An engineer’s circuitous journey from

Alex Becker was a little aggravated with God.

He felt a calling to be a priest but wasn’t fully convinced. He was dating someone and flourishing at an engineering internship at Walt Disney World in Orlando. After a year working on amusement park rides, Becker was told he was a shoo-in for one of two jobs with just three in-house applicants.

He wasn’t hired and wasn’t given a clear reason why.

Becker had been delving deeper into his Catholic faith, and after the Disney World disappointment he went to a church service and prayed:  “God, you can’t play with me like this,” he said. “A peace came over me. My time down there was done.”

Becker had a higher calling. He called his parents to tell them he was entering in the seminary.

“They were shocked but not too shocked,” he said.

Fast forward six years to this week. Deacon Becker, 31, will be one of six to be ordained as a diocesan priest at 10 a.m. Saturday, May 16, at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist in Milwaukee.

Becker will lead his first Mass at 5 p.m. Sunday, May 17, at St. John XXIII Catholic Parish, St. Peter of Alcantara Church in Port Washington, followed by a party. He invites the community to join in the celebration.

“It’s extremely exciting. Port Washington is a huge part of my life,” he said.

Becker, the son of Dan and Karen Becker, grew up in Port Washington and graduated from Port High. He went on to major in mechanical engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he strayed from practicing his faith.

“I kind of thought the world would give me a better option,” he said.

“On the outside it looked like I had everything put together, but on the inside it was a very empty life.”

He landed an internship at Disney, his first of two, and spent nine months working on facilities’ pumps and electrical and mechanical operations before being promoted to the quality engineering team, then the mechanical design team. He went behind the scenes of popular attractions such as Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Space Mountain and Dumbo.

“That was a lot of fun. I got to tinker with every single ride,” he said.

Before leaving for Orlando, Becker had started reconnecting with the church, and that continued in Florida. He began to attend church regularly and hasn’t missed a Sunday since 2017.

Upon returning to Madison, Becker became more involved at St. Paul’s Catholic Student Center, even joining the choir and singing a cappella. That wasn’t a stretch. Becker sang with Port High’s Limited Edition that qualified for national competition twice while he was a member.

After graduation, he turned down every internship and job offer he had.

“My dad was actually nervous,” he said.

Instead, Becker did mission work for St. Paul’s Catholic Student Center and went to confession for the first time in seven years.

“I thought I would get the wrath of God, which I deserved,” he said. “But it was a warm blanket.”

Becker’s first call to the priesthood came in Madison after hearing a Gospel reading in which Jesus told a rich man to sell everything he had and follow him. The rich man went away sad because he had so many possessions.

“It just hit me in my heart after Mass. I felt this great desire not to walk away sad,” Becker said.

The idea of becoming a priest, however, “freaked me out.” Becker wanted to get married and have a family and a job.

“Catholic priesthood has a lot of meaningful sacrifice,” he said.

After that second stint in Orlando, Becker’s doubts started to recede. He entered the seminary at St. Francis de Sales in Milwaukee.

His six years of seminary included a mission trip to Haiti with his father and sister Abbie, doing a 600-mile bike trip from Green Bay to St. Louis via Biking for Babies to raise money for pregnancy resource centers, being a camp counselor for Catholic Youth Expeditions in Door County, serving the poorest of the poor at St. Francis de Sales’ sister parish, La Sagrada Familia, in the Dominican Republic and going back to Orlando, this time serving as a chaplain at a hospital.

Becker was ordained as a deacon at Lumen Christi in Mequon in April 2025 and has already done 16 baptisms.

He is not the only Ozaukee County resident or engineer to be ordained on Saturday. Peter Danner of Grafton, who attended UW-Milwaukee, will be ordained and serve at a church in Brookfield.

Engineers entering the priesthood isn’t uncommon, Becker said.

“You see order as an engineer. You’re able to see universals in the world—gravity and the speed of light,” he said. “Engineers pursue truth in how things actually work. They encounter God because God is truth.”

The priest who will become the new pastor of St. John XXIII in June, Father Matthew Kirk, proves the point—he also has a degree in mechanical engineering from UW-Madison, where he was three years ahead of Becker.

In another surprising connection, Becker will be taking Kirk’s former position  when he starts at Holy Family Catholic Church in Fond du Lac on June 16.

Becker will be one of several priests at Holy Family, which has nearly 6,000 families, the largest in the Milwaukee Archdiocese.

“It’s a new community for me. It’s another adventure,” he said. “I can’t wait to embark on this.”