The key to Mike Davis’ brilliance: He never fit in
Mike Davis
After graduating from high school in 1992, Mike Davis planned on going to college.
But just as he began to think about attending Cornell, he found himself in a car accident. Davis, then a 21-year-old computer technology major at the University of Cincinnati, was on his way to visit his girlfriend and roommate. He was ejected from the car after the accident and fell to the ground, breaking his right femur.
As he lay hurt on the pavement, he asked himself why he was there, why his life had taken this turn.
“It was the moment that the questions that we’ve been asking ourselves about our lives have been answered. The answer was about how we live and it was me,” Davis said. “I had no job after the accident. I had nothing. I had no money. And to come out of this situation, that’s what I had to do. And I did. I made myself work and I made myself get some education.”
After earning a bachelor’s degree from University of Cincinnati, a master’s from Virginia Tech and a doctorate in electrical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Davis began work as a researcher at the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Soon after that, he was on the job at Northrop Grumman as a research scientist.
In the following years, Davis worked around the world with several major corporations and became a respected electrical engineering educator. His research also brought him to the attention of his mother, who had never before considered having a son work for a major defense contractor. By the time he turned 30, his work had paid off: The Air Force had hired Davis as a technical advisor and made him a director.
He’d stayed in the Air Force for 10 years and had just left for a post in the U.S. Navy, about to marry his fiancée and spend the next