When Whit Johnson’s high school physics teacher encouraged him to become an engineer, Johnson was confused. Why would he want to drive a train?
It wasn’t until he took a tour at the College of Engineering’s Department of Materials Science that Johnson understood what that teacher saw in him.
“I don’t remember a single thing we talked about that day,” says Johnson. “I just knew that my eyes were suddenly opened on this cool, exciting world. I knew I had to be a part of it.”
Two decades later, Johnson neither drives trains, studies physics, nor engineers new materials, but he is still deeply enmeshed in the technology world. He is now a partner at Foley & Lardner LLP, specializing in patent law, and applies his engineering education toward the manner in which new technologies and their intellectual property are disclosed and protected.
“I don’t think we even begin to appreciate how fast that technological change is accelerating,” says Johnson. “If you can embrace the discomfort of learning challenging new things, you will also be able to adapt and prosper in that change. An engineering degree is a fantastic way to begin that path.”
Johnson had grown up around the U; his grandfather built the family home at the edge of campus with the aim of instilling the value of a university education down the generations. The child of alumni, he grew up attending U football and basketball games, and participating in the university’s summer camps and programs.
As the turn of the millennium approached, Johnson saw the writing on the wall — computers and the burgeoning internet were poised to change every facet of society. He enrolled in the U’s computer science program in 1998, but found that his curiosity extended beyond programming and he also enrolled in the computer engineering program, seeking a deeper knowledge of these transformative machines.
“I wanted to know how engineers make boxes of plastic and metal ‘think’,” says Johnson.
In addition to developing classroom skills, Johnson was building additional real-world experience. An internship on Capitol Hill opened his eyes on how technology issues made their way into the public sphere, and the roll-out of Utah’s STEM Initiative gave him a front-row seat. Johnson joined the College’s undergraduate student advisory council; connecting with other students’ excitement helped keep him motivated through his challenging coursework.
After graduation, Johnson spent a stint with Northrop Grumman, though it was that hands-on experience with cutting-edge engineering that sent his career in an entirely different direction.
“Being there, I saw that I wasn’t the innovator these other engineers were,” says Johnson. “I understood the concepts, but my talents were in communicating technology and in helping others to understand how it could be applied”
Though he did not set out to follow his father into the law profession, he did have an appreciation for the discipline and began to see how it sits at an intersection of technology and the ways society adapts to it. From there, it was a natural path into patent law.
“Procuring patents is relatively ‘clean’ in that generally the process is geared toward collaboration, rather than a conflict between two sides,” says Johnson. “Most of the time, we’re trying to clearly understand and explain what something is or can do, and I love that I have to learn something new every day to do that. It’s fun, challenging, and exhilarating trying to keep pace with the stuff engineers are working on.”
When he moved to his current law firm, Foley, he joined a roster of hundreds of lawyers who were already diving into the burgeoning fields of blockchain, quantum computing, and artificial intelligence — as well as how all of the above impact labor, healthcare, and other aspects of society.
Being immersed in that world is one of the reasons Johnson is now collaborating with the University’s Responsible AI Initiative. With the circumstances surrounding this new field changing almost daily, the legislators responsible for the way AI-enhanced technologies are regulated need all the help they can get to understand their options.
“If our lawmakers regulate these technologies with only an understanding of the law and ignoring the technical functioning and capabilities, we’re going to be in trouble,” says Johnson. “But if the law can be in the right place, at the right time, informed with the right information, there can be synergy, advancement, and human progress.”