AE 590 Panelist Discussion: Non-Aerospace Industry Career Opportunities - Violet Allmandinger, Alberto Davila, and Fabian Dettenrieder

Violet Allmandinger
Violet Allmandinger works in Product Strategy at Ford Racing, where she focuses on understanding customer needs and helping shape future products for enthusiasts. She holds a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Oakland University, and an MBA from the University of Illinois. Her career has spanned engineering, automotive consulting, and product strategy, giving her the opportunity to approach challenges from both technical and business perspectives. She is especially passionate about understanding customer needs and translating those insights into better products and experiences. Outside of work, Violet enjoys traveling, exploring new cuisines with her husband, and spending time with their Italian Greyhound, who is appropriately built for speed.

Alberto Davila
Alberto Davila earned his B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2017 and has spent the years since demonstrating how that foundation can be applied across industries. Today he serves as AVP of Partnerships & Solutions at Bold Penguin, an AI-powered insurtech company, where he leads a team that designs, builds, and implements solutions across strategic partners. He and his team specialize in identifying and executing opportunities to modernize how commercial insurance is sold.
 
His path has been anything but linear. He began in robotics and warehouse automation at Symbotic, moved into enterprise product leadership at Homesite Insurance, and then into AI strategy and account management at Liberate, a voice AI startup. While working full time at Homesite, he expanded his education by completing a Master's of Science in Applied Economics at Boston College. The common thread across his career has not been a specific industry, but a way of thinking: analytical rigor and a systems-level mindset instilled by the aerospace engineering program, applied to problems across varying industries.
 
Alberto is English-Spanish bilingual, currently resides in the Boston suburbs, and strongly believes that an engineering degree teaches you how to think, not just how to build. It also inspires and instills confidence in students to think creatively and push the envelope of what is deemed possible - all skills with ubiquitous industry applicability that help position oneself to execute when an opportunity arises.

Fabian Dettenrieder