What I Do Currently, I'm an engineering manager of a team of 18 people. My team are mostly engineers with a couple of technicians and they work on software design, electrical hardware design, mechanical design and project leadership. All of these skills are used to created automated test solutions for computers that go into aircraft.
Why Engineering? In high school, I loved math and science. I initially thought about accounting, but thought the redundancy of it would get boring long term so I started to look at engineering.
School Days I grew up in a small town of about 5,000 people in Iowa and went to Centerville High School. I started out in Aerospace Engineering at Iowa State University, but switched to Electrical after the first year. Now I combine the two majors by being in a department mostly dedicated to electrical work in an aerospace company.
My Day At Work Managing is bitter-sweet for me because I miss some of the day to day activities from my engineering days, but I get to help my team with the most challenging concerns that come up and plan at a higher, more strategic level and help guide my team in the right direction long term. I also have done a lot of hiring in the last year, which has a big impact on the team.
Best Part I enjoy some of the things that you wouldn't necessarily associate with an engineering field. I always knew i would get to apply math and science, but the team aspect of it surprised me when I started at a full time job. That's carried through in all of my roles and the projects are such a challenge, that it really units groups of talented individuals and I enjoy seeing other succeed.
Proud Moments My proudest moment is an individual was when a program team that I was leading finished a particularly difficult and innovative piece of software for a foreign customer on time. We had some major delays - including COVID popping up in 2019 less than 6 months before it was competed. Not being able to go on site made it very difficult to meet the conditions of the contract, but we did it. As a manager, seeing my team support, welcome, and successfully mentor 3 new engineers all starting within two months of each other and all of whom had to get up to speed more quickly than normal due to expanding demands on the department, was really gratifying as well - it takes a lot of coordination and support to give a new engineer the resources and confidence they need, but they can really become a great asset to their team when they know they have that support from all directions.
Challenges In the early days of college (my second year in particular), I felt very alone. I'd just switched from Aerospace Engineering to Electrical Engineering, so despite knowing the campus and how classes worked, I didn't know anyone in my core electrical classes. There were also even less girls in electrical than aerospace and, having hung out with mostly girls in high school, I still wasn't very good at or comfortable with making guy friends yet. This did get better - one professor in particular was amazing at keeping my excited about what I was doing, but it took time.
My Family I have a mother and father that still live in Centerville, IA and 3 siblings - including a twin sister, a younger brother, and a baby sister.
Dreams and Goals Short term: I'd like to become a Technical Project Manager. This would mean leaving direct employee management for a while, but it's a fascinating role within Collins Aerospace. Long term: I'd like to live in another country for at least a year - a possibility with my field if I work towards it.
Inspiration I had a drafting teacher during high school that was really inspiring. He loved running and we connected on that and he was also a male teacher - which was encouraging to me as I decided to pursue a career where I knew less than 20% of my class would be female. My parents are both ambitious in their careers and my mom has more education than my dad. This has rubbed off in a big way and, while I can be kinda intense sometimes, I believe learning from my mom who does family therapy has absolutely made me a more patient and understanding person - something that has helped when leading a team of people.
Want to be an Engineer? I think a lot more young women today consider being engineers in high school (like I did) than the world realizes, but I think they may still feel like they have to give up part of themselves to get there - some are worried they can't be a "girly girl" while others may be worried about the culture they may have to endure and that they aren't strong enough for it. I'll say that whether you decide to go into engineering or not, all things in life are worth fighting for and, one of my favorite things about the engineering departments in college are that it's such a challenge that it tends to bring people together instead of causing them to directly compete with each other.
Hobbies I love running (I've done a couple half marathons) and walks with my two Great Dane pups. I also enjoy activities that let me get outside - skiing and hiking (depending on the season) when I can get to the mountains on vacation. I've also always been a reader and enjoy volunteering my time to the CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate) program to work with kids in foster care.