Women EEs excel in a male-dominated field

Companies seek women EEs to increase competitive advantage

Women offer talents, perspectives and experiences that lead to a more creative approach

By Angela M. Hutchinson
Contributing Editor

The National Science Foundation (www.nsf.gov) reports that women make up almost 8 percent of the one million-plus engineering workforce in the U.S., but according to a 2007 EE Times article, electrical engineering remains “one of the most male-dominated professions” in the country, with a far lower percentage. Nonetheless, women can and do excel in the field, and new EE grads are building exciting careers at top companies.

Susan Thomas is an electrical power engineer at DuPont
In May 2008 Susan Thomas joined the electrical technology consulting group at DuPont (Wilmington, DE). The group is a support center for electrical power-oriented specialties and project engineering.

She’s responsible for designing and engineering power distribution systems. Thomas works on capital projects at DuPont facilities and consults with other parts of the company, from front-end loading through startup and commissioning. She also does arc flash hazard analysis to make sure the DuPont electrical systems are properly protected and labeled for safe operation in the company’s plants.

Thomas works alongside process engineers, project managers, estimators, consultants and vendors. “My job touches the entire capital project process, from the electrical system design all the way to startup,” she says. Thomas was born in India and came to the United States in 2003 with her family. “My parents were always interested in our education and sacrificed a lot to move us here for our future,” she says. “Their encouragement has pushed me to go further.”

Before moving to the U.S., Thomas earned her 2002 bachelors in physics at Christian College in India. In 2008 she earned a second bachelors in EE at Drexel University (Philadelphia, PA) where she majored in power systems.

Power engineering at DuPont
Thomas got her first job in a steel plant through the campus recruitment program, but moved to DuPont when she saw a job opening for an electrical power engineer. “This was exactly what I wanted to do,” she says.

Thomas is currently working on electrical design work for a new facility. She finds it interesting to see the role small details of a job can play during the design phase. “Though attention to details can be tedious, I feel fulfilled at the end of the day,” she says.

There were only a few women in her classes at college, but Thomas believes that being a woman in a male-dominated field has had no impact on her academic or career achievements. Quite the opposite: “I feel my uniqueness can be an advantage,” she says.

When she graduated, Thomas was presented with many job opportunities. “It really came down to just picking the best one,” she says with a smile.

Each day is different at DuPont, and Thomas says she’s always learning. She feels fortunate to be working with recognized world-class electrical engineers who have so much knowledge and experience. “Even though they have a busy schedule they make the time to teach the new engineers,” she says.

Thomas believes that as an EE her value is measured by how much she contributes and how much she improves and is willing to learn. She thinks that women process information differently, and bring their own perspective and creativity to the workplace. “This can be a great strength in a team environment,” she says.

Reema Mehra works in systems design at T-Mobile
For the last three years, Reema Mehra has been working with T-Mobile as a systems design engineer. Her job involves planning the hardware required to bring up enough cell towers for future growth in the Midwest. She works with several different teams to integrate that hardware and make the most of it.

Mehra is responsible for routine monitoring of key radio network performance indicators. She also assists senior engineers in daily activities and creates a monthly new-site configuration report. “I have to plan ahead for enough capacity to support T-Mobile’s growth without affecting service to our customers,” she explains.

She loves working in the constantly changing environment because it gives her a chance to be logical and experimental at the same time. “The fact that we’re encouraged to come up with creative ideas to resolve the hurdles we face keeps me going,” she says.

A proud woman engineer
Mehra is Asian and was born in New Delhi, India. She moved to the U.S. in 2002 to attend college. She says the transition wasn’t easy, but the school did a good job introducing students of all backgrounds to the culture and norms of the university.

She graduated from Purdue University (West Lafayette, IN) in 2006 with a BSEE. She’s been focused on an engineering career since high school. “My family is in the telecom industry so I think that helped as well,” she says with a smile.

As a student, Mehra did an internship as a hardware engineer at the Boulder, CO location of Ericsson Wireless Communications Inc (Stockholm, Sweden). She helped qualify a new board design, which included reliability test data analysis and statistical analysis of board parameters to evaluate and quantify design changes made to pre-production boards. “It was a great experience,” she says.

Gender has had little to no impact on Mehra’s academic or career achievements. “We are who we are because of the choices we make,” she says. “All that counts in the end is hard work and determination.”

Being a woman engineer makes Mehra very proud. When she was in college she joined a group for women in engineering and got involved with mentorship programs that encouraged women engineers. “It’s very important to believe in yourself and have a mentor who believes in you too,” she says.

Brianna Collins designs substations at Alliant Energy
Brianna Collins has been working as an EE II in substation engineering at Alliant Energy (Cedar Rapids, IA) since 2006. She designs distribution substations throughout the company’s territory in Iowa.

