83. Danica Bunnett - BS Product Design (Mechanical Engineering)

Ordinarily Extraordinary - Conversations with women in STEM

Danica Bunnett is the Chief Operating Officer of Bluon, a mobile app and technology platform that supports the HVAC technician community. Danica shares her passion for supporting a community that hasn’t traditionally received a lot of support and for making their lives easier and better. She has a Bachelor’s of Science Degree in Product Design (Mechanical Engineering) from Stanford University where she was the president of Stanford Women in Design. She is an outdoor enthusiast and gets her energy from the outdoors and the sun (she says she’s “solar powered”!)

Episode Notes

Danica’s love for taking things apart, understanding how they work and spending time learning about the world through opportunities provided by her parents when she was growing up formed her love for design and engineering. She shares about the fun opportunities she had in her family as a child (she may not have necessarily thought of them as fun at the time), what got her interested in Product Design in Mechanical Engineering and how that differs from “strict” Mechanical Engineering and how she came to Bluon and then into leadership within Bluon. She talks about the importance of being able to have honest, authentic communications with the CEO she works with and how that sets the stage for them to have true trust within the organization.

Music used in the podcast: Higher Up, Silverman Sound Studio

Acronyms, Definitions, and Fact Check

HVAC (Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) is the use of various technologies to control the temperature, humidity, and purity of the air in an enclosed space. Its goal is to provide thermal comfort and acceptable indoor air quality. (Wikipedia)

Bluon is a mobile app and support platform utilized by 100k HVAC-R technicians or one third of the U.S. market.Bluon is set to revolutionize the way in which technicians connect to their local distributors, resulting inempowered technicians, informed distributors and a more productive HVAC industry. (LinkedIn)

Stanford Women in Design (SWID) was formed due to a gap in current mentorship opportunities at Stanford, and to address the challenges facing womxn in design. We aim to empower womxn through inspiring and catalyzing skill-development, career-mapping, and learning through the self-pursuit of innovative new projects, beyond the classroom experience. (https://stanfordwomenindesign.com)