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Jan Rogers directs forecasting & analysis at Foster Wheeler
She works on marketing and business strategies at
high levels of the company. Figuring the global demand for steam generators is not an easy task
 Jan Rogers is director of forecasting and analysis for the global sales and marketing department in the global power group of Foster Wheeler Ltd (Perryville, NJ). Foster Wheeler is an engineering and construction contractor and power equipment supplier. Rogers’ job demands responsibility and sophistication, but big as it is, “It’s still the boiler business,” she says with a smile.
Before she moved to this job Rogers was in the project control group, involved with design and construction. One job she’ll never forget was a $200 million heat-recovery steam generator project that involved designing, building and installing boilers at six different locations.
The work spanned four years and, Rogers remembers with awe, it was “fixed price.” There could be no extras, no escalation. That meant it was up to Rogers and her team to make sure the project was completed on schedule and within the allotted budget.
Immersed in the big picture
For this project and others like it, Rogers had to be immersed in the big picture while keeping an eye on even small tasks. She reviewed drawings and made sure every move was scheduled, down to the raw tubing that had to be purchased well ahead of time and modified before it could be shipped to the project sites.
“The better handle you have on the project, the better job you do,” says Rogers. “You have to understand what goes in first, how big it is, how difficult it will be to do the job, and how to do it effectively.”
Marketing and strategies
These days Rogers rubs elbows with the higher echelons of the company, working on marketing ideas and business strategies. Forecasting global demand for steam generators and Foster Wheeler’s market share is not an easy task in today’s environment, where large boilers have come under additional permitting scrutiny, particularly in the U.S.
Working in project control, forecasting and analysis, Rogers has come far with the BS in mathematics she received from Farleigh Dickinson University (Madison, NJ) in 1978. She gives a lot of credit for her success as a techie to her father.
“It’s so important for a woman to have a supportive father figure,” she reflects. “My father didn’t care that my sister and I were girls. He’d still throw the football with us or call us in
to fix things.
“I never felt like a woman in a man’s world. To me, it was natural to feel completely equal.”
D/C
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