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Will Draffin

About

Who is Will Draffin?

Intro

Summary

Maryland -> St. Louis -> Kansas City -> Atlanta -> San Francisco -> Break -> Somewhere New

About

I am simultaneously straightforward and complex.

I am open and communicative, happy to answer any convoluted question you throw at me.

I like telling stories and utilizing spreadsheets 😊

I often live life in bursts, focused on what is in front of me, passionately working and adventuring. With this level of focus, I can lose track of background tasks, messages, and life maintenance.

Life Trajectory

I grew up in the Washington DC suburbs, with a fantastic childhood, full of adventure and independence.

Churchill High school in the DC area was phenomenal, with a huge number of compelling activities, events, and diversity. I especially enjoyed going to rallys, embassies and events, then discussing with the running team that became some of my best friends during my 10 seasons.

I went to undergrad at Washington University in St. Louis where I thrived, surrounded by motivated and collaborative peers and built my foundation, with a broad set of engineering skills, including Computer Science / Computer Engineering. I was most fulfilled helping out with behind-the-scenes projects, including helping create a few new classes, and helping connect students with faculty and staff. I kept myself busy going to a huge variety of lectures, cultural events and student groups.

I spent my summers with internships in different fields, including cancer gentetics, wind categorization for construction standards, sustanability projects at national labs, and aviation communication.

I picked up a Masters at Georgia Tech where I specialized in Power Electronics & Control Systems and honed my skills to be effective in the energy field and got more exposure through the amazing Energy Club. Specialization in a new field was fun but also challenging as I had to audit many undergrad classes in parallel with my grad school classes.

I joined Tesla, starting as an intern, for about 9 years. I helped shape residential energy in the industry, while Tesla Energy grew from a ~10 person side project, to about 20,000 by the time I left. I worked on every piece of Powerwall 1, 2, 3, and every step in-between. I also supported every residential project, including Solar Inverter, Wall Connector, Mobile Connector, Electrical panels, meters, and eventually the Cybertruck with Powershare. This brought me around the world, including to suppliers in China, partners in Germany, launching products in Europe & Australia, projects in Hawaii, and countless late nights in the lab or one of our factories.

I am spending 2024 as a transition year, focusing on self-improvement, helping friends, and all sorts of adventures. I am also taking some time to sit with my thoughts as I decide what I am passionate about for 2025 and beyond! More info here

Name

My name is Cyril William Draffin III, though I have gone by Will or William since I was born.

In elementary school (and today) I had bad handwriting and sometimes my “i” looked like a “j,” thus making William look like Willjam, which became a frequent nickname. For some reason, I liked the number 3 at the time so as I signed up for accounts, my username was willjam3.

As I got older, I started to utilize wdraffin or cdraffin or cwdraffin. At Tesla, I actually ended up with both cdraffin and wdraffin as an intern and full-time employee, but this pairing with a single SSN exposed a uniqueness and primary key management issue in the company’s HR database, leading to a daily crash. Eventually, executives decided to just scrap both accounts, landing me cydraffin, and the eventual honor of having 9 emails in my 9 years at Tesla (which I used to get employee discounts on two cars haha).

In some cases, I gently obfuscate my name as WilD (a combination of Will D and wild), though folks predominatly call me wild for my stability, including a number of mentions at the 2024 Burning Man for being wild for supporting 4 projects with tenacity and little sleep.

Online Presence

General

I spend little time online (social media, gaming, TV, news, etc). However, it is great to live under a rock 😝

I am strongly an in-person person and love getting immersed in the moment.

I am terrible at keeping up with messaging. The more important it is, the more I have difficulty allocating the time it deserves, and the more behind I get, thus the more guilty I feel, thus … spiraling. For those of you I have fallen behind with, I sincerely apologize. For a bit more info: Sorry

I don’t message often, but when I do, I go all out haha. In order for me to keep track of my friends around the world, I keep a huge spreadsheet 😅 It is easy to lose track of connection requests, so send a message! (Aside: when messaging, https://nohello.net/ ). I won’t be fast, but I’ll get back to you.

An illustration of a Fox and Raccoon typing to each other

Phone

  • 3Oh1-233-8525

Signal and WhatsApp work. I am trying to reduce using Text/Phone as I prepare to leave the US, and I might cancel my phone plan.

Email

  • cwdraffin @ whatever

Emails have a tendancy to get lost in the piles of chaos, but good for detailed conversations

I would be excited to collaborate with spreadsheets, photo albums, maps, etc.

WeChat

  • willjam3

My funds are in purgatory, but otherwise totally viable!

Music

I listen to a lot of music 🎶 I can’t match pitch so performing is not for me.

When younger and traveling, I would flip through radio stations to find those with the best signal strength, and listen, regardless of genre. Significant distortion, pops, and out-of-place noise are pretty much the only things I dislike.

I quite like melodic singing, using the voice as an instrument. I learn lyrics very quickly and get lost in the words, so I prefer listening to music in other languages :)

I don’t have many public playlists, but here is a taste: https://www.youtube.com/@CWDraffin

This website

Effort

In case you’re curious, websites are superrr easy to make these days.

  • Setup (Domain, hosting, repo, etc) - 2 hours of with Brother Ben (he has a bunch of websites)
  • Thinking about what to say - 20 hours
  • Content - 3 hours
  • Move Out Content (Photos, spreadsheet, etc) - 10 hours
  • WillsEvents.com - 10 hours, based on many hours of chaotically taking notes through the years
  • Calendar - 10 hours

Tooling References

I am no expert, and there are plenty of alternatives for every step.

Tooling References: