Tech Update
OPPORTUNITIES IN TRANSPORTATION

Diverse engineers bring new perspectives to the transportation table

From highways and the cars, trucks and bikes that use them, to aircraft and the airlines that fly them, the industry has a lot of interesting work for techies

These seven techies represent many segments of transportation. They range from new recruits to seasoned managers and VPs

By Claire Swedberg
Contributing Editor

CE Gina Gallegos: in fourteen years with the Texas DOT she’s worked on everything from bike trails to highway interchanges.

At Virginia engineering firm HSMM, CE Kamran Khalilian leads the highway group mapping out the state’s roads and bridges.

Transportation is offering more and more opportunities for women and minorities. Industry watchers agree that manufacturers, carriers and DOTs are making major efforts to increase the diversity of their staffing.

Odalys Delgado is a planning and project development manager at Gannett Fleming Inc, a Miami, FL based planning, design and construction management firm. She’s also diversity chair of the Women’s Transportation Seminar (WTS, www.wtsinternational.org), an international networking organization for women transportation professionals. Delgado notes that as the transportation industry serves more cities with buses and light rail, it’s trying harder to match the diversity of its staff with the diversity of its big-city clients.

“A lot of companies are stepping up their diversity recruiting efforts lately,” says Delgado. “I think it’s a very positive trend.”

The trend, she believes, began with the federal and state departments of transportation (DOTs). “Women and minorities are really standing out in the public sector.”

Now it’s happening in the private sector, too, she’s observed. “Anyone who can bring a different perspective to the table enriches the dialog.”

CE Gina Gallegos of Texas DOT: going the roadway route
As an area engineer for the Texas DOT, Gina Gallegos is part of a $155 million project at the high-volume Loop 410/US 281 interchange in San Antonio. In her fourteen years with Texas DOT she’s found herself working on everything from bicycle access roads to multi-level urban highway interchanges.

After Gallegos received her BSCE from Texas A&M in 1993 she went to work at Texas DOT in San Antonio as an engineering assistant. “I was learning the ropes from professional engineers and assisting on projects,” she says. Within a year she was helping to design roads, turn-arounds and bridge-widening projects.

In 1996 she got project manager responsibilities, overseeing contractors and making sure work was done according to spec. She also received her professional engineer’s license, which allowed her to “sign and seal engineering documents.”

Early on she worked on the Mission Trails enhancement project, which created a route that connects all the historic San Antonio missions, offering both driving and bicycle access plus a hiking trail. “That was an exciting project,” she says. “Texas DOT does more than just build roads!”

She worked with an oversight committee that included neighborhood groups, mission representatives and more. She moved into her current position as area engineer about a year ago.

Gallegos is accustomed to being one of just a few females on the job and has never been bothered by it. While some contractors are surprised to learn the engineer in charge is a woman, she gets plenty of approval as well.

“Don’t let anybody tell you that you can’t do something,” she advises. “Believe in yourself and your abilities.”

CE Kamran Khalilian heads up the highway department at HSMM
At engineering firm HSMM (Roanoke, VA), highway department head Kamran Khalilian leads the group that maps out Virginia’s roads and bridges.

“I review workloads, ensure we have enough staff, and ensure the staff has enough work,” he says. He oversees roadway projects, puts proposals together and manages a project team of about seventeen people, as well as working on quality controls, submittal deadlines and recruiting.

Khalilian received his BSCE from Southern Methodist University (Dallas, TX) in 1984. Born in Iran, he had expected to return to his own country after college. But the Iran/Iraq war was underway so he looked for a job in the U.S.

In 1985 he became a drafter with Jones Friebele, a Dallas engineering company. The position didn’t actually require a CE, but “The economy was not good and I wanted to get my foot in the door.” Within six months he was promoted to transportation engineer.

In 1990 he took his experience to Harland Bartholomew and Associates, doing roadway design for the state. In 1992 he moved to HSMM. His group was in roadways and bridges, doing designs and traffic studies. In 1995 he was promoted to lead engineer and a few years later moved into project management.

Khalilian was recently promoted to assistant VP. He serves as project manger on several projects and helps with marketing. His department may be working on a number of small projects at a time, or bringing along two or three large ones.

With all his office work to do, he still makes a point of visiting the construction sites. “You always want to get out and walk the project site to make sure that what’s being done makes sense,” he advises.

EE Lillian Dukes caps a varied career as a tech VP at American Eagle

Lillian Dukes.

Lillian Dukes is VP of technical services at American Eagle, the regional airline affiliate of American Airlines in Fort Worth, TX. It’s the latest post in a nearly twenty-five year career of varied jobs in many aspects of aerospace.