Her job begins in the planning department, evaluating the needs of current and future energy customers to decide where and when a substation is needed. “We may decide to upgrade an existing substation or build a brand new facility,” she explains.

Requirements vary based on the amount of energy needed, urban vs rural locations and the size and style of equipment. Collins is in charge of bidding out and ordering material like steel structures, protection enclosures, switches and high-powered breakers. “I develop the belowground plans, like ground grids for lightning protection and foundation plans for the large equipment,” she says.

She has to determine where all the underground cable will be run. “This includes small power cables to keep heaters and fans going as well as high voltage cables that connect into the neighborhood power lines,” she says.

Aboveground, Collins has to make sure that all equipment conforms with safety codes and clearance requirements for workers and surrounding people or buildings. She develops a fence plan to keep unauthorized people from coming in contact with dangerously high voltage lines. “I have to constantly think about the best ways to avoid a potential accident,” she says. “Once the equipment is in place, all the pieces need to communicate with each other in case lightning, trees, animals or people come in contact with our power lines.”

Collins also creates the wiring drawings and schematics for these communication systems. Once she’s finalized a design her drawings are sent to the contractors and construction begins.

Challenge and creativity
Collins grew up in Burnsville, MN, a suburb of Minneapolis. Her father is an imaging specialist for MRI machines and her mother’s a social service director for assisted living centers. “It was a nice mix of humanity and technical exposure,” she says. “At age ten it’s hard not to be impressed with an MRI room and the magnetic field that pulls the barrettes out of your hair,” she says with a smile.

Collins earned her 2006 BSEE at North Dakota State University (Fargo, ND). As one of three female students in a class of fifty, she always stood out. “Odds are that the professor will remember the names of the three female students over the forty-seven males,” she notes. “And you can’t skip class!” She felt she had to complete the program, no matter how difficult, and do it with enthusiasm.

Collins likes the challenge and creativity of her job. She’s currently working on tearing down and rebuilding two substations for a large customer. One of the substations is wedged between a busy road and a parking lot. “I have to be very careful about safety clearances and real estate right-of-ways,” she says.

Collins believes that women tend to “look at the angles” and interact with others a little differently from men. “I might look at the same project and ask questions my male counterparts overlooked, and vice versa,” she says.

She’s sometimes had to convince older men in the field that she can crawl in the dirt and size bolts just as well as they can. If she doesn’t have an answer, she immediately lets them know that she’ll get one and she makes sure to follow through. “I haven’t met a person yet who doesn’t appreciate and respect that,” she says.

“If we can keep the influx of intelligent young women going, it will be a very exciting field to remain in,” she notes.

Elizabeth Hale is a project engineer at Northeast Utilities
Elizabeth (Liz) May Hale joined Northeast Utilities (NU, Hartford, CT) in 2007 as an assistant engineer on underground cable projects. Her tasks include reviewing test reports and other submittals, witnessing factory acceptance testing and commissioning work, and performing inspections of the splice vaults.

She’s currently working on substation projects with a team of engineers putting together a construction package and ordering material. “I’m responsible for developing a scope of work, reviewing drawings and making sure the team runs efficiently,” she says.

Hale earned her 2007 BSEE at University of New Haven in Connecticut. Her education included an internship from February to June 2007 with NU’s substation engineering and design group.

She grew up in a family of engineers. Her father and both grandfathers are EEs and her mother is a computer engineer. She had always excelled in math, so science and the problem solving aspects of engineering seemed a natural career choice for her. “Since I’d experienced it firsthand I knew this field would be a stable and financially sound choice,” she says.

Learning in the field
During her first fulltime year at NU, Hale traveled abroad and worked on manufacturing and product testing for a major project in the U.S. It was the longest 345kV solid underground cable project in the country.

“Trips to the manufacturing site were extremely informative,” she says. Field inspections involved going down into the cable splice vault in southwest Connecticut to ensure that all the work had been done properly. “I really enjoyed seeing that,” she says.

Due to traffic concerns and Department of Transportation work hour restrictions, much of the work had to be done and tested at night and on weekends. “Overall, I think this was a great assignment to begin my career with, and I’m proud to have been a part of such an historical project,” she says.

Hale says that being a woman makes her more memorable, but it’s sometimes difficult to find common ground with her male co-workers. “This motivates me to work harder just to prove myself,” she says.

Hale notes that the number of female engineers is growing, and encourages women to try the electrical engineering field. “Gender or any type of diversity is important in the workplace because with diversity come different ideas,” she says. “If everyone is the same or thinks the same, it’s hard to advance and improve.”

Jessica Anderson works in power at Rockwell Collins
For the past four years Jessica Anderson has served as an EE in the power conversion design group at Rockwell Collins (Cedar Rapids, IA). The group designs power supplies for avionics products in commercial and government projects.

