Speaker 3: Next episode of engineer your career. We're learning about the paper products industry with Maria moments Maria works for Georgia-Pacific and tell the number of rolls raining for research and development to Capital project management to manufacturing line engineering. His bachelor's degree in biomedical in mechanical engineering from Michigan Tech and has a lot of insight into the pros and cons of a biomedical engineering degree and the impact it has on getting a job. Maria has a proactive in gaining experience. You need to grow in her career and we talked about the importance of finding the gaps in your knowledge and taking the initiative to fill them. Welcome Maria TYC. North never want another episode of engineer your career add bread and Tamarac and Troy is still with me still hanging in there for having me again, as always you haven't gone anywhere because you can't see through history of excited for New Year's lot of possibilities. Are we at the new year? I was like the kind of do a little reflection on some people recommend this but this idea of like looking at the new year one of the goals. I'm not as like hard on tracking those goals like every goal not realistically. Yeah, you should track do it. I don't I do it probably most goal planner doing they just come up and goes never look at it again. So yeah doing a little bit of that thinking about the future may be finishing my PhD this year that sounds like a career goal right there. That sounds like career which is what we're here to talk about really glad to have her on another Michigan Tech alarm as we continue to have set. That's really great summer. You're welcome to the show. Thank you for being here. We really appreciate it. I think as we always do to get started with Have you work through your origin story? Can you can I just give us a little background on you in and how you got to where you are today

Speaker 1: one of those careers that I kind of fell into at a very young age. My dad was an engineer. So I kind of always grew up with the I want to be an engineer in the in the back of my mind cuz I

Speaker 2: loved when he brought

Speaker 1: so he's an architectural engineer. So he would bring the massive layout drawings home. And that's

Speaker 2: what we use to color on which is

Speaker 1: really really cool. Cuz I learned how to read at a

Speaker 2: very young age and how things work and lay out. So I

Speaker 1: always

Speaker 2: tend to do and by

Speaker 1: the end of high school. I had it narrowed down to msoe which is Waukee School of Engineering and Michigan Tech and Michigan Tech always had kind of Tired because my mom from the area and my grandfather was a physics teacher

Speaker 2: or Professor. I should say it at Michigan Tech which is pretty cool. So I

Speaker 1: had family in the area and we grew up going to the hockey game. So it was always like number one of my list and Ya Started in 2010 and started initially in biomedical engineering and are the things that led to a very big career change right off the bat as I went to the roof are my freshman year the first muster and 30 talking to all those biomedical companies that are there and one of the first things that they said cuz I asked well, I want to get an internship, you know in a year or two. What are you looking for? And the first thing they said was for biomedical you need to have

Speaker 2: hope because one of the things for biomedical is

Speaker 1: You kind of get a sampling of all the engineering degrees, but then there's the focus and biology. So you get a sampling with mechanical you get a sampling of electrical and get a sampling of material. So

Speaker 2: pick one and kind of kind of

Speaker 1: make it your your specialty and that's when I went to the career counselor at the time and was like, what what would it take to get a mechanical because that was what I like to do. I like the mechanics of stuff electrical seem like a voodoo magic still seems like booty magic to the never understand it but would love to learn more but ended up adding the second degree to do my coursework and it ended up only taking an extra year in in terms of graduating and stuff like that. So,

Speaker 2: yeah,

Speaker 1: so then I double major in biomedical in the castle and got my first internship at Kimberly-Clark.

Speaker 2: I think it was my

Speaker 1: second year there and it was in manufacturing at their Beach Island facility,

Speaker 2: which doesn't have a beach

Speaker 1: isn't an island and it's in South so I mean, it has a warm temperatures going for it.

Speaker 2: But other than that, it was felt beach with you either.

Speaker 1: So I really should have known it wasn't going to be tropical

Speaker 2: but it kind of

Speaker 1: opened my eyes to what manufacturing was cuz I primarily wanted to do you know Prosthetics and and things like that coming from the Bayou from the biomedical side

Speaker 3: to pick the initial degree. What what were you thinking of with bile? How did you know did you take biology in high school and that you're kind of thinking that or how did it seem like you you I mean you kept biology. He double majored in it. So you still had this pull towards it. Where do you think that kind of came from internally?

