DAVIS, Calif. -- To paraphrase comedian George Carlin's legendary bit, the goal of baseball is to come home, and come home safely. For Justin Andrade, an infielder at UC Davis from 2010-11 and now a senior mechnical engineer at Waymo, that objective rings as true in his professional field as it did the playing field.

Waymo, born with the decidedly less catchy moniker of Google Self-Driving Car Project, has established itself as a leader in autonomous vehicles. Andrade's contributions are what he describes as "the eyes of the car," and every new advancement from the engineering team adds a layer of safety to his company's end product.

Consider the skilled driver who checks her blind spot, glances in both directions at intersections and watches for potential hazards. Andrade and his fellow engineers design and build sensors that scan the vehicle's surroundings like a dutiful motorist, only they do so constantly and with a 360-degree field of vision. And rather than relying on a single driver, who sees with just two forward-facing eyes and sits in an off-centered vantage point, a Waymo vehicle effectively has dozens of eyes that can see in all directions at once, with a focal range varying from point-blank range to that of a tape measure home run. It can make hundreds of decisions every second, without becoming fatigued or distracted.

In baseball, players are often rated based on runs batted in – that is, the ability to drive teammates home safely. In that regard, Andrade seems on his way to posting Hall of Fame-caliber statistics. 

Almost a decade removed from his UC Davis playing career, Andrade remains connected to the athletics department as a key member of Aggie EVO Pro, a network of alumni and professional partners who provide career expertise and resources to current student-athletes. During the past 14 months, Andrade and Waymo have hosted two groups of student-athletes during Aggie EVO road trips, providing a chance to share the company's technology – to the extent he is permitted – and to offer advice on entering the tech industry.

Giving back to the Aggies, Andrade says, stems from the challenges he faced as a student-athlete. Balancing the rigors of a STEM field, like mechanical engineering, with baseball, which has more competition days than any other collegiate sport, was tough enough. Receiving guidance toward a career path – like Aggie EVO does – would have made a difficult situation much more palatable.

"When I left Davis, one of the things I wanted was to have some impact on making that better, so that more baseball players – or other athletes – can do engineering," said Andrade. He also credits the EVO program for encouraging student-athletes to seek internships, something that was frowned upon during his playing days. "They wanted me to play summer ball, and understandably so," he said. 

Andrade is one of four siblings to attend UC Davis, and one of three to play a varsity sport. His identical twin, Jason, won a Big West Conference championship as a diver. His younger sister, Nicole, completed her first season on the Aggie beach volleyball team last spring. A combination of family, engineering and baseball guided him from his upbringing in the central coast town of Hollister, through UC Davis, to the Waymo headquarters in Mountain View.

After graduating from San Benito High School, Andrade originally opted to play baseball at Cal Poly. However, the coach suggested that he look to nearby Cuesta College, as playing time would likely be scant during his first seasons with the Mustangs. Not wanting to pay for housing while attending a two-year school, Andrade returned home to Hollister, where he could make a daily commute to the Salinas-based Hartnell College.

At Hartnell, Andrade starred in baseball and took part in the school's engineering program. Meanwhile, his two brothers were at UC Davis. The Aggies had recently lost such infield talent as Daniel Descalso and Ty Kelly to professional baseball, which would open opportunities for playing time. The university's renowned College of Engineering, the opportunity to continue playing baseball, and the ability to reunite with his twin brother made UC Davis an ideal match for Andrade. 

Of course, he can say this in retrospect: at the time, balancing both baseball and engineering posed a tall order in that first year. After transferring from Hartnell, he enrolled in an inordinately large course load to catch up to meet the NCAA-mandated academic progress requirements. During the season, a typical week consists of four game days, reducing the number of hours he can devote to his academic demands. "In a lot of cases, my education became about surviving," Andrade recalls.

In the end, that daunting experience prepared Andrade for the workplace, especially given the high-paced, high-pressure nature of the tech world. It also gave him a fondness and appreciation for his Aggie successors, as he knows the traits and characteristics they must possess to succeed through a similar grind.

