budfrogS4's Bio
My full name is Abraham Hsieh and I am a 26 year old living in Sugar Land, Texas. I was born in a western suburb of St. Louis, Missouri and grew up there all the way through high school. I received a BS in Chemical Engineering in 2004 from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, a northern suburb of Chicago. That is also where I met my future wife, Erin Martens, living in the same dorm freshman and sophomore year.
After graduation, I joined an internationally acclaimed engineering-construction company, Fluor Corporation, at our Greenville, South Carolina office. While in Greenville, I spent three years as a process engineer primarily designing multi-billion dollar polymer and specialty chemical production facilities. In July 2007, I transferred to our Sugar Land office as a Project Controls Specialist in order to begin learning the business side of the company, building toward project management and executive aspirations. My current project is the ConocoPhillips Wood River Refinery Expansion Project, just east of St. Louis in Roxana, Illinois. Along with Bechtel, we are building a $2+ billion expansion which will allow the Wood River Refinery to process Canadian Synbit Crude from Alberta's oil sands. Despite delays caused by environmentalists petitioning IEPA's approval of air permits for the expansion, I expect to mobilize to the construction site later this summer for two to three years.
Outside of work, I mostly enjoy playing competitive ice hockey. I began playing on Northwestern's club hockey team, and as you may imagine, I did not receive much ice time. Once I graduated and started playing in men's leagues in Greenville, I've drastically improved. I was a founding member of the BMW Performance Center Redliners that played in the local adult league and various tournaments in the southeast region. I currently play in the Memorial City Hockey A/B league.
Being from St. Louis, I'm a faithful follower of the Cardinals and Blues, and to a much lesser extent, the Rams. Unfortunately, due to the lack of engineering firms in St. Louis, I have a feeling I'm going to be following those teams on MLBTV and Center Ice more often than at Busch Stadium or Scottrade Center.
Last, but not least, my enjoyment of cars really didn't start until I graduated. My parents, doing all that they could, allowed me to use their Toyota Corolla through high school and a couple of years in college when I had to drive to internships. Then, in June 2005, after months of research, I bought my 2004 Audi S4 (B6). There were quite a few cars that I looked at during my quest for my first "real" car. At first, I wanted to get a 350z, but I realized that having Zack, my yellow labrador retriever, I really should stick to a sedan. That automatically ruled out not only the Z but also the M3 and G35 coupe. So, I was down to the S4, STI, G35 sedan, E39 M5 or the C5 RS6. The RS6 was just out of my price range and the M5s that I could afford were too old and I didn't like the idea of buying a high mileage car that's probably been wrung out. The G sedan and STI had interiors that were or felt cheap so the S4 was easily the pick of the litter.
The S4 that I finally found was surprisingly at Carmax. Black, black/silver alcantara, 6MT, 10k miles, locally serviced and driven. Ever since that purchase, I have been treated with the utmost respect and courtesy by the Audi service departments. Kudos to Steve White Audi in Greenville and Audi West Houston for hiring Daniel/Julian and John, respectfully. I'm sad to hear that both Daniel and Julian have moved on - they always made things easy for me.