Speaker 2: So the

Speaker 1: biomedical ask their kind of came from you no wanting to either do Prosthetics or wanting to do like sports equipment like safety sports equipment in sports. I love is a hockey player for 15 years. I did. I was like a 3 Season Sports person. So, you know optimizing and designing sports equipment just sounded like super cool and then actually I went to the women in engineering camp when I was 15 at Michigan Tech to like sample all of them and the presentation for biomedical basically told me on the fact you get

Speaker 2: the test all of these other, you know,

Speaker 1: you get the sampling,

Speaker 2: you know

Speaker 1: a little bit about everything and then a lot of

Speaker 2: biology and

Speaker 1: it's actually pretty entertaining. I'm not good with medical stuff like that all I remember being in my biomechanics class and they flashed a slide up dissected. And

Speaker 2: I was passed out. So you better call

Speaker 1: that you know, most of the

Speaker 2: other people were going for. So I mean, I always knew I wanted to be mechanical so

Speaker 1: but yeah, I mean I enjoy the the biomedical aspects and it just right now if it makes me really good at organon except for the manufacturing setting and no one. Yeah. Hey, this load is not going to be good to lift when it's sitting, you know at a certain height

Speaker 3: the most common sort of severe yet. They were focusing in or was it kind of a wide-range. Did you notice anything in terms of Industry as a whole with what other students were we're kind of looking for tended to go towards mechanical or where do they What

Speaker 1: so I think they tended it like at the time when I was at when I was there the mechanical and the biomedical degrees had just enough credit to where you could get degrees, but it was the minimal amount of credits to get both degrees. So you only had to take a certain level of classes in order to get both whereas electrical there's a bigger difference difference in in those courses in the credits and stuff like that. So it kind of materials I would say so it kind of Detroit people cuz he would have to be in school longer take a higher credit

Speaker 2: load or however

Speaker 1: you want to manage it. So a lot of people did the mechanical but I would say, you know, when I was graduating half of my graduating class had that second degree in biomedical

Speaker 3: so pretty a pretty common thing for people to be to be looking for if you're thinking biomedical also be thinking maybe there's there might be a little more extra coursework to add to this to make it sort of fully functioning at that something might some bud company my tree. You want to see send out talk about in episode 19 with Marissa. We are another Biomat. She does safety for General Motors and she talked about this to this idea of if you get a biomedical degree, you kind of have to be strategic about how you Market it to in terms of a lot of people it is a great General Degree, but for some reason companies take that weirdly, they don't necessarily have a box for that and don't know so especially recruit. You don't move don't understand the technical difference is they may say, okay, we have this list of degrees to get and maybe biomedicine on that even though it has the skillset to achieve the job until if you're looking for more elaborate on this, I would definitely recommend episode 19 of those folks listening cuz it seems like you have said again that you have to think about how you how you Market a degree.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean one of the company is that freshman year. Where did it very bluntly and said biomedical's are Jack of all trade, but not solid. If you have that one degree, you're not solid in any of the engineering discipline the other blunt thing that you can teach a mechanical engineer

Speaker 2: biology, but you

Speaker 1: the biomedical engineer doesn't have like the focus and Engineering it's harder to teach that

Speaker 3: a multidisciplinary research areas in all none of my problems are just mechanical engineering there for sure a big mix of mechanical electrical right now. And so it's really counter-intuitive mean cuz I mean we talked about how an engineer engineer degree teaches you critical thinking and how to learn and so it seems like if you come out of a with a degree that's that's broad that teaches you how to critically think and learn like That seems like a great engineering education. So there's a disconnect currently to me in this talk

Speaker 1: like the depth of knowledge that you're

Speaker 2: getting

Speaker 1: when when I was going for biomedical and if I wanted to focus in mechanical, I mean you weren't required to take there an Amex transfer biomedical and as a mechanical engineer Dynamics is one of

Speaker 2: the biggest classes you're going to pull on it.

Speaker 1: so I mean you get static, which is really good and like that but I think that's that's just the example and I don't want to be

Speaker 2: negative. Because

Speaker 1: I mean the biomedical experience I was able to get research lab experience at my time at a can. I find that to be very valuable because you know going into an r in the position later after like right after college. I mean that gave the

Speaker 2: foundation of you know research.

