“That helped build my curiosity about how things worked,” he recalls.  

Decades later, Deken’s job is helping young people learn about how things work, as chair and professor of the Department of Engineering and Technology at Southeast Missouri State University (SEMO). His programs teach skills ranging from piloting planes and operating drones to automating assembly lines and programming robots. 

To Deken, what all these areas have in common is that they are practical applications of engineering principles.  

“Engineering technology is training students to solve problems,” he says.  

Expertise in Manufacturing, Programming, and More 

SEMO is in Deken’s blood. Both his parents attended, and his father proposed to his mother at the school’s baseball field. 

When he was growing up in nearby Poplar Bluff, both his parents worked in family services for the state. Two of his uncles, however, were electrical engineers. They encouraged him in his exploration of gadgets, such as when he took apart a VCR to see what was inside.  

He went on to get bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering at Missouri University of Science and Technology. However, an integral part of his education came outside the classroom. During his studies, he completed internships at an electric power cooperative and at two manufacturing plants, including one that made motors for high-efficiency washing machines. 

At the motor plant, he helped design parts for the manufacturing line. He was fascinated by watching those parts go into operation.  

“We were making 10,000 motors a day,” he says. “It was kind of mesmerizing seeing how perfectly things seemed to work. You could make the same motion a million times, and do it the exact same way every single time, and the motors all ended up looking identical.” 

While Deken pursued his doctorate at Purdue University in Indiana, he worked for a consulting firm, where he honed his skills in another area of electrical engineering: programming. In addition to modeling electric machines for defense contractors, such as a high-powered generator meant to power an aircraft laser system, he wrote software that allowed several computers to collaborate in running simulations.  

He enjoyed writing code so much during his education that, as a side project, he created a data management system for an auction house where his future wife worked. Thirty years later, he notes, the company still uses his software. 

Hands-On Engineering Education at SEMO 

By the time he completed his doctorate program, Deken was ready to come home to Missouri — in part, so that his young children could be close to their grandparents. He joined the SEMO faculty in 2007. 

There, he says, he saw an opportunity to create the kind of program that would have interested him as a college student. Rather than focusing at first on theory, he wanted a program in which students could get hands-on experience early on. 

“We come from a fairly rural part of Missouri, and students don’t always have access to the highest tech equipment in their schools,” he says. “Here, they’re able to work with equipment right off the bat.” 

One example is an agricultural spraying drone. Students guide it remotely over fields planted by the school’s agriculture department. They learn to hover it precisely so that pesticides don’t accidentally spill into neighboring plots.  

Another type of equipment is industrial controllers: electronic brains that run manufacturing lines. Deken explains, “You have a part going down a conveyor belt, and it trips some sensor, and some hand grabs it, and slaps a label on it. A programmable logic controller [PLC] is the device that coordinates all of that.” 

At the end of a semester, he will assign students to push these devices past their existing boundaries. In one project, a student programmed a logic controller to play chess.  

Deken asks, “What are new things they can do with the equipment that we haven't seen before?” 

Other PLC student projects that stand out include building a custom Skee-Ball table, creating an aquaponics system, and programming an industrial robot to pour wine for presidential dinners. “I’m currently working with a student on programming a robot to make a toast for the presidential inauguration,” he says. 

From Training Pilots to Sponsoring Robotics Teams 

Programming logic controllers offers an added benefit to students, Deken says. “It makes them very employable. Anybody who has automation is constantly looking for people who can work with those devices.” 

SEMO’s close relationship with local employers was another factor that drew him to the school. “We strive to be a benefit to the region and to the jobs in the region,” he says. “It’s a way of giving back to where I grew up.” 

His department’s Industrial Advisory Board, representing local employers, helps it tailor programs to today’s employment needs, such as construction management, network administration and professional pilot training. 

As a result, Deken says, “As soon as you walk across that stage, you're ready to be hired. We have a lot of students who are hired before they graduate.” 

Another way in which he has given back to SEMO is by facilitating robotics competitions. For the past 15 years, students in the region in grades four to 12 have built and programmed robots using high-tech Lego sets—updated versions of the ones he played with as a kid—thanks to a grant Deken and his colleagues put together. Winning teams have advanced to regional and state championships. 

“We call them robotics competitions, but they’re really engineering competitions,” he says. “It’s easy to say to students, ‘If you liked this robotics competition, you will like engineering.’” 

It’s not usual for a new engineering student to tell Deken they came up through his robotics competitions. It’s equally common, he says, to run into a former student. 

“I get to see a student grow from being a prospective student to their freshman year and on to their senior year,” he says. “After they graduate, I may bring them back and have them advise us on a program. Or I may catch them at a career fair and hear the impact that these programs have had on their lives.” 

Such encounters sometimes take him back to his own youth.  

“I see myself in a lot of these students,” says Deken. “I enjoy the fact that we are able to help them be successful and have a positive impact, not only on their lives, but on the region as a whole.” 

Explore Career Possibilities in Engineering Technology 

From industrial automation to aviation, graduates in engineering technology are in demand. Led by field-experienced professors such as Dr. Brad Deken, the range of on-campus and online programs in SEMO’s Department of Engineering and Technology offers opportunities to acquire hands-on experience in a wide variety of cutting-edge technologies.  

Learn more about the SEMO and SEMO Online engineering and technology programs and how they can lead to rewarding careers in fast-growing fields.  

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