Hi, my name is Cadem Jeremy Mickelson and I am six and a half years old. My favorite colors are green, blue, and yellow, I have a little sister, Ruby, and my favorite food is salmon. I love technology (I got that from my dad) and I also love to cook (I got that from my mom). I can make quesadillas and scrambled eggs all by myself! I have a great memory (also from mom) and because of that, I am very good at math. I can add and multiply!
My dad and I both love engineering. We have been working together on a snap-circuit kit to make a flying saucer! It has an incandescent lightbulb that will light up wen the motor spins fast enough. At first it didn’t work because the rotors were pushing the air up instead of down, so we had to flip the electricity current!
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Candy and Jeremy Mickelson (Cadem’s parents) had been married for a year or two when the idea to name their future child “Cadem” first came to mind. Jeremy was studying electrical engineering and he and Candy had spent many long hours in the CAEDM lab studying. Candy was a history major and would come to the lab after her classes to do homework alongside Jeremy. As typical college students, they often stayed in the lab until after 10pm. On one particular night, they took a snack break and on the wall near the vending machines was a banner advertising the CAEDM Lab. Candy looked at her husband and jokingly said, “that’d be a cute name for a kid.” Jeremy remembers thinking she was crazy and didn’t think about it again until 4 years later when they were expecting their first child. Jeremy, having grown up a geeky, video game-loving teenager, thought Candy was just trying to appease him by wanting to name their son after the lab where they spent so much of their time, but Candy insisted that she was serious! As the delivery date drew nearer, both Jeremy and Candy became quite comfortable with the name Cadem. It is tradition that sons in Jeremy’s family keep their father’s name as their middle name, so it made their decision even easier when they realized that Cadem flowed well with the uncommon middle name Jeremy.
It is a very niche group of people who would understand the namesake of their firstborn, but at a recent BYU alumni lunch it sparked a lot of interest when Candy mentioned her son Cadem. When asked what he thought of being named after the lab, Cadem replied, “Cute!”
Cadem has always loved technology. Since he was old enough to crawl, he has been fixated by household appliances and would crawl around unplugging all the electrical cords as he went. In our interview, he interjected, “There’s a piece of technology right here and now! A mini fan!” His mom, Candy, remembers a time at church when she was drawing his favorite appliance for him and Cadem was so excited that he shouted “WAFFLE IRON!” loud enough for everyone in the chapel to hear.
The Mickelsons are a bonified tech family; and the tech-inspired names didn’t stop with Cadem. Jeremy couldn’t believe it when Candy suggested they name their daughter Ruby, after the coding language Jeremy was learning in his engineering class. They agree that “BYU has been a huge part of our lives and we are very grateful for our time there.” Jeremy now works as a computer/software engineer for Tesla and they are living in Silicon Valley.
Already, Jeremy and Candy are optimistic that Cadem (and maybe Ruby too) will attend BYU to study electrical/computer engineering like his dad. Both Cadem and his parents are looking forward to when he is old enough to join the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department’s CHIP Camp summer program.