Speaker 3: Yeah, I know and I think I mean, yeah, I think we definitely don't want to be naked enough that I think really it from from my perspective. I just want to I'm trying to understand the situation going to help Empower those who want to do biomed to be able to do bile mad. But understand kind of the game they have to play in order for people to understand it correctly, but it seems it seems misunderstood. I guess. I honestly, you know, I guess in terms of how I think about I mean, yeah, it's not mechanical engineering but it's not trying to be I think as I remember from Merced is trying to be the Jack of all trades and sometimes that's good. There's definitely some jobs that need that I need a jack of all trades that can learn I mean you could argue there's so many mechanical engineering top jobs that are that I really don't use anything of their degree. They are just a jack of all trades that can learn and so so anyways, I think there's a disconnect there and I think of those listening that are interested in that this conversation helps to understand that before you get into it so that you're not a third-year biomedical engineer who didn't necessarily realize it had a time or if you're someone who wants to be a jack of all trades, but thinks they have to go into a specific engineering discipline or maybe by so I think playing really well taken and I'm glad they were able to continue to elaborate on it cuz I think it is very interesting thing about about the field. So see your Beach Island if I remember correctly

Speaker 1: Co-op there. So I mean you really get into the weeds with that and have some pretty in-depth project. So I got my feet wet. I would say in SolidWorks at that time. And doing a lot of modeling and Drafting and then implementation which I really like like you get to see the final end product working in the machine, which is always very rewarding. I guess that's where you know, I was like, oh manufacturing my general perspective was like manufacturing like dingy and dirty and it's not like, you know, it's like the dream job that you know, you think of when you know your in high school, you don't think you're going to be in a toilet paper Factory and having a good time. I came back for a semester and I took a second coop with Kimberly Clark, but I was at the facility at the corporate group. So I transition to the corporate group that was working with the manufacturing line that I was on. So kind of looping back in with the connections that I had made on my first Co-op and that one was more

Speaker 2: research-based corporate development. It wasn't really

Speaker 1: research and development as you know, I've Experience later, but it was you no more optimizing and capital projects in strategic

Speaker 3: between corporate manufactured. Like what is the what is the purpose of of each function? LOL do a little bit more

Speaker 1: maximizing production and things like that. And where is the the corporate group is usually the more strategic like where we going to invest in next? What are we going to so how are we going to make the the production, you know better and more optimized. So, I mean the Mills focus is usually,

Speaker 2: you know, just

Speaker 1: get stuff out the door keep the lines running, you know, sometimes there's some optimization that they do but typically is the corporate group that that takes that on cuz otherwise the bills going to be

Speaker 3: overloaded. Smells like okay, we're told we need to make a hundred acts in 50 wide today how efficiently can we do that but corporates almost like well, what do we need to make tomorrow? Do we need to make 75 of axon 25 of why and then invest in Z and make 15z? Okay. That's how

Speaker 1: are the people that go and test it and verify that it would be a good

Speaker 2: moment. Gotcha

Speaker 3: to be there another nine months and I'm internship.

Speaker 1: I was becoming a professional Co-op at that time.

Speaker 3: I don't know if you just had any just summer internships, but one of the things when you're an engineering student is this idea of do I do a 9 month internship? Should I just look for summer stuff? Here's to your Reflections on that

Speaker 2: couldn't recommend a 9-month co-op more. I think you get

Speaker 1: your your feet wet a little bit more. You have more skin in the game you get more ownership and you get more responsibility because just typically from what I've seen products typically don't get done in 3 months. I mean Lee times and then delivering deliverables and stuff like that. It's it's much easier to executed in 9 months. I mean there's there's projects in the work that you can do in three months, but it's mostly implementation like that. The projects already been designed. It's already been laid out all the stuff's been ordered your just ruling it out, which is also a very good experience. I mean in a lot during startup and during installed but but seeing a full project through typically nine months is that is a good time and in companies do really well with planning the Kimberly-Clark was really good about making sure like you're doing actual engineering work cuz I had a friend who who talked about how

Speaker 2: they didn't get anything really just in 30 seconds. So I mean

Speaker 1: Yeah, so I mean that's it and I would say that's a question to ask in an interview is what kind of work are you are you going to be doing and you know, what are expectations and things like that? Because you don't want to get into a 3 month or 9 months saying and then you just you know, sitting around twiddling your thumbs

Speaker 3: 9-month stretches your experience in the paper industry, which may be some people might not think it is directly into that biomedical area. But what is I guess what is going through your mind during these times in terms of what you might want to be doing long-term how you're feeling about what you're learning at school or how your degrees are lining up. Are you kind of seeing a change and what you were thinking you want to spend your time doing 160 graduate with a full-time job

Speaker 1: in the corporate job. That taught me is mechanical engineering was what I wanted to be doing a little bit more. So so I also because of biomedical engineering be kind of being kind of a program.