In 1983 Dukes received her BS in EE and math from Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, PA). She went to work as a software test engineer at General Electric’s aerospace division in Valley Forge, PA while studying for her MSEE at Villanova University (Villanova, PA).

GE put her in a two-year rotation program including R&D and software test engineering. She chose the software, setting the stage for her whole career, and spent the next few years writing software to test aircraft circuit modules.

In 1990 she found a position at American Airlines as an analyst in its Tulsa, OK “IdeAAs in action” department. The department looked into the feasibility and profitability of ideas submitted by employees. “It was a great program,” Dukes says. “It saved the company millions of dollars.”

In 1991 she moved to a more formal engineering position, supporting component maintenance. Then in 1994 she changed direction, taking a job as a commodity manager in the purchasing department. “It was something that came up and it seemed interesting,” she says. “I liked the idea of working in a different area and learning more company operations.”

In 1995 she became inventory control group manager, working with vendors and making sure that maintenance group folks had the parts they needed worldwide.

Two years later she returned to engineering as a manager, overseeing the maintenance engineering group she had worked in six years before. But she was hoping for developmental work, and soon found it in maintenance production control and maintenance ops. “It was a lot of fun,” she remembers. “I was working with union assembly employees, a very different group, but I got some new insights about dealing with people.”

In 2001 she was asked to direct tech support at Midwest Express Airlines (Milwaukee, WI). “It awakened me to the variety of roles available in smaller operations,” she says.

In 2003 Dukes joined Atlantic Coast, which later became Independence Air, as VP of aircraft maintenance. Last year the company closed its doors and Dukes returned as American Eagle’s VP of technical services.

Diversity has always been important to American Airlines, says Eric Stallworth, manager of diversity strategy. “Our diversity philosophy continues to evolve to keep pace with the changing global environment, and has moved to a more holistic approach.”

ME Emmanuel Franjul: new techie at GE Aviation

Emmanuel Franjul.

Emmanuel Franjul got his BSME with an aerospace concentration from Cornell University (Ithaca, NY) in 2005. Today he’s a design engineer in the Edison Engineering Development Program (EEDP) at GE Aviation (Lynn, MA).

Franjul comes from the Dominican Republic. In high school in New York City he was part of the “college bound” program, funded by the GE Foundation. After that welcome introduction, GE seemed a natural transition when he got out of college.

His college work focused on fluid dynamics analysis, and his new job involved working with turbine aerodynamics in preliminary analyses for aircraft engine proposals. He worked with a group of seventeen engineers, and “I was the youngest on the team,” he says. “Some of the team members had twenty-five years’ experience.”

Franjul stayed in the position for a year. On his mentor’s advice, he worked on presentation skills and writing through GE’s extension programs.

Then he had the opportunity to move to the EEDP rotation program. He started in product development, making sure that engine manufacture was proceeding on time. “There was a lot of project management in the job, and I could see how the engines were built,” he recalls with pleasure.

Now, in his second rotation, he’s with the military airfoils group. In a subsection of fifteen engineers, he’s working on vibration analysis for engine compressor blades. He has two more rotations ahead of him.

In the long term he hopes to move to GE’s global R&D center (Niskayuna, NY), to begin working with new technologies and specialized tasks.

GE loves techies with ambitions like Franjul’s, says Jessica Budris, corporate recruiting and staffing services process manager and programs specialist.

David Bozeman is a tech VP at Harley-Davidson

David Bozeman.

Harley-Davidson Motor Co (Milwaukee, WI) emphasizes the quality and innovation of its American-built motorcycles. David Bozeman is VP and general manager of powertrain operations and advanced manufacturing at Harley-Davidson’s Powertrain Operations facility. He has moved fast in the fourteen years he’s been with the company.

“You have to absolutely enjoy the job you’re in and constantly shoot for excellence in it,” he says. “I’ve seen so many young people come in and want to go straight to the next steppingstone, but that’s not how it works. You begin by performing well in the job you’re in, and people notice that.”

Bozeman, who took a vo-tech program in high school, found he loved drafting and mechanical devices. “I leaned early toward mechanical design,” he says. In 1992 he graduated from Bradley University (Peoria, IL) with a BS in manufacturing engineering with a concentration in mechanical design.

He worked for a year at a Chicago food products packaging firm as production supervisor and IE, overseeing both production work and production-line design.

Then he was recruited by Harley- Davidson as a manufacturing engineer.

The job included designing manufacturing processes, writing work standards and overseeing the purchase of capital equipment including delivery, quality and cost.

In addition, “As the new guy in town I sometimes filled in for the floor operations leader.” He spent time on the manufacturing floor, “interacting with the workers while filling in for the supervisor.

