Alumni Spotlight: Tim Coe

B.S. Civil Engineering, '11 Hometown: Wasilla, Alaska Fun Fact: As a kid, an episode of Martha Stewart Living inspired him to make a homemade fly out of chicken feathers. He caught a fish on his first attempt.

Alaska's remoteness draws a lot of folks toward a more rustic life, but not everyone living off the grid here does so by choice. When Tim Coe was 11, his family headed north from Washington, bought a piece of cheap, undeveloped land in Big Lake and towed a 14-foot travel trailer onto the property. For several years, Tim lived in the closest of quarters with his mom, step-dad, two sisters and two dogs in that trailer. At first there was no water, no electricity. Every night they repurposed the dining room table into a shared sleeping surface.

"Eventually we got electric but then we still were without water for most of my childhood," he recalled. "We just didn't have the money to dig a well. We were living in a travel trailer, so we had higher priorities. We piecemealed little buildings together and eventually got a little home out there."

Tim doesn't radiate his rustic roots, nor does he attempt to disguise them. The challenges of his childhood seem to have framed his outlook and shaped his work ethic. They led him to UAA and provided the perspective that now carries him in his career.

After a childhood where the McDonald's drive-thru seemed like an out-of-reach luxury, Tim now oversees budgets of up to $80 million as a project engineer for Swift Worldwide Resources.

The road to campus

The financial obstacles facing Tim and his family could have easily served as roadblocks to success. Instead, Tim viewed them as boosts of motivation.

"I think everyone wanted me to go to college and I was kind of naturally smart, so it was something I always wanted to do for myself," Tim said when reflecting on whether college was an option. "I didn't want to continue living the lifestyle I had been living. I always kind of planned to do something better than that."

"I just knew I wanted to go to college," he said.

Of course, getting there wasn't easy. Financial challenges started stacking up even back in high school. "I had to pay my way to even get to school," he said, and he means that literally. Driving from Big Lake to Wasilla High School cost a pretty penny in gas money over the years, and Tim took a construction job to alleviate costs for the family. He continued working construction when he enrolled at Mat-Su College and only dropped that line of work when he moved to Anchorage to finish his degree at UAA. But by that time, he was already on his way to his first engineering internship.

Construction work started as an easy means for a high school student in need of an income, but his teenage side job led directly to his current career.

"One of the guys we worked for was an engineer," Tim explained. "We did a $90,000 construction kitchen remodel and he seemed smart and he said [to me] 'Well, you're good at math, so maybe you should be an engineer.' I thought, 'Well, you're the only person I know who's making any money, so maybe I will be an engineer."

He continued working throughout college, took out loans and balanced his time until graduation in 2011. With a degree in hand, opportunities were no longer so far out of reach.

Tim now works as a project engineer for Swift Worldwide Resources, coordinating statewide projects exclusively for ConocoPhillips. Budgets on his assignments range between $20 and $80 million-a fairly incomprehensible sum regardless of one's economic background.

"It's hard to spend that much, actually. You think it's easy but you can't singly spend that much," he joked. "You have to find other people to help spend that and get the project done."

As a project engineer, he is responsible for finding that help. He recruits engineering teams nationwide, organizes materials, finalizes designs, delegates logistics and makes sure projects complete on time and on budget, whether it's a pipeline replacement project or a complex offshore renovation.

And that's just his day job.

In addition, Tim recently purchased and personally renovated a duplex near the Delaney Park Strip, which he rents to tourists along with his wife, Lily. He also sits on three boards in Anchorage, is pursuing a master's degree in engineering management at UAA and operates a fish guiding business (when time allows). "My retirement goal would be to just take people fishing," he said, "but you can't make enough money doing that."

His phone features multiple calendars, each with multiple color-coated blocks across multiple days.

"I got overcommitted," he says with a smile as he pockets his phone.

Leadership Anchorage

In addition to his hectic schedule, Tim also just completed Leadership Anchorage-an intensive program designed to develop skills and build connections for rising Alaska leaders. The diverse curriculum covers the bases from mentorships to personal reflection to a group community project. The program also requires a significant investment of time (as in eight hours a day, every other Saturday, several months in a row).

Tim grew up knowing the value of a dollar, as well as the cost of spending on one thing at the expense of another. To take part, he had to prioritize the program and reroute his time, finances and attention away from his master's program. He opted to apply after meeting the program's new director at a networking function, although he admits to entering Leadership Anchorage a little skeptical.

Over the course of the program, he turned his opinions around and now considers Leadership Anchorage "a significant learning experience."

"It was definitely valuable," he said. "The power that came from other people and their inspiration was probably the most amazing part."

It also opened his eyes to the energy of his fellow cohort. "It was definitely inspiring. Humbling too, because some people you think, 'Wow I thought I was busy or I tried to make a difference.' Some people were just amazing and they're so involved and so passionate about the community."

Focused on the finish line

Clearly, Tim's drive to succeed continued after graduation. His ambition and motivation trumped his economic background, but that's no surprise to him.

"It's kind of something where you just have faith and tell yourself what you're going to do and you go do it. It might be naive of me to say this, but I think that there is no reason you can't do something unless you physically can't do it. As far as going to school and trying to be successful, you just put in the effort and you just don't give up. I didn't graduate in four years and I didn't have money to pay for it... but I just didn't give up.

"I hope no one else uses those things I had to struggle with as excuses not to do what they want to do."