A member of the Harford County community is Mr. William Reichmann, who was an electrical engineer for the City of Santa Clara before he moved to Maryland. 

     “I got into my career because I lived in Santa Clara, California before I went to Vietnam.  I went to see my friend in Santa Clara and they didn’t have jobs in the county but they had jobs in the city of Santa Clara because he heard they were hiring,” says Reichmann, recounting his extensive career on behalf of Santa Clara.

     Reichmann started his career by, “drawing maps of electric facilities, including where the power poles and electric boxes were located so people could find the equipment in the event the power went out.” Afterwards, he was hired to be “an engineering aid, as an estimator- which is where a company would come in with a specific power need. [He] would specify the amount of power transformers and cables companies would need and then estimate the cost for them.”

     He recounts that he had “always [been] interested in engineering work.” Reichmann took the Engineering In Training exam (EIT) and continued to become an engineer. He had been assigned to “the wind power division.” Where there was a “small cogeneration plant that [he] helped around with.”

     Mr. Reichmann retired at 67 but began preparing for it earlier. “At 65 years [he] was working part-time with the city, [he] was in charge of hiring and training the person who replaced [him].”

     When Reichmann retired, he moved to the east coast with his wife, and in retirement he enjoys “sudoku and puzzles for the challenge and mental activity.”

     The question of what he did for a living opened an opportunity for Mr. Reichmann to joke that “[he] kept their lights on, as well as their computers powered.”

     Mr. Reichmann expressed interest in helping students that struggle in math and sciences, but “would need to sit down with teachers at North Harford to understand their teaching methods,” so that he could properly help students at North Harford.

     The Reichmanns spend their time doing “line dancing and community activities like bingo and being member of the American Flyer Club,” which is a club dedicated to the train brand American Flyer.

     As a lifelong history buff, Reichmann said he “loves going to museums, especially the Smithsonian’s, and enjoys seeing the civil war battlefields.”