DALLAS, TX – Before pursuing pickleball full-time in mid-2023, Lacy Schneemann had another one of the coolest jobs around.

The 27-year-old was a product design engineer at Boeing, which is among the largest global aerospace designers, manufacturers and sellers of airplanes, rockets and satellites in the world.

You don't just get hired by a company like that without putting in the academic work, of course, and that's exactly what Schneemann did at the University of Southern California.

She earned a bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering in 2019 and a master's degree in aerospace engineering and mechanical engineering in 2020, and interned at NASA and Apple along the way.

Talk about an impressive background. 

Nevertheless, Schneemann was introduced to her career path in a rather unusual way. 

“In high school, I did this career questionnaire and one of the responses for me came back as aerospace engineering,” she recalled with a laugh. “It was oddly specific.”

After doing a little digging into the profession, Schneemann came up with a plan.

That led to her studies at USC and three years of fascinating work with Boeing in Los Angeles after graduation.

“I worked on satellite electronics packaging called PCBs, which are printed circuit boards. They're little packages of electronics that you find in every electronic thing, like your phone and your computer,” she explained. “We had a little green board with wires running through them with little bitty electronic components on them. We built really complicated versions of those things to go on satellites. Some of the stuff I worked on is in space, so that’s really cool to think about.”

Even though she's on a "career break" from engineering according to her Instagram bio, Schneemann insists that some of the skills she put into practice at Boeing could pay dividends on the pickleball court.

“Being an engineer, you have to be pretty cerebral. That's something I’ve been working on,” she shared. “I need to be more mindful, essentially using my brain more on the court and employing that part of myself to be smarter about playing the game as opposed to getting out there and doing whatever comes to mind.”

Understanding the physics involved in America's fastest-growing sport could work to Schneemann's advantage as well.

“How you hit the ball a certain way and how the ball moves, that’s all been helpful, and getting into the paddle technology is pretty interesting to me, too,” she said. “It’s similar to how Ben [Johns] is into paddle technology. Our backgrounds allow us to have a little bit more intimate knowledge of materials and how you can use the materials in a certain way to create certain effects.”

Schneemann isn't ruling out a return to the aerospace world in the future, but she's relishing her pickleball life right now - and with good reason.

A standout on the PPA Tour and a member of Major League Pickleball's Arizona Drive, she has quickly established herself as one of the most athletic players in the game.

And who knows? Maybe she'll even bring pickleball to the International Space Station someday...