it could’ve been the time when I introduced the new water purity testing schedule that all of the company’s facilities worldwide would come to use. What about the time in Navy boot camp when I realized that I could be a part of team of people I barely knew? Perhaps, it was the time when I worked three consecutive 36-hour days aboard my ship, the USS George Washington, during a nuclear propulsion qualifying examination; an examination in which, despite a huge error on my part as a result of extreme fatigue, I was still called out in honor for my dedication to the job. There was the time, several years later, when my technical acumen saved the nuclear plant I was working at from a dual-plant extended shutdown, which would have cost millions of dollars. There was the summer that I spent homeless, in 2016, where the daily heartbreak of not being with my children was terrible. The list goes on: working a dead-end night shift job as a CNC operator; nearly succumbing to heat stress my first week at a new job; completely renovating a one-bedroom efficiency apartment, on my own, for my landlord; being carefree at my wedding in upstate Pennsylvania in the middle of a pandemic.

We face so many situations in our lives of varying genres (perhaps a strange way to describe it, but it works!) that not all the facets of our character can shine through all at once. They are as varied as our experiences and our interests. However, in the interests of seeking that one defining moment, and in contrast to most everything I exhaustively listed above, I can pinpoint one instance where, when my character had shone through, it even surprised me.

We must travel back to 2005, Ballston Spa, New York. Tucked away in a forest outside of the little town of Ballston Spa there is a Department of Energy facility known as the Kesselring Site. Within its fences there are several buildings, each one of them, save two, used to house nuclear reactors that would be tested for use on US Navy vessels. The other two are still active with propulsion plants. In partnership with the Department of Defense, the Kesselring Site is overseen by the DOE, but operated by the DOD. It is here that ‘sea-returnees’ become instructors to students who are in the last leg of their naval nuclear propulsion training before heading out to the fleet. I was one of those instructors.

It must be understood that there are three rates that go through this training pipeline, and they each have their specific job focus. Machinist Mates are the heavy lifters; they are trained to operate the propulsion plant’s mechanical systems, such as high pressure steam, high pressure air, turbines, pumps, and valves. Electrician’s Mates are exactly what their name suggests; they are trained in electrical theory in order to safely operate the independent electrical distribution system a ship at sea requires. Finally, there are the Electronics Technicians. This rate is responsible for knowing the intricacies of the electronic control systems that control nuclear reactor operations, and to actually operate the reactors themselves.

I was an ET, a reactor operator. Our training pipeline included in-depth electronic circuit training and in-depth nuclear reactor theory. To this day, I can go into exhaustive detail about how a nuclear reactor operates, the theory behind it, and all of the testing involved in the materials used to build the reactor. Anyway, I digress…

The biggest difference in qualifying the students is the required knowledge of the material covered. Each rate had to have expert-level knowledge of their own rating, but also required operational knowledge of the other two. Let me tell you, teaching reactor theory to a mechanic was one of the most difficult achievements out there. But I was able to that!

I remember it vividly, the moment I was able to break through and actually devise a general teaching plan to get the mechanics to understand my material. The topic was heat transfer, and we were discussing a mechanism called nucleate boiling. It sounds complex, but if you’ve ever watched a pot begin to boil on a stove, nucleate boiling is the formation of bubbles on the bottom of the pot prior to the rest of the water in the pot being above 212 degrees. The key here, however, was how we minimized nucleate boiling in a channel flowing with water. Such a thing can never be prevented, but by instituting a certain level of control, we can minimize it so as not to reach the point of ‘departure’ and cause the reactor to overheat (that’s bad!).

I wanted to reach this student ( I don’t remember his name, so it appears there’s a limit to the vividness of this memory), and I had been trying for nearly twenty minutes to explain it him. On the chalkboard we had drawn a line across it, but one that had minor hills and valleys, indicating that, at a high enough magnification, the reactor fuel assembly was not perfectly flat. There were large arrows above the line, pointing to the right, indicating water flow. The discussion had included terms such ‘laminar flow’, ‘turbulent flow’, ‘eddy currents’, and ‘nucleation sites’; it wasn’t working, and I could see the rising exasperation and boredom in the student’s eyes. I couldn’t give up on him, though, I was determined to get this student ot understand something that, personally, I felt was quite intuitive.

I learned quickly, as an instructor, that every student learns differently. If you, as the instructor, are incapable of altering your curriculum in minor ways to suit each student’s ability to learn the material, then success will be hard to find. It happened just like in an episode of House, where, at the very last moment, the good doctor has an epiphany because of something somebody said or did. My epiphany was the weather.

There was a window in the cube (it’s what we called the tiny offices we utilized as the one-on-one teaching areas), and the student just happened to mention how warm the weather was outside as the sun fought to stream through the cracks of the closed Venetian blind. It struck me like a blow to the head, and I remembered my Earth Sciences from grade school. In a way I felt rather like Dr. Henry Jones, Sr. from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, “I suddenly remembered my Charlemagne!”

Indeed, through expressing the flow of the water coolant over the cladding material of the fuel assembly as weather flowing over mountain ranges and valleys, I was able to relate the course material to the natural world, to something that I knew this student was familiar with from past education! We excitedly spoke of the concepts of ‘windward’ and ‘leeward’, stormy weather and sunshine, and even into the the reality of the concepts as weather flows over the Rocky Mountains and into the American Plains. Watching the understanding just wash over him gave me one of the most intense feelings of accomplishment I’ve ever known.

That moment became a bellwether for me, and I used that idea every time I ran into the same issue with other students, tweaking it as necessary. I also used that moment to adjust my curriculum for other concepts within nuclear reactor theory that MM and EM students had. By 2006, I had perfected my instruction of non-in-rate students, and I was recognized by the students as “the goto instructor” for reactor theory. Not long after, I was also recognized by my fellow instructors and the command for the high level of knowledge exhibited by the students in our section for reactor theory and operational analysis.

As much as I may have influenced the students during that time, it still has an effect on me to this day. The understanding I achieved in learning that ‘learning’ is a fluid is itself a fluid concept has helped me as a father, and as a husband. I was forever changed by that small event in my life, and I learned about an important facet of my personality.

The definition of YOU cannot be consigned to a single moment in your history. Think of your life, think of every moment of grit, exhaustion, and adventure that you’ve ever had. What parts of YOU did those moments define? What new definition of YOU can you come to by looking at all of those moments collectively? Are you more than you thought you were before thinking of those times individually? I am more than the sum of my parts, and I am more than a single defining moment in my life… and so are you!