Friday, April 26, 2013

A Teachable Moment in Good Works

put a fresh wind in my sails!
Give me a job teaching rebels your ways…
(Psalm 51:12-13)

One of my favorite movies opens with the question: So when did you first fall in love with hip-hop? It’s a brilliant question for a thinker that allows you to contemplate the cause and effect of so many of life’s events. For example, if I were to ponder when I first considered pursuing engineering, I can point to another movie that had an impact on my life: the original Cheaper by the Dozen. The old black and white was the story of Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, their family, and their work in time and motion studies.
 
No one really explained to me what an industrial engineer (IE) did. The summer between my junior and senior year of high school, I attended an introduction to engineering session at the University of Arkansas. A group of us spent a week touring the campus and visiting with the various disciplines. During the IE session, someone identified Fredrick Taylor (my family name) as the father of scientific management and mentioned therblig (Gilbreth spelled backwards) as the basic unit of measure in time and motion studies, and I became intrigued to learn more. By the end of the week, I knew I would major in industrial engineering. I remember going back home, to work at Mr. B’s, telling my manager that I was going to be an IE. When he asked me what they did, my best example was still the Cheaper by the Dozen reference. He asked if I planned to become an efficiency expert. I told him not exactly, but that I would come up with a better use of our time in response to him constantly saying if you have time to lean, you have time to clean!

Today, if I had to explain what an industrial engineer does, I would say that we focus on improving productivity and quality in any work process. Although I have a passion for manufacturing processes, I have gained a lot of experience in non-manufacturing environments. Throughout the years, I have had assignments that ranged from getting the right dietary meals to patients in relatively large hospitals, to understanding how cash payments are processed and credited from retailers to banks, to performing job-cost analysis for material handling in warehouses, to developing a supply-chain study of components and assemblies required to operate wind turbine farms for renewable energy. I like to think of my work as the proper balance of processes and people that produces sustained profitability!
WSJ blog image of a new engineering grad 
That’s my experience, based on the cause/effect/exposure in my life. For students entering the profession today, the global possibilities are endless. The Institute of Industrial Engineers recently released the following video to illustrate some of the career opportunities that may be attractive in the 21st century graduates:


UPDATED 04.30.2013:  Interested in other engineering disciplines? Check out this WSJ blog on the highest paid college majors:

http://blogs.wsj.com/atwork/2013/04/29/and-the-highest-paid-college-majors-are/?mod=e2tw

 

Friday, April 19, 2013

In the Name of Good Works

There are currently nine women serving as her state’s Attorney General (Harris-CA, Bondi-FL, Madigan-IL, Mills-ME, Coakley-MA, Swanson-MN, Masto-NV, Rosenblum-OR, and Kane-PA). However, if you listen to the news, you would not consider that 20% of the country's Attorneys General are female because when the AG title is spoken about in general terms, it has a male connotation. Even with adequate representation, there are still some job titles that are associated with men.
What's wrong in this picture?

I see a similar stigma in manufacturing. When speaking of a plant manager, engineering manager, director of operations, VP of product development, the person is always assumed to be a man. I was recently asked to share a funny story about an event in my career. A common theme for me: When people in other countries see my name written, they do not know if I am a man or a woman. Before the days of intranet bio's, I was once introduced on a global video conference as Mr. Latanyua Robinson from Germany, until the camera zoomed on me, revealing that I was an American female...from Stuttgart (AR)! Even in the picture shown, welcoming me to a plant in China, I was (innocently) referenced as a man. The most logical explanation is that people look at the job title or function and automatically assume that the person is a man. And while the examples I cited involved an international audience, the same holds true in the United States. Why are we still assigning gender roles to job titles and functions in 2013?
A 2011 study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (found at http://www.fortefoundation.org/site/DocServer/gendered_wording_JPSP.pdf?docID=16121) suggested that subtle biases exist in job listings for technical roles. For example, job titles for positions in engineering and other male-dominated professions used more masculine words, such as “leader,” “competitive” and “dominant.” Listings for jobs in female-dominated professions — such as office administration and human resources — did not include such words. Perhaps linguistics or culture play a role in why some jobs are more likely to be filled by a man, but I say it is still a numbers game.
Women represent 47% of the workforce, but fill less than 25% of the manufacturing workforce (http://www.themanufacturinginstitute.org/~/media/A07730B2A798437D98501E798C2E13AA.ashx). Advocacy groups like Women in Manufacturing are good associations for highlighting the accomplishments of women in the industry. As members, we have to do our parts at the grassroots level to educate young women about the career opportunities available. We have to share our stories about navigating through the ranks, bringing with us our rich experiences and diversity of thought. We have to be the driving force in the cultural shift that invites more women to want to become engaged in manufacturing so that 25 years from now, we no longer hear a job title and automatically assume that the role is filled by a man. We want a future state that assumes no gender biases, only that the role, any role in any industry, is filled with the most qualified person.

