Employee Spotlight: Nicolas Navarro

Our packaging team at the Center for Packaging and Unit Load Design has been expanded with a new project manager. Nicolas Navarro is a CPULD alumni who is originally from Costa Rica. Nico works in the pallet testing lab, taking over more and more of the daily running activities of a busy laboratory. He manages the student workers, organizes daily tasks, plans project with our outside customers, among many other responsibilities. He has already proven himself a great new asset for Center!

Nico always wanted to travel and pursuing higher education gave him a good excuse to follow that dream. He told us that he “had always wanted to pursue university studies outside of my home country, and at the time of my graduation from Costa Rica Tech, Virginia Tech provided me with an excellent opportunity to fulfill this dream given VT’s strong academic reputation, benefits, and college campus. I initially chose to study industrial engineering because it provided a blend between management and engineering concepts. The idea of developing competence in a technical subject and then applying management skills to lead change appealed to me.”

“I graduated in the summer of 2020 after completing two master degrees in both Packaging and Industrial Engineering. During my time as a graduate student, I conducted exploratory research about the use of Internet-of-Things technology in pallets. After my graduation, I worked as a Field Application Engineer at JFR Holdings in Hanover, and Auburn, Pennsylvania.”

“I came back to Blacksburg on February 2022, to join the Center for Packaging and Unit Load Design as a project manager. I am very excited and happy to be back. One of the best parts of working at the Center is learning to deal to a wide variety of different engineering and management challenges during the projects that we conduct for our clients. Our labs are all about hands-on engineering, where you can actually see the how the material learned in classes translates to a practical and real application. Our students acquire valuable skills in understanding problem fundamentals, and project management.”

Nico finished up by sharing a little about himself personally. “When I am not at work, I am usually working out at the gym, running on the Huckleberry trail, or reading at home. I enjoy reading philosophy, history of philosophy, politics, science, and also fiction novels. Other hobbies include hiking, visiting museum and art galleries, traveling, and hanging out with friends.”