Where are they now?

- Editor-in-chief

On an average day, I see hundreds of faces, talk to dozens of people and only remember the names of a few.

But one of those people I did remember tapped me on the shoulder the other day. As I turned around to see who it was, I couldn't help but smile at the sight of an old college friend.

She was like many friends you meet while away at school: they drop out or graduate and go their separate ways to fulfill their life's ambitions.

It only took Cassandra one semester to realize journalism was not for her. The days of homemade chocolate monkeys for breakfast were gone and the nights of cramming with our friend "Blue" were over.

In the three years since we parted, I often wondered where life had taken her. I was thrilled to hear she is now managing a new café in downtown Kitchener and engaged to be married to a friend of my fiancé.

This blast from the past intrigued me and I wondered, "What are UW alumni doing? Where do they end up?" We all know where Mike Lazaridis went, but what about that freckly redhead with the funny hat who sat next to you in Psych 101? I intend to find out. Not because you may remember them, but to give you an idea of where you may end up 10, 20, 30 years after graduating from Canada's No. 1 university (Maclean's) through this ongoing series highlighting UW alumni.

Name: Timo Wadhawan

Program: Systems Design Engineering

Graduation Date: 1970

Current Position: Vice-president, co-founder of Heartwood of Danville Inc. (timo@hwd3d.com)

Timo Wadhawan was 24 when studying as a grad student in the newest department at UW in the late ‘60s.

"I was a typical foreign student in that my life was more on campus than off," he writes in an e-mail from his office in Danville, California. "Academically, I was a B student."

Wadhawan said he remembers spending many evenings discussing various ideas for commercialization with systems designs Prof Les Seeley.

"I think it was here where the seed of going into business was sown," he says.

Now 30 years later, Wadhawan is living his dream.

After leaving Waterloo, he went back to a previous job at Bombardier in Montreal designing locomotives-diesel electric.

"There I got on the state-of-the-art project, the Light Rapid Comfortable (LRC); building train sets to run at much higher speed and more reliably than the Turbo Train between Montreal and Toronto," says Wadhawan.

From there he journeyed to Vancouver to work as an electrical engineer at British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority.

Fourteen years later, Wadhawan became the construction manager responsible for the Cathedral Square substation in downtown Vancouver.

It wasn't until the year 2000 that Wadhawan found his calling.

"I did not have a typical career," he said. "I went back and forth into several careers. I had a few successes over the years, but nothing has been as fun and rewarding as working in Heartwood."

By 2001, Wadhawan and Rob Pritzkow founded Heartwood of Danville Inc. — a company specializing in building custom homes and cabinetry in the San Francisco Bay area. As the company grew, it transitioned into not only building physically but also building virtually.

A year later, two others joined Heartwood, including Wadhawan’s son Neil. Together they founded Heartwood Studios, a sub-branch of Heartwood of Danville Inc. specializing in 3-D animation and visual effects.

“We bring life to the third dimension,” says Wadhawan. “Our team of professional engineers, architects, designers and modelers make it possible for us to offer 3-D work and special effects that rival anything you have seen before.”

Wadhawan’s company has made it possible for an entire jury to become a witness of a crime or accident. He calls it forensic 3-D, which is admissible in courts in California. “It is a powerful tool,” says Wadhawan, whose team of experts can re-create traffic accidents in 3D, simulating the exact conditions of the event.

Heartwood is also involved in the rebuilding of a section of the San Francisco bridge (Golden Gate). They are building the bridge in 3-D before each step of actual construction, in order to see specific interferences they wouldn’t normally see in 2-D, says Wadhawan. Recently, they also completed a virtual home for cartoonist Scott Adams, Dilbert’s creator. Like many UW grads, Wadhawan is making a difference in the world using his skills and experiences from Waterloo.

“It created in me the confidence that I could do whatever I wished,” he says.