Meet an Engineer
Cai Green serves as a Design Outreach Project Engineer and specifically works with WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene) products. Cai graduated from Messiah University with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering. It was in the Department of Engineering at Messiah where Cai learned how to combine his faith and engineering in a practical way. Working at Design Outreach has become an opportunity to continue practicing human-centered engineering in a full-time capacity. Outside of work hours, Cai can be found cooking with his wife, playing pickleball or golf, or hanging out with good friends.
Q. What is your role at Design Outreach?
A. I spend about two-thirds of my work time on the hand pump upgrade project and one-third on the negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT) device. I do a lot of computer modeling and making drawings, a critical part of the product manufacturing process. I also do some design work too.
Q. When did you join the team? And what were you doing before joining DO?
A. I first learned about Design Outreach when I was at college at a career fair. I went to Messiah University out in Pennsylvania, where DO CTO and Co-founder Abe Wright went. I was part of their engineering program, which has a similar humanitarian engineering focus, combining faith and missions. At the career fair, I talked to Josh Blankenship about the organization and what you guys were doing. Josh and I swapped numbers, and he pointed me to the job postings on the website. Honestly, I put it off for a couple months because I didn’t want to support raise. But then I felt the Lord calling me to this work. I graduated in May 2024, got married, and moved with my wife to Columbus to start my ministry at DO.
Q. What made you want to become an engineer?
A. I feel like I’ve always had an inclination and affinity toward math and science. I have always enjoyed math, problem solving, puzzles, and coming up with creative solutions. In high school, the plan was always to be an engineer. I just didn’t know exactly what kind.
When I got to the end of my high school career and saw Messiah University’s faith-oriented engineering program, I thought, ‘I have to do this because it combines missions and engineering.’
Through that program, I had the opportunity to travel to Nepal to work at a hospital that was having trouble with wheelchairs. Their wheelchairs were shipping from the UK, and it took 18 months or longer to get from there to Nepal. They were also really expensive—over $400 USD per chair. Then on top of that, when they broke down, the hospital couldn’t fix them because they were all custom parts or not available in Nepal. When I arrived there, I got to see this massive pile of broken wheelchairs, some of which looked okay, but the hospital didn’t have the right parts or tools to fix them. So we designed a wheelchair that uses basic parts that were available in shops just down the street. They could just walk down to a local shop, order the parts, and fix the chairs with simple tools. I spent 3 weeks in Nepal constructing a more sustainable wheelchair. We made it for $120. They’re actually planning to give the designs to other hospitals. One of the last days I was there, we took the final product to the mountains to former patients to show them. It was really special to see the people and help meet a real need. It reassured me that this was the kind of work I wanted to be doing, and that’s where DO came along. Turns out, you can get paid for putting engineering resources toward developing countries. It’s awesome to be able to work here and view it as a ministry.
Q. What is your favorite thing about working for Design Outreach?
A. My favorite thing has got to be that my day-to-day work actually impacts the lives of those we’re serving. It motivates me to do everything with excellence. The tangible connection of my day-to-day work to the end user is my favorite part. What I do here in Gahanna, Ohio, has a direct impact on people in under-developed countries.
Q. What has been most impactful about your time at Design Outreach?
A. The most impactful part of my work so far was my trip to Africa in December and seeing a LifePump installation. Seeing people skip alongside our truck and sing when we got out, seeing the pastor bring the Word while we’re working on installing the pump, seeing them get Bibles and Bible stories, and at the end, seeing them huddled together cheering as the water began to flow—it was incredible. I thought, ‘Wow, this is why I chose to do what I’m doing. This is it right here—to bring people the Living Water and also clean water.’ That was amazing and has to be the highlight. It was life-changing.
Q. What are you passionate about outside of DO?
A. I’m still involved back in Pittsburgh, where I’m from, with a teen discipleship program that my brother runs. My wife and I were involved with the program through high school and college, and I’m really passionate about that. We’re actually planning to go back to serve at a camp for 5 days. We are also getting involved in our church here in Columbus and serving there is another passion.
Q. What do you do for fun?
A. Besides golf and playing pickleball and games with my wife, I love to be outside and hike and hammock.
Q. What is one fun fact about you?
A. I have had three knee surgeries, and I have never in my life eaten Cheerios or Lucky Charms. But I am a huge Froot Loop fan!
