Companies value mechanical engineers because their broad technical skills prepare them well for company leadership. Companies like Lear Corp (Southfield, MI), Caterpillar (Peoria, IL) and Osram Sylvania (Danvers, MA) put entry-level ME grads on a fast track through rotation programs. New engineers work as regular employees in various areas, generally for periods of six months or less. By sampling engineering, manufacturing and administration, they gain perspective on how the parts work together.
"You get an overall view of the company," says JoHanna Parrow, a product engineer at Lear Corp who completed the company's rotation program.
"The candidate gets a strong sense of what engineering looks like, and where they would fit best in our organization," says Leah Weinberg, manager of diversity integration and the Associate Development Program at Osram Sylvania.
Many companies recruit candidates long before they graduate. Those interns and co-op students are usually the first choice for permanent positions.
Michelin looks for diversity and leadership
Students who intern with the company are a good source of job information, whether they stay there or not. "Anecdotal evidence shows a good hiring rate among an intern's friends," says Steve Hunt, director of corporate recruiting and university relations for Michelin North America (Greenville, SC), which hires about fifty engineering interns annually.
Michelin produces a wide range of tires for everything from passenger cars and two-wheeled vehicles to aircraft and earthmovers. Its parent company is headquartered in Clermont-Ferrand, France.
The company employs MEs in design, processing and manufacturing. Engineers design and modify equipment, or work at a manufacturing facility on a CAD team or the shop floor. Those in processing look to improve product manufacturing through cost reduction and efficiency enhancements, and can advance to become production managers.
MEs also work at Michelin Americas Research and Development Corporation (Greenville, SC), where they do tire design, performance analysis, machine testing and field evaluation. MEs have taken their engineering experience to other areas of the company like product marketing, legal and personnel. Some have even gone on to become test drivers at Laurens Proving Grounds, Michelin's test track in Laurens, SC.
Hunt says Michelin has a stable future that's rooted in family management and values that have remained constant throughout its 116-year history. The company's organization is relatively flat at the plant level, with only three or four levels of management from shop floor to plant manager.
Michelin seeks out diverse candidates by recruiting at historically black colleges and universities and on campuses with large minority populations. It also works with affinity groups like NSBE and SWE. The company recently received a YWCA Diversity Achievement Award for exemplifying the principles of diversity.
Students who have committed to leadership roles in one or two organizations, rather than limited involvement in many, get preference. Practical experience related to their curriculum is important.
"We want engineers who are curious, inquisitive and don't have to wait to be told what to do," says Hunt. "Engineers have a lot of autonomy here."
Sober Pierre: engine test scheduling at John Deere
Sober Pierre joined the Silvis, IL worldwide product development center of Deere & Company (Moline, IL) as a test engineer in 2004, right after he received his BSME from Tuskegee (AL) University. He is a member of the future engines application team and develops and maintains the test schedule for the John Deere Harvester Works worldwide product development wind tunnel. He also supports and conducts other tests the design engineers need. And he reports weekly on evaluations and validations of tested engines.
"On a day-to-day basis I am dealing with thermodynamics, fluid dynamics and heat transfer," he says.
John Deere has three equipment divisions: agricultural, construction and forestry, and commercial and consumer. It also has a $16 billion finance operation and four support operations: parts, power systems, technology services and health care.
Pierre grew up in Homestead, FL, the son of Haitian immigrants. He speaks both English and Haitian Creole, a patois of French, Spanish and African languages, and understands some French and Spanish.
He entered Tuskegee on a football scholarship, but realized after the first year that he would have to choose between the demands of the team and those of an engineering curriculum. He chose his studies and was able to get other scholarships to help him graduate without debt.
Pierre founded a chapter of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) at Tuskegee, which introduced him to the application side of engineering. "Many of the technical societies hold competitions that force you to apply the theory you learn in the classroom to something real and functional," he says.
He interned with General Motors at a Hamtramck, MI Cadillac assembly plant following his freshman and sophomore years. After his junior and senior years he interned at General Electric's Evendale, OH aircraft engine plant. He didn't have a solid job offer until his last semester of school in the fall of 2003. He interviewed with John Deere at Tuskegee's fall career fair, and the company offered him a job before the end of the year.
Deere & Co fills most of its entry-level positions with students who have interned there. It recruits mostly sophomores and juniors, but will also consider freshmen. A 3.0 GPA is required.
The company recruits on campus through its relationships with six diversity organizations: NSBE, SWE, SHPE, the National Association of Black Accountants, Sigma Alpha, a professional agriculture sorority, and Minorities in Agriculture, Natural Resources and Related Sciences.
"We ensure that our recruiting processes are inclusive," says Jackie Hanson, college recruiting team leader.
Kahreem Hogan: a steady career path at Caterpillar
Kahreem Hogan, a senior associate engineer, is in the second of four business-unit assignments in Caterpillar's fifteen-month Engineering Rotational Development Program (ERDP). Caterpillar Inc makes construction and mining equipment, diesel and natural gas engines and industrial gas turbines.
Hogan was a Caterpillar intern between his junior and senior years, then joined the rotational development program in August 2004. "It's gearing us up to become more experienced engineers," he says. "We see how things work in manufacturing, testing and other areas."
As an ERDP participant he worked on engine and cell support, instrumentation repair and calibration, and became a Six Sigma yellow belt. His first rotation assignment was as a test engineer in engine development, where he operated and maintained the engine test cell and developed engine operation ratings and technical marketing information. Now he is in his second rotation as a design engineer at Caterpillar's Lafayette, IN large-engines center of the global engine development division. He works on sixteen- and twenty-cylinder C175 engines and Six Sigma green belt projects.
Good luck guided Hogan, whose family has more medical than engineering background, into his chosen field. He got his first taste of engineering in the FIRST Robotics competition when his high school counselor, John Bennett, supported the school's robotics team. Bennett, a liaison with Delphi Automotive (Troy, MI), helped Hogan get a job at Delphi after he entered Delta College (Saginaw, MI).
Then Hogan met Madeline Voelker, a counselor at Michigan Technological University (MTU, Houghton, MI) when she was on a visit to Delta. She told him that if he was interested in engineering, she had a great program for him. He spent the summer of 2001 as a research assistant at MTU, and transferred there that fall.
He joined NSBE on campus and served as pre-college initiative chair and president. Through NSBE he connected with Caterpillar when the company sent recruiters to a campus career fair. That led to his internship and a job offer in R&D.
Caterpillar's ERDP doesn't accommodate all new hires. MEs who don't get into the program can fill openings in product design, testing and development, analysis and simulation, and applied research. "We have a big commitment to research and development," says Sonya Miles, global diversity manager and corporate employment services manager for Caterpillar. "People sometimes forget the incredible technology it takes to support our products."
More than 50 percent of Caterpillar's 76,000 employees are outside the U.S. "I want to experience life outside this country," says Hogan, who spent the summer after graduation working in Denmark. "I'll learn more and see where the path takes me."
Boeing's Noramay Cadena tests the Spaceway satellite
Noramay Cadena was born in Mexico and grew up in California's San Fernando Valley. She was a teenage mother, so attending college presented special challenges. Thankfully, she was offered a financial-aid and child-care package from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT, Cambridge, MA).
Even with the scholarship, "I wasn't sure I would go," she says. Her teachers and family encouraged her, however, and she entered MIT in 1999. She powered through to graduation in 2003 with a BSME.
But even before she and her daughter left for Cambridge, she did an internship with Boeing in El Segundo, CA. Boeing employee Claire Leon read a newspaper article about Cadena and contacted her. "She made it possible for me to get in the door, and the internship made engineering tangible," Cadena says.
Cadena completed two more summer internships in El Segundo during her undergraduate years. After graduation she returned to California at her family's urging and joined Boeing's El Segundo facility full time as a systems test engineer.
Her group is responsible for bus module acceptance testing of the Spaceway satellite launching this spring. She also develops test procedures.
Spaceway is Hughes Network Systems' (Germantown, MD) next generation broadband satellite network that will provide high-speed, two-way communications for Internet, data, voice, video and multimedia applications. The initial contract includes three Boeing 702 geostationary satellites built by Boeing Satellite Systems. They will operate in the Ka-band spectrum.
"It's neat to develop a test procedure and then get a chance to run it on the satellite," Cadena says. "It's instant gratification."
