Ralph Hempel’s beloved hobby as a child has turned into his dream career as an adult.
The 1986 electrical engineering alumnus who spent countless hours playing with LEGO growing up is now employed by the popular building toy company’s home office in Billund, Denmark.
As the LEGO Group’s senior firmware architect, he puts to use his over 25 years of experience in designing, debugging and delivering complex embedded systems.
Although Hempel took a break from his hobby as a teenager, he returned to it in his early 30s when he and his wife Christine Hempel, a 1991 School of Architecture graduate, started a family.
For many years, Hempel designed firmware for fire alarm systems, first with General Electric (GE), followed by Mircom, and then with UTC, which purchased GE’s fire and safety division in 2010.