Sunday, April 14, 2013

Don’t Quit on the Road to Good Works

I just can’t give up now.
I have come too far from where I started from.
Nobody told me the road would be easy.
I don’t believe He brought me this far to leave me.
(Mary  Mary)

On Friday, my family traveled to Northwest Arkansas to attend the induction ceremony into the Arkansas Academy of Industrial Engineering (AAIE). The plan was for us to arrive early so that we had time to tour the campus, particularly Bell Engineering Center, and to locate my name on Senior Walk. By 5:30 am, the plans changed: Our local flight was cancelled without notification; the only flights available with three seats required us to drive to Houston, connect through Dallas, fly into Tulsa, and drive back to Springdale. At one point, I looked at James, ready to give up, when a still small voice said don’t quit. So we made the journey and arrived as the banquet began. Throughout the ceremony, I realized that this journey leading me back to the University of Arkansas began years ago.
 
The thing is, I never planned to attend any in-state college. If I had my way, I would have gone to Duke. I first started getting info from Duke in junior high school, based on standardized test scores. Later, in high school, after expressing an interest in engineering, I began to get correspondence from the School of Engineering. At that time, I had not considered the cost of going to Duke...I simply wanted to go to Duke because the school expressed interest in me.

Senior year rolled around and the reality of paying for college set in. I grew up in Stuttgart, a low-to-moderate income community, and I was first generation college. Thankfully, I had a dedicated guidance counselor who worked tirelessly to assist those of us who needed help finding scholarships (a big shout-out to Mrs. Ferguson). I had no idea how I could afford college, so I only applied to in-state schools... thinking I could not afford out-of-state tuition and unaware of any other options. On graduation day, I learned that I had been selected for the Ruth Reiger Scholarship, renewable for four years at an in-state institution. I started classes at the UA in June 1988 and completed my coursework by December 1992.

We make our plans, but God orders our steps. The road to good works has not been easy. There were a lot of nights when the load of you-name-it seemed too much to bear and I wanted to give up, but that still small voice would speak to me and say don’t quit. I am so thankful for the blessings and the lessons learned along the journey. When the banquet was over, I had the pleasure of meeting two very prosperous members of AAIE, who informed me that I was only the fourth person born in Stuttgart to become a member of the academy. (That makes me the first woman from Stuttgart to be inducted and motivates me to become an ambassador for more women to pursue Industrial Engineering.) To learn more about what’s happening at the University of Arkansas, visit http://www.ineg.uark.edu/

So, as I get ready for another workweek, I close this post with a verse of inspiration:
 
Don’t Quit
When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest, if you must, but don't you quit.

To read the poem in it’s entirety, visit http://www.thedontquitpoem.com/thePoem.htm

Friday, April 5, 2013

Finding Your Way to Good Works

Trust in the Lord with all your heart…and He shall direct your path
(Proverbs 3:5-6)

When I asked my potential client for a physical address for our meeting location, I received the following response: The use of GPS is not permitted when travelling to our sites. I knew then that I was in for an adventure. I got directions to an undisclosed location and a promise for a host to meet me at an intersection, where I would park my car and travel with a group to a series of drilling sites, located on rural routes that I could not get to again if my life depended on it. My adventure on this trip was exploring applications for green technology for primary and secondary containment on drilling platforms. Environmentally-friendly, cost-effective solutions for petroleum…my nerd-radar was on a 10!!!

Adventures in Arkansas: With today’s technology, I take “selfies” to chart my location in unknown territories…you know, just in case. But that option was not always available. My first job out of college required me to spend time in northwest Arkansas traveling in rural areas that supported the turkey production supply chain. So I rode in pickup trucks with virtual strangers to turkey farms, hatcheries, feed mills, etc. Years later, after I started Latrobe, I found myself in a similar situation, riding in a pickup truck with someone who appeared uncomfortable taking me to visit upstart drilling platforms supporting the Fayetteville shale play. So how did I find a way to break the ice? I initiated a conversation about Razorback sports, rice farming, and duck hunting. I remember talking with my host so much that we almost got stuck somewhere in Faulkner county during the 2011 Storm of the Century.  

Adventures in Asia: My most memorable adventure was my first visit to China. I was visiting a supplier that we were developing to provide raw materials for steel products. It was 2003 and in the early infrastructure development. Although I flew into Shanghai, the worksite was in Dongtai, an agriculture community in its infancy for industrial production. When I say infancy, I mean that along the two hour journey, many of the roads and basic necessities did not exist. When we got to the work site, I remember asking my host about the facilities and was directed toward a trough, hidden behind a makeshift aluminum wall. What to do with my new London Fog trench coat was the least of my concerns!!! 

Adventures in Assimilating into non-traditional work environments: Throughout my career, I have developed a list of survival tactics to make it easier on my hosts and me when travelling to rugged work sites:
·        Wear a jacket or a vest with pockets (there’s usually no place to keep a purse)
·        Keep a small container of hand sanitizer & baby wipes on you (use your imagination)
·        Know the outcome to last night’s game or local event (good conversation starter)
·        Develop tough skin for political/religious/social issues (awkward conversation ender)
·        Glamorize/personalize where appropriate (i.e., my chartreuse safety hat)
·        Be yourself (you do not have to act like a man to work in a man’s environment)
 
As a little girl, I was always told to pay attention when I went anywhere, so that if I got lost, I could always find my way home. As an adult, I have been blessed to go on adventures where that was not always an option in the natural. By faith, I know that I have a supernatural power directing my path to find my way home safely. Now, if I could just find my way to owning a rock quarry and a dump truck. After this week’s adventure, my entrepreneurial radar saw a potentially new opportunity for good works.