Lear Corp's JoHanna Parrow designs seating systems
JoHanna Parrow is a product engineer for the seating systems division of Lear Corp (Southfield, MI). She works in the division's mechanisms group where she's responsible for recliner and lumbar systems.
Lear Corp focuses on integrating complete automotive interiors, including seat and electrical systems and interior trim. The company employs more than 110,000 people in thirty-four countries and had net sales of $17 billion in 2004.
Parrow's duties include working with suppliers on design, plus testing and validating the components and releasing them for production. "I really love my work," she says. "It's exciting to go to the auto show or a dealership and see something I helped develop."
When Parrow entered the company's College Graduate Development Program (CGDP) in 2002, it consisted of three four-month rotations. The program has since been lengthened to eighteen months.
She started in the 2005 Mustang seat division, where she worked on the front seat. She then moved on to the headrest group and worked on that component for the 2005 Mustang and the 2006 Explorer. Her third rotation was in the testing group and involved simulating the life cycle of a car seat in the testing laboratory.
"With all the new federal regulations, designing, testing and developing a safety system like head restraints was an excellent experience," she says.
Parrow entered Grand Valley State University (Allendale, MI) intending to become a physical therapist, but a part-time job at a structural engineering firm piqued her interest in engineering. She'd always been interested in cars, and her boss encouraged her to take Engineering 101. She loved it.
Over that Christmas break she toured Lawrence Technological University (LTU, Southfield, MI) and immediately transferred there. "I thought, 'This is where I need to be,'" she says. "I never went back to Grand Valley State."
During her college years she worked as a co-op student at a manufacturing consulting firm that provided assembly lines for vehicle plants. She also served as team leader of the LTU Formula SAE team and as president of the LTU chapter of ASME. She was the 2002 SAE Student of the Year and the 2002 "Distinguished Graduate of LTU."
Lawrence is one of several schools affiliated with Lear Corp, which has twenty-three plants in the U.S. for its seating division alone. Campus recruiting has helped increase diversity in the CGDP to 45 percent.
"We are making a concentrated effort to find female and minority engineers to be part of our rotational program," says Jacqueline Daniels, human resources staff manager for the seating systems division.
CGDP candidates need to meet high standards, including 3.0 GPAs and successful co-op experiences. Lear Corp's seating systems division hires about twenty-five co-op students annually.
Octavio Murillo works with Unigraphics CAD software
Octavio Murillo is in his second eight-month rotation in Osram Sylvania's two-year Associate Development Program (ADP). Sylvania has been making lighting products for more than 100 years.
Murillo's first rotation was in equipment development at the company's Manchester, NH plant, which produces large lamps for streetlights. He worked with the team responsible for building and upgrading the manufacturing equipment that makes the lamps.
He moved on to Winchester, KY for his second rotation to work in R&D on a new halogen lamp. After he completes a third rotation the company will offer him a permanent job. If the right job isn't available, another temporary placement will be found or his last one extended.
"My hope is to see him in manufacturing or a process-engineering role, solving problems on the production line," says ADP manager Leah Weinberg.
MEs fill twelve of the ADP's twenty-five slots. The rest are electrical, chemical and material-science engineers. They come from the top 10 percent of their classes and have shown promise through their involvement in the community. Students who are interns and co-ops at the company have an advantage.
Osram Sylvania seeks talent in five core competencies: communication, collaboration, change management, continuous improvement and customer-service orientation. ADP candidates must demonstrate technical skills and show how they have applied what they've learned in school through lab work, projects or competitions.
"We want to see how they've used their knowledge in school projects or extra-curricular activities to make something work or make a difference," says Weinberg.
Murillo, born and raised in Mexico City, may find himself at one of the company's Mexican plants in Monterey or Juarez. He followed in the footsteps of his brother who majored in ME and minored in EE. In 2003 he earned a BSME from the Monterey Institute of Technology and Higher Education.
His co-op experience was at General Electric (Fairfield, CT), which also offered him a position in a rotation program. He took a chance and turned it down before his second interview at Osram Sylvania.
Murillo enjoys the Unigraphics CAD software he uses to design the machines and occasionally makes the actual modifications. "It's a combination of practical engineering and abstract engineering and design," he says.
"When you get out of college, you feel like you don't know anything," says Murillo. "Here you are taught where to find information and how to analyze it. It's a great job."
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