Boarder rockets into aerospace engineering via FVCC

At college graduation tonight, former professional snowboarder Andrew Crawford, 32, rockets forward, finishing the first stage of his quest for a future in aerospace work.

Crawford is part of Flathead Valley Community College’s 388-member graduating class.

He has a lofty goal of working as an aerospace engineer enhancing space exploration.

“I’ve always loved manned space flight,” he said. “I’m a huge advocate of exploration.”

As he graduates with an associate’s degree in pre-engineering, Crawford says he owes a debt of gratitude to Flathead Valley Community College and the support of his parents, Bill and Sue Crawford of Kalispell. His three years of hard work just helped him win a paid internship this summer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.

His internship places him with the engineering group in charge of three huge satellite dishes making up the deep space tracking network.

“Over 5,000 kids apply for these and I got one,” he said. “I’m so excited. It’s the closest thing to a little kid’s dream coming true — to actually work for NASA.” 

In a college video, he gave kudos to the institution that he discovered on his own doorstep after traveling the world.

“Effat Rady is my engineering advisor and she is amazing,” Crawford said. “She has a doctorate from MIT. I’ve never seen a mom — she has two kids — stay here at school so many hours after she is supposed to get off, just helping kids, you know, with their homework.”

With her guidance, Crawford earlier won a competition to go to Houston where he and his group won the national NASA Mars Rover Design Contest.

“When I told my mom I was going to go down to FVCC and sign up for classes, I had no idea that, two years later, I’d be getting a call from NASA saying, ‘Get on a plane we’re flying you to Houston,’” he said.

Born and raised in the valley, Crawford followed his own heart in his 20s. He said his parents always supported him even though they had expected his music talent would provide his adult career.

“I was trained since I was two years old to be a classical violinist,” he said. “When I graduated high school, I had a scholarship to go play music anywhere in the nation. I chose to go to Oregon because they had good snowboarding there.”

About 10 years ago, snowboarding was peaking as a sport. Crawford couldn’t resist the chance to spend his days careening off tall buildings, sliding down railings and flying off cliffs while doing flips in the air.

“I was a professional snowboarder and I traveled the world — I lived in France, Italy, California,” he said. “I toured with Shaun White and a lot of guys you see on TV today, doing the X games and filming videos for little kids.”

Extreme snowboarding, however, had one big downside.

“I broke about 35 bones and I had countless surgeries,” he said. “After about 10 years, I was craving that intellectual stimulation that my parents had always instilled in me.”

Crawford recalls that his mom cried when he called to tell her that he was tired, broken and wanted to go back to school. He went directly to FVCC and signed up for engineering.

“My father would always say, ‘Andrew, engineering is right up your alley,’” Crawford said.

Crawford was floored by the amount of homework and how hard instructors pushed the students.

That’s when he said he fell in love with the school.

“I said ‘OK, this is one of the raddest schools I’ve ever seen because they basically challenge us to be the best we can be,’” he said. “The first year I didn’t sleep much because I was trying to figure out how I was going to balance this workload.”

Crawford found out the instructors had their doors open to help him. After class, they were willing to walk him through the material he hadn’t understood.

“Engineering is so difficult these days,” he said. “It’s just mind-blowing. We were here studying until 10:30 p.m. when the custodians kicked us out.”

He expresses amazement at the quality of teachers such as Rady who teach at this small community college. Crawford said they could easily make more money elsewhere but came here for the quality of life and the quality of the college.

“That just makes us want to be better students,” he said.

Like the 10 other pre-engineering graduates, Crawford has chosen to transfer to Montana State University at Bozeman. He plans to earn his mechanical engineering degree, then work on a master’s in aerospace engineering at a California university such as CalTech.

Crawford interviewed other students who transferred to Bozeman and found they gave high marks to Flathead Valley Community College.

“They said they were light years ahead of kids who learned the same material” elsewhere, he said. “I think it’s because of the instructors here at FVCC and how hard they push us. That’s not something you can put a price on.”

Crawford said the smaller size of the community college allowed him to make friendships that he expects to maintain throughout his career. He has no regrets about leaving the celebrity of professional snowboarding.

“I left on a happy note,” he said. “It feels so good to be healthy and not have any broken bones.”

Crawford still enjoys surfing, which he says resembles snowboarding but with a softer landing.

He may be leaving but the community college won’t find a more ardent alumnus than this former rad snowboarder turned surfer engineering dude.

“The things I’ve learned here, I’m going to carry with me through a lifetime,” he said. “I’m so honored to be a part of this school and part of the generation graduating from here because I’ve heard the students coming from here are some of the best in the nation.”

Reporter Candace Chase may be reached at 758-4436 or by e-mail at cchase@dailyinterlake.com.