Co-op broadens horizons for architectural engineer

Besides entertaining 50 million tourists every year, Disney World’s attractions feature an impressive amount of gee-whiz engineering that is on display in every corner, he said.

“I grew up going to theme parks and fell in love with Disney,” he said.

Disney inspired his interest in engineering, which led him to UC’s College of Engineering and Applied Science where he majored in architectural engineering. Ackley now works for national engineering consulting firm CMTA in Texas — thanks to UC’s cooperative education (co-op) program.

“I wanted the daily challenges of solving problems. That came from engineering,” he said. “How do I design to meet these parameters? How do I get these systems to vanish behind a wall?”

Architectural engineering draws from many other engineering disciplines, Ackley said.

“We’re a hub on a wheel for all the elements we use: mechanical, structural, electrical,” he said.

Like many of his classmates, Ackley chose UC for its nationally renowned co-op program in which students typically alternate between dedicated classroom instruction and paid full-time work with an employer in their field.

But playing in his high school marching band in front of a packed house at Nippert Stadium on UC's Uptown campus made an early impression on him when he started applying to universities.

“One day I made a Freudian slip and said ‘when I go to UC’ and that was that,” he said. “I didn’t just want a resume that said here’s my degree. I wanted work experience, too.”

Ackley graduated from UC in 2025. He got a head start on his studies as a high school student, taking classes through UC’s College Credit Plus program. That freed him in his senior year to pursue a minor in business management from UC’s Carl H. Lindner College of Business.

Ackley said those classes have paid dividends in his career.

“My supervisors are business-forward people and engineers. It helps that I can speak the languages of engineering and business,” he said.