{"id":31277,"date":"1970-01-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"1970-01-01T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/necc.edu\/newsroom2\/1970\/01\/01\/engineer-brings-experience-into-the-classroom\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T22:39:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T02:39:20","slug":"engineer-brings-experience-into-the-classroom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/necc.edu\/newsroom\/1970\/01\/01\/engineer-brings-experience-into-the-classroom\/","title":{"rendered":"Engineer Brings Experience into the Classroom"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Engineer<\/a>

Engineer Jim Cahaly brings more then 32 years of experience into the NECC classroom.<\/p><\/div>\n

With seven patents and 32 years in the engineering field, Jim Cahaly has a hands-on kind of knowledge that he easily shares with his engineering students.<\/p>\n

He became interested in engineering as a child growing up during the space race of the 1960s. Cahaly says he watched the Apollo missions with awe.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike so many other children of my generation, I was so enthralled by these feats of engineering that I was inspired to become an engineer,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Now, as a professor in NECC\u2019s\u00a0Engineering Program<\/a>, it is Cahaly who inspires others to become engineers.<\/p>\n

From those early Apollo days, Cahaly went on to earn a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from UMass Amherst and a Master\u2019s in Business Administration from Babson College.<\/p>\n

As an engineer, he says, he has had the privilege of witnessing the beginning as well as the evolution of many products. He worked on two patents for the emerging automotive airbag industry, four patents in the factory automation industry, and one patent in the solar power industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere really is always something new and interesting to work on,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

There are many engineering opportunities locally, he says, the areas of biomedical, civil, computer systems, and networking engineers are among the fastest growing fields in the Boston area.<\/p>\n

Cahaly started teaching physics at NECC in 2002. By 2011 he added engineering design classes. But his teaching days really started more than 30 years ago, he says, when as a professional engineer he was tasked with teaching the new, incoming, young, engineers the ways of the engineering world.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was wonderful to watch these young people begin to expand their creativity in developing new and innovative products,\u201d he says. \u201cI love that moment when I see that \u2018light\u2019 turn on in a student\u2019s eyes when for the first time they feel empowered to actually create a new and innovative design from only their imagination. Once turned on, that light rarely ever goes out.\u201d<\/p>\n

His students can expect to work on \u201creal world problems\u201d like designing a two-stroke engine or a smart phone holder while listening to the strains of Bach or Mozart.<\/p>\n

\u201cI assign problems and projects that students are accustomed to seeing every day,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With seven patents and 32 years in the engineering field, Jim Cahaly has a hands-on kind of knowledge that he easily shares with his engineering students. He became interested in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":164,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nEngineer Brings Experience into the Classroom - NECC News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/necc.edu\/newsroom\/1970\/01\/01\/engineer-brings-experience-into-the-classroom\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Engineer Brings Experience into the Classroom - NECC News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"With seven patents and 32 years in the engineering field, Jim Cahaly has a hands-on kind of knowledge that he easily shares with his engineering students. 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