Engineering more than a career to Mississippi Power’s Matt and Samantha Ball

He leads a team of analysts that’s led the way with Mississippi Power’s LED lighting technology.

She helps makes sure the company’s distribution system is safe and reliable.

Together, Matt and Samantha Ball are the company’s husband-and-wife engineering duo.

The Balls are part of the many engineers at Mississippi Power celebrating National Engineers Week.

Matt, the company’s Lighting Services team leader, started with the company as a co-op student in 2007, then started full-time in 2011.

“My job is to lead a team of engineering and sales analysts to sell lighting projects and manage all lighting components at the company,” Matt said. “At an early age, I was originally interested in electronics. I loved stereo equipment. I probably had more money invested in the stereo in my first vehicle than it was actually worth.”

Samantha, a Distribution Planning Engineer, saw engineering as a career with plenty of financial stability.

“Having work experience with Mississippi Power as a contractor then as a co-op student provided motivation to keep working hard and push through the challenges,” Samantha said.

Their path to engineering was different, but their journey to marriage was a chance meeting at Mississippi State.

“I heard one of my co-workers talking to someone in the hallway,” she said. “I overheard someone say Matt Ball, which is a name I recognized and immediately had negative feelings about because he was considered the ‘ultimate co-op student’ and I wanted that moniker.

“My mentor introduced Matt and me and we talked about Mississippi State and electrical engineering. Matt assured me if he could make it through school I could too. After that, we stayed in touch so I could get advice about what classes to take and then it kind of went from there. Now here we are, married.”

Married, and enjoying engineering careers at Mississippi Power.