Speaker 2: The way that my coursework

Speaker 1: ended up being is most of my biomedical classes were at the beginning of college and most of my mechanical classes were at the end of college which was kind of interesting during the collapse because by my second Co-op, I still hadn't had Dynamic but I was going into my fourth year. So that's a little

Speaker 2: a little different then, you know other

Speaker 1: other mechanical engineering students or people with you know, that much College behind them already. But I mean those two cops kind of solidified that I wanted to be doing manufacturing or you know that the paper industry is really interesting because the machines that are making the paper are just so intricate and so Dynamic and there's so much going on and it's science behind it. Not just paper science just like the mechanical manufacturing science and if it was it was just really interesting to see so and when you gain, What kind of depth of knowledge you just want to dive in deeper?

Speaker 2: So

Speaker 1: that's kind of that's kind of what happened after that second Co-op. I knew I wanted to go back into the paper in the street. Like I felt comfortable going back into it. It's just whether it was going to be with Kimberly-Clark or predator or a bender you been I mean, there's a lot of vendors that do the machine design

Speaker 2: for Freddy's paper Machines

Speaker 1: and converting machine. So, I mean that was that also got on my radar is, you know, maybe going into an oem Yeah, I like a vendor OEM Fender.

Speaker 3: Okay, so you come back from the second internship. You said it's about your fourth year, I guess so hot out of that trailer cuz you said you were there for 5 which I totally recommend. 5 years. You have the rest of your life. Late Night episode Brennan Station 5 years to call a five-year-old v925 interject that into my question again.

Speaker 1: Yeah, so I came back from the second integer chip and it would have been. So I was always taking fall Co-op. So it would have been

Speaker 2: bring

Speaker 1: of my fourth year. I believe that I would have come back. So by that time I was like, okay, I need to just get done in all of those

Speaker 2: like very, you know,

Speaker 1: if Central mechanical classes Dynamics

Speaker 2: vibrations all of those starting to cuz that's where the interest looks so,

Speaker 1: you know, I did my fourth and fifth year. It didn't do anything in the summer actually took summer courses do if I was never on a Whopper an internship. I was doing

Speaker 2: summer classes just to keep the ball rolling for moving.

Speaker 1: So I yai, yai finish do college in 5 years graduated in the spring of 2015. But during that 50 year fall career fair for this year. You know, I I kind of did my due diligence in the end got the guns ready to ready to fire

Speaker 2: or for

Speaker 1: getting that position because in my mind I was like I want to have a position before Christmas. Like I want to have it locked down because he hear that through

Speaker 2: all the other people applying that you know

Speaker 1: companies are being more and more aggressive about hiring sooner rather than later in in the hiring process now, I don't know if that's true anymore with

Speaker 2: covid-19 on

Speaker 1: my my sister's boyfriend just graduated from msoe and he had a hard time.

Speaker 2: getting hired

Speaker 1: straight out of college just because companies are cutting back but as at 2015 and they were they were hiring pretty aggressively so I actually interviewed

Speaker 2: with several paper company is

Speaker 1: Georgia-Pacific offer by

Speaker 2: Helloween I want to say

Speaker 3: I think that's what I call a potential employees Market where you are a commodity companies realize that and they know they got to get two people first. And so they're looking for the top talent early and fall so that they don't lose it cuz if they know that if they try to go and look in the top down in spring in a potential employees Market that they're going to lose it now I change privacy on I'm working but definitely heard that tried before for sure. So

Speaker 2: yeah, what was interesting though with the

Speaker 1: Georgia-Pacific interview

Speaker 2: is they do

Speaker 1: a full 8-hour interview where they bring you on sight and you are talking with

Speaker 2: different group and

Speaker 1: they actually have you interviewing for multiple positions at one time and then seeing what you like the

Speaker 2: best. So when I interviewed with them, which was which is actually pretty cool because you're not you're not just getting thrown into

Speaker 1: you know, one cookie cutter, you know entry level engineering and actually kind of have to think about what

Speaker 2: what interest you the most. So when I

Speaker 1: interviewed for a corporate

Speaker 2: engineering position, I

Speaker 1: interviewed for a research and development technology position, and then I interviewed for

Speaker 2: I think it was like an h v a c position and fluids and like that kind of stuff. No signing it for the mail. I don't like your mail is not going to work. It's really not lie. That's not where where my expertise is. So

Speaker 1: it was really interesting but

Speaker 2: which was kind of but then

Speaker 1: I landed on the the research and development position. It was more interesting because it was testing and developing new technologies in paper converting which was really cool to get to you. Just get to play around with machines all day

Speaker 2: and do product development and see if product and work on this machine and you know, try new

Speaker 1: Excuses are trying to paper try

Speaker 2: see what you can make

Speaker 1: work for the park development team, which was It was kind of cool sometimes development team would come to you with a product

Speaker 2: and they're like, how do we make this and that that was the job which was pretty cool.