"You see people who are willing to put in that work, that sacrifice, and get a delayed gratification for the better good of the team," said Andrade. "I think there are a lot of great qualities that come out of being a student-athlete. You're balancing a lot of things. In any job or career, there is a lot of that. I definitely have a bias toward student-athletes for those reasons."

While at UC Davis, the self-described "hands-on" engineer helped form the Baja SAE team, which designs and builds off-road vehicles with which to compete against engineering students from other universities. After graduation, he worked for Professor Mont Hubbard, already celebrated for marrying engineering with baseball, and was sponsored by Hubbard at the 2012 International Sports Engineering Association conference. (Andrade's project under Hubbard? Mathematically modeling the ideal baseball swing.)

So how did this hands-on engineer find himself in the world of hands-free driving? In the same way that circling the bases entails a few sharp turns, Andrade's career path was equally circuitous. Despite his enjoyment of sports engineering, he left the university to join a group of friends at a local startup called Greenbotics, which created robotic cleaners that could service solar panels in a third of the time and with a tenth of the water supply of a human team, and perform these tasks in the wee hours of the night. 

As solar modules began taking on a larger part of the energy market, Greenbotics was acquired by the industry titan SunPower in November of 2013. This sent Andrade to the Bay Area for an orientation meeting with his new employer. While in town, he decided to meet up for dinner with his older brother, Ryan, a 2009 UC Davis mechanical engineering grad and a systems architect for – you guessed it – Google's Self-Driving Car project. Justin became acquainted with his brother's team and was offered a job literally the next day. 

Almost six years later, Andrade has seen Waymo grow from 100 employees to more than 1,000, while his own role on the team continues to expand. He works long hours and frequently travels to see that work come to fruition – a lifestyle not unlike the demands of his days as an Aggie student-athlete. "There is definitely a work ethic that is built from just doing sports," he said. "You learn how to self-motivate and really grind through the hard times. You learn how to deal with adversity. I get up at 5 a.m. every morning to get my day started. That would be painful if I didn't do sports."

Thus, Andrade's part in helping develop the EVO Pro network almost seems that he's paying a debt of gratitude to the UC Davis athletics department.

"I know people say this all the time, but in my experience, it's really who you know. It's the networking," said Andrade.

As for the student-athlete outcomes program, Andrade says it puts UC Davis Athletics on the map. "It's how we can compete with the Stanfords and the Berkeleys. To young students, this may not seem as needed as having cool uniforms or nicer stadiums, but it is an impactful thing that will make us stand out. This is something where we can be at the top of all athletics programs."

ABOUT UC DAVIS: Providing a small-town community feel while providing a world-class academic experience, UC Davis is home to more than 37,000 students and centrally located between San Francisco, Lake Tahoe, and the Napa Valley. The No. 5-ranked public university in the nation according to the Wall Street Journal, and among the top 10 public universities nationwide according to U.S. News and World Report, UC Davis offers nearly 100 graduate programs and more than 100 academic majors across four colleges and six professional schools, ranking among the world and nation's best in numerous disciplines, including veterinary science, agriculture, and plant and animal programs.

AGGIE EVO: Established in 2017-18, the Aggie EVO System is UC Davis Athletics' investment in the primary mission of preparing student-athletes for a successful "launch" after graduation. Thanks to a collaboration of alumni, university resources, corporate partners, coaches and Student-Athlete Outcomes staff, all Aggies are guided over four years to acquire the skills, knowledge, opportunities and tools to better know and navigate the "World of Work" after graduating from UC Davis. Follow the Aggie EVO system on Twitter and Instagram at @AggieEVO.

MARYA WELCH INITIATIVE: Named after the former physical education instructor, coach and Dean of Women who founded women's sports on the campus 25 years before the passage of Title IX, the Marya Welch Initiative for Women's Athletics provides comprehensive support for UC Davis' 16 women's athletics programs. Through the support of the Marya Welch Initiative and its group members, student-athletes are provided the best possible opportunity to succeed inside the classroom, and in competition, through special project gifts and by increasing visibility and participation at women's events throughout the year. All gifts to the Marya Welch Initiative are matched 1:1, doubling the impact on our women's programs. Visit this site for more information.