New staff member hopes to become "go to resource" for engineers, companies seeking professional development

In fall 2025, Hoyt Phillips joined the Auburn Engineering Online staff as program manager for Engineering Professional Development (EPD). 

EPD offers more than 150 continuing education courses for working engineers looking for CEUs, license renewals, or just professional development. For the last few years, however, EPD has been in a transition phase due to staff changes and education needs that have evolved since the program began more than three decades ago.

“I am excited about the opportunity to help shape and scale a program dedicated to supporting working engineers with high quality, affordable and relevant professional development,” Phillips said. “There is a significant opportunity for me to help grow EPD at Auburn.”

The education field is not new to Phillips. Before coming to Engineering Online, he held positions as an elementary school teacher, community facilitator of leadership programs for high school students, and most recently, a senior manager for a nonprofit supporting K-12 educators nationwide. In this role, he served as an advocate for teaching practices that support all types of learners.

Phillips holds a Master of Arts in teaching from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and a Bachelor of Arts in economics/finance from University of North Carolina at Asheville.

To better understand his new position and how to best move forward, Phillips said he’s spent the last few months poring over EPD course offerings, the history of the program, and enrollment and engagement data.

“I created an Airtable of all courses and instructors, along with a data dashboard to better understand where things are,” he added. “This helped us evaluate what courses to move forward with and which ones to retire.”

Phillips is now working to ensure the EPD Canvas Catalog (public course listing) reflects only current course offerings and provides a smoother registration process.  Another goal is to better communicate with university faculty and other stakeholders regarding EPD and learn how he can best collaborate with them to offer high quality, relevant courses.

Overall, Phillips hopes Auburn EPD soon becomes the “go-to resource” for engineers and companies looking for professional development.

As someone new to Auburn and largely unfamiliar with sports and the campus culture, Phillips is also working on a key requirement of all members of the Auburn family.

“I’m still figuring out the appropriate usage of ‘War Eagle.’”