Speaker 3: I think I can be misleading for a corporate level engineering job. You might be doing much engineering but it felt like you were doing a very Hands-On a very Hands-On engineering.

Speaker 1: Yeah. I can't give you like the

Speaker 2: full description.

Speaker 1: So kind of going back to what you said in the beginning of not knowing you don't necessarily what you egg description. You knew you were going to be on the this technology development. See if you knew you were in Neenah, Wisconsin.

Speaker 2: And like that was about it

Speaker 1: and I remember walking in the first day

Speaker 2: and they're like, well, if you're if you're going

Speaker 1: to be traveling and

Speaker 2: you know going places, I need to be

Speaker 1: applying for the employee credit card. I like raise my hand and like I don't think I'm going to be traveling

Speaker 2: and the HR person looked at me and she like out of everybody in this room. You're the one that's going to be one where

Speaker 1: you were on the road like at all. Like I thought I was just in an R&D Center and that's in like maybe going to like a couple

Speaker 2: vendors and like the

Speaker 1: vendors for paper are all in Greenback feel like that's not really traveling in my

Speaker 2: mind. So I

Speaker 1: didn't think I was going to be traveling but no it was like you are going across the country. You

Speaker 2: are spending time in others. You are you are on the road and I was like, okay well and know that

Speaker 3: there's so many people that accept a job have what I have read over the job description have interviewed for the job. They've got it. They're starting the next day the starting, you know next week Monday, but they could not tell you at all what they're going to do every single thing. Yeah. They like to be today don't know until I was a bunch of quick question is look looking back like on the job description. How can how can people reduce if they're going to be traveling a lot? I mean, there's no I guess what would be your your at how you do that? Is there anyway

Speaker 1: I think it's honestly just asked if you're expected to travel in what percentage like it's as simple as that and I just that was one question. I visit during the interview. I mean I asked where I was going to be. You know, what what the expectations were and a traveling just never came up for some reason. I mean, I knew I was going to be ready. Child support. I knew I was going to be doing experiments. I knew I generally knew what I was going to be working on just not specifics because it's an R&D projects that

Speaker 2: they

Speaker 1: can't tell you until you start but yeah, I know it was just like a little bit of a shock and then like Yeah from then on I kind of knew how much time am I going to be on the road pretty big question to ask especially if you're looking to be

Speaker 3: home. Yeah, I think it's a good point that everything in that job description is not all there is in the hiring managers were riding. Those may just be so accustomed to the Daily aspects of the job that light travels just a part of it. I I totally forgot that that's a big thing does just what it is. So asking is extra questions and being like specific like hey, what is an average week for me going to look like or an average month? Like what does that entail are important questions to ask cuz they'll help pull out some of the details besides like you will work on cool projects in paper converting and we need someone who is innovative or whatever, you know, what kind of generic carbs are in there like the specifics don't ask for a lot of them. Do they get so kind of ingrained because even for me like if I heard an R&D engineer job, I would think there would not be much travel cuz I think R&D in R&D Center they're doing R&D and that lab I would I would guess that most are Indeed jobs are not a lot of trouble but you know, I'm not in the paper industry and so maybe like someone was in the paper in an HR person knew I mean, they're not technical but they knew that R R & D mint.

Speaker 2: Ya know my manager for the first

Speaker 1: month. I don't think I saw my my actual reporting manager because he was at in China doing development work and like I found for maybe one day right when I started and then he was flying out the next day.

Speaker 2: I was like, oh, okay tweet. You're just spending three weeks in China who nail style? Yeah,

Speaker 3: I think for me personally the younger you are the last guy down yards of the easier it is for sure. But I guess you're you're so much of the dust kind of settled on the who I'm traveling a lot. What are your thoughts on? Did you like it? Did you think it was cool

Speaker 2: about it? So in the R&B world, I thought it was

Speaker 1: your new world is a lot more fun. I would say when it comes to travel cuz you don't really own the equipment.

