Engineering alumnus travels the world during remote year

 Hartman proudly displays the Flying WV atop Switzerland’s Jungfrau Mountain.

West Virginia University alumnus Tyler Hartman was selected for a year-long journey across the world through Remote Year, a program designed for digital nomads to travel the world while maintaining their jobs by working remotely.

Hartman, a native of Keyser, graduated from WVU in 2013 with dual majors in mechanical and aerospace engineering. He spent a year working for a company in Cincinnati, Ohio, before moving to Washington D.C. to accept a job with Acme Mechanical Contractors as a project engineer.

“While I enjoy my job as a project engineer, the regular office cubicle environment was just not very fulfilling to me, so I began to look for ways to change my situation,” said Hartman. “I’ve always wanted to see the world so I started setting up my position to go remote full time, and then lucked into becoming a participant with the Remote Year program.”

Hartman was one of 75 professionals Remote Year selected from different backgrounds and industries to spend a year working, traveling and impacting various cities together while traveling the world. The program assisted Hartman in setting up a proposal to pitch to his superiors at Acme. The company accepted and he has been jetting around the world since August 2016.

“Before this experience I had never even left the United States, and now I’ve been to almost 20 countries in the past eight months,” said Hartman. “I’m doing the exact same work remotely as I was in my office at Acme all while interacting with different people and cultures.”

During his travels Hartman has learned a lot about the art of being flexible, and credits much of his success in the program to his time spent as a student at WVU.

“I am forever grateful to WVU for not only teaching me technical engineering knowledge, but also how to be agile, adaptive and confident in my work,” Hartman added. “These are the intangible skills that have really shaped my daily life and successful career.”

As if snowboarding in the Swiss Alps, riding camels in Morocco and taking selfies in front of the Taj Mahal weren’t enough, Hartman still has four months of his remote year left to spend exploring South American culture in Columbia, Peru, Argentina and Chile.

“I don’t know many other people from West Virginia who have been lucky enough to see as much of this world as I have,” said Hartman. “Traveling has opened my eyes in ways I could have never imagined. As long as I put my work first and keep my employer happy my plan is to continue living life traveling the world.”

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