“That’s experience I would never give up,” he says. It made him not only a better engineer but, when the time came, a better executive.

In 1995 he helped launch a new facility for powder coating formulation and application. “I was with it from start to finish,” he remarks. “It helped me understand the business model, and the way people execute a process.”

In 1997 Bozeman became a powertrain design engineer. He did value engineering, overseeing a staff of engineers, and got a co-patent based on the work. He also gained financial experience by overseeing budgeting, and worked with lawyers on product risk and liability.

A year later he became technical engineering manager, and that soon combined with product plant manager. “It was my first opportunity to see overall day-to-day operations of the plant from both a tactical and a strategic standpoint,” he says.

In 2001 Bozeman moved to the York, PA plant where Harley-Davidson Softail, Touring and CVO motorcycles are assembled. He was director of plant development, overseeing plant and ops structure, and also served as quality director. At the same time he was overseeing a facility in Brazil which put together Harley bike kits to be sold in South America.

Three years later Bozeman was promoted to general manager of powertrain operations. He returned to Milwaukee to take responsibility for the entire powertrain facility, which includes the company’s remanufacturing program.

Since he became VP this year he’s taken on additional responsibilities: advanced manufacturing engineering, plus integration of product and process. He’s “creating a bridge between designers and engineers with integration of design and process engineering.”

“And I’m still having fun every day,” he declares.

Cheryl Greenly: fast forward with Bendix brakes

Cheryl Greenly.

Bendix Commercial Vehicle Systems (Elyria, OH) designs and supplies medium- and heavy-duty commercial vehicle braking and active vehicle safety systems. Senior engineer Cheryl Greenly has worked on many facets of brake design.

She completed her BSEE at Grove City College (Grove City, PA) in 1993. Her biggest interests were computers and microprocessor design, and on graduation she went straight to Bendix as an engineer in circuit design.

As an entry-level engineer she did electronics work on compressor controls for truck systems. At the beginning the electronics group was small, but following the general trend in motor design it has grown exponentially since then.

In the beginning she had a mentor, a circuit designer who offered valuable insights. She was promoted to engineer II in 1996, and now holds three patents for electronic systems for trucks.

In 1995 she became the patent liaison for other engineers at Bendix. That work piqued her interest in law school, and she received a law degree from Cleveland State University last year.

In 1999 she got involved in sensors for electronic braking systems, and added steering angle and yaw sensors in 2004. She’s been working in that area ever since. Her eventual goal is to become a patent attorney.

“Cheryl’s background and career progression is a good example of diversity in our business,” notes Diane Shields, HR director. “We strive for diversity in skill sets, perspectives and cultural backgrounds. That drives innovation in our team-based culture.”

Donita Morgan: plastics for Toyota vehicles

Donita Morgan.

Quality engineer Donita Morgan found her way into the transportation industry through her work with resins. Morgan, a specialist in the material quality group at Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America (Erlanger, KY), has a background in chemistry.

When Morgan completed her BS in industrial chemistry in the 1980s she expected to go into chemical manufacturing. She found a job at Dow Chemical (Midland, MI) as a research chemist.

“I started in pharmaceutical process research,” she recalls, as part of an R&D cycling program designed to give her a well-rounded view of the company’s processes. She worked in applied organics research for several years, then decided to try specialty chemical sales.

“I went into sales after I realized I like to see things get completed and to see my impact more quickly,” she says. She traveled throughout the Southwest, meeting with customers to discuss paints, coatings and industrial cleaners.

In the early 1990s Morgan moved to PPG Industries (Gurnee, IL). She worked in specialty chemical sales and later as technical service manager; she had female managers in both roles. “The technology was familiar; it was a good fit,” she says.

In 1997 she went into specialty chemical sales for Reichhold (Research Triangle Park, NC), a polyester resin manufacturer. “I started in sales but went into business process support,” Morgan says. The idea was to identify improvement opportunities in core processes, and “I really did like that,” she says. The job expanded into internal auditing and quality management.

In 2004 she moved her expertise to transportation when she joined Toyota. “I was already interested in the company because of its amazing quality image,” she says.

“I liked the Midwest location, and I wanted the opportunity to impact a process from beginning to end.” As a specialist in the material quality group, Morgan helps ensure the quality of raw material for plastic parts like bumpers, instrument panels and other vehicle components.

About 40 percent of her time is spent traveling to suppliers and Toyota manufacturing facilities. “We need to be able to go out to a plant and identify the cause of a problem, or something that needs to be improved,” she says.

D/C

Claire Swedberg is a freelance writer who lives in La Conner, WA.

Back to Top