Anderson enjoys design analysis, placing parts and routing boards, testing and troubleshooting. “My least favorite part of the job is the documentation and time tracking,” she says with a smile.

Anderson grew up in a small town in South Dakota. Her high school math teacher encouraged her to pursue a tech career; she earned her 2004 BSEE with a minor in mathematics at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

With so many options for an EE grad, Anderson is happy that her job at Rockwell Collins has helped her focus on a specific area: power conversion design. She’s currently working toward a masters in power electronics. “I’m taking distance ed courses through Iowa State University and the University of Colorado-Boulder,” she reports.

Anderson made a decision to study EE and followed where that path led her. “In my environment I feel the genders are treated equally, so being a woman engineer is not an issue,” she says. “I’m sure generations before me have faced far greater challenges.”

Anderson believes that personal experience and point of view play an important role in how someone tackles a problem. “Even though we have the same goal, I can see how the way I approach things is drastically different from the person across the hall,” she says.

Jameelah Haadee is an advanced systems engineer at 3M
Jameelah Haadee joined 3M (St Paul, MN) in 2005. She moved to 3M’s Greenville, SC facility in 2008 as an advanced systems engineer. Her job is to provide process control support to 3M’s business partners and facilities.

Haadee must meet technical, cost and schedule requirements and ensure that projects meet safety, health, energy conservation and environmental protection requirements. She works on multi-disciplinary teams that include mechanical, electrical and process engineers, as well as vendors and contractors.

She’s currently on a multi-million dollar project that involves the installation of a new web line to expand capacities and increase market growth in one of 3M’s manufacturing facilities. The project is turnkey and most of the line equipment was purchased from a German company. “This requires working very closely with a team of engineers from Germany to integrate the system,” she notes.

Haadee is excited that this project is exposing her to an array of new technologies. “I also appreciate the opportunity to work with a team of experts from a wide range of disciplines,” she says.

Haadee earned her 2003 BSEE at Hampton University (Hampton, VA) and her 2005 MSEE at Michigan State University (East Lansing, MI). She says her years at a magnet high school in Atlanta, GA and an early recognition of her strength in math and science led her to engineering.

Haadee feels that her gender has forced her to work harder to prove that she’s qualified. “I always go the extra mile,” she says. “As a result, I’ve been rewarded for my hard work and effort.”

A different perspective
Being both the least experienced team member and a petite African American female among so many men has sometimes been a challenge, but Haadee says that communication has been a greater barrier. “In many cases women and men communicate totally differently,” she says. “I try to see things from a male perspective and speak the language of my male counterparts.”

She adds that a team of diverse individuals working to provide a solution increases the opportunity for creativity and success. “It’s vital to respect everyone involved and to understand that each person has equally valuable input to contribute,” she says.

Haadee is passionate about mentoring younger women who are seeking academic guidance. She’s mentoring a young female high school student, she’s a volunteer tutor at her church and she works with Big Brothers-Big Sisters. She participated in 3M’s Science Training Encouragement Program (STEP) and Technical Teams Encouraging Career Horizons (TECH). She’s currently mentoring chair of the African American employee resource group at 3M where she created mentorship programs in partnership with local high schools. And she recruits for 3M at the Black Engineer of the Year and NSBE conferences.

Execs speak out on gender diversity
Steve Nieuwsma, VP of commercial systems engineering at Rockwell Collins, has been with the company for thirty years. He believes that by now everyone understands that a diverse workforce will make a company stronger technically. “At Rockwell Collins we also recognize that it can help inspire, encourage and empower our employees,” he says.

Nieuwsma sees gender, and all forms of diversity, as more than business drivers: “Diversity is a passion that each of us at Rockwell Collins is committed to upholding.”

The company has developed diversity and inclusion strategies designed to create a technical workforce that represents a variety of people with different genders, backgrounds, beliefs, viewpoints, ideas and experiences. “These strategies will help foster a culture that values those differences and uses them as a competitive advantage for our company,” he declares.

Tim Bennington is currently the VP of business development at RMT, an Alliant Energy company. In his thirty-five-plus years with Alliant Energy, he has hired and developed women in many manufacturing and engineering technical positions. “We encourage women to apply in all technical fields. We need women to step into leadership roles to help meet the challenges facing our industry today,” he says.

Alliant Energy’s mission is to create a welcoming workplace that attracts and retains the best talent that is also reflective of its customers, says Preeti Pachaury, manager of diversity. “This includes diversity in gender, ethnicity, age and perspective, among others. Women make up a significant part of Alliant Energy’s workforce. There are two women vice presidents in our energy delivery business units who are real role models,” she notes.

“Diversity makes for a more creative problem-solving approach and a more productive workforce.”

D/C

Angela M. Hutchinson is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles.

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