Speaker 2: So you kind of just come in you do

Speaker 1: what you're going to do. If you try it you try a different things when you get to

Speaker 2: leave. So he was actually pretty pretty fun with

Speaker 1: the testing and optimizing and seeing the results and coming up with the conclusions on whether you're going to do it again or not. Do it again. I think for the R&D World though. I was traveling a lot by myself and I was a young person, you know straight out of college. I have never traveled by myself out into the world like you typically are in group and stuff like that. But I mean he had to become very independent very quick. credit for that group because my manager which I really liked was

Speaker 2: he was easy to work with

Speaker 1: and and you just give him updates but he kind of let you do your own thing, which was really nice as long as you were doing the right thing, you know, you weren't going off in the Timbuktu with whatever you were pursuing but

Speaker 2: you learn to develop Independence very quickly, which I really liked and it's a it's a very strong thing to have in a sentence so

Speaker 1: It was fun. And like you said it's better to do it. When you're younger. It's better to do it when you don't have responsibilities back at home because you care the stories of

Speaker 2: people who have kids

Speaker 1: and like them they're just gone and you don't see your kids grow up. So I would highly recommend doing it before you have kids.

Speaker 2: But I

Speaker 1: mean, whatever floats your boat. I know plenty of people who still travel who have you know, big families back home. But I really enjoyed it and then so I was on that team for about 4 years.

Speaker 2: And

Speaker 1: what was kind of interesting about that is I kept getting bigger and bigger research and development

Speaker 2: projects, which I

Speaker 1: was getting frustrated that I didn't know project management

Speaker 2: all that well

Speaker 1: and there's a project management corporate project management group

Speaker 2: that's more out of the business and the capital

Speaker 1: project where is research and development kind of their own doctor and then you have corporate and then you have the corporate had a project management group and I requested from a manager to kind of float to that

Speaker 2: group for a little bit to learn project management. Just so you know how to balance everything because as soon as stuff

Speaker 1: starts getting bigger and bigger you kind of lose

Speaker 2: the pieces that you definitely need so by

Speaker 1: your three, I was floating in between research and development in the corporate group. Which was fun and they gave me a mentor to learn capital projects and project management and I did that for two years and was on some pretty big capital projects for the company like a project engineer.

Speaker 2: Cool who just helped the the

Speaker 1: project manager feel like we were always tied at the hip doing stuff which was really beneficial in learning learning that skill-set

Speaker 3: aware of what skills you might be lacking at in your job. I think there are a lot of people out there who don't you know, take some time to think about what are the skills? I need to be to be continuing forward. And even though you're in the R&D position wasn't under that full project management umbrella there like realize that you needed that to be better. Your job is like a great example, I think people listening like if you want to if you want to Excel and move forward, you have to be a little bit aware of what skills you need even they're not technically especially when I'm not technical about what you need to really kind of stand out before it especially when doesn't apply to your role and I think that I mean obviously moved Beyond Rd in project management through anything else. So I think that's that's awesome you're able to do that was With the benefit that you gained like when you gain that experience something that you immediately saw as being applicable to a kind of whatever other role you might have taken on within the company later on.

Speaker 1: What ended up happening is the project management group stole me away from the R&B group

Speaker 2: cuz I think they were developing somebody to become a

Speaker 1: large Capital project manager. They needed somebody to step into that role. Cuz one of the the big things that we're seeing in the paper industry right now is there is a knowledge Gap so you have a lot of people that are between the ages of 23. 2829 Plummer in there and then it jump

Speaker 2: straight to like 45/50

Speaker 1: and there's nobody really in the

Speaker 2: middle. So once you you train and Mentor somebody like that,

Speaker 1: they want to they want to put

Speaker 2: you in the group

Speaker 1: kind of thing cuz you're the next one to come up and take over when when these guys retire

Speaker 2: which there's a lot of retirement happening. So

Speaker 1: Yeah, so that they stole me away at that four-year Mark and how I worded it to people that are my training wheels are coming off in the project management group and I cannot take on my own capital projects and be the be the project manager

Speaker 3: now its capital what I'm hearing is even potentially in the sounds like maybe more of a bigger company thing creating these opportunities for you to kind of try other stuff with a non commit like an internship where hey, you know, I want to go job shadow just a little bit little bit more I think about my skill-set but it sounds like for you and with the way of all I did that and Bun them go in that direction now, but I think almost equally important could you go to that? I need to show equally as important. So how did you know that that was an option that your manager say it like this or did you just kind of be like, hey, can I do this?

Speaker 2: Still

Speaker 1: kind of new in the back like cuz I had met the manager of the project managers and I brought it up to him because he would have to be the one that ultimately approved me working on something talk to your manager about

Speaker 2: it and

Speaker 1: two managers were very well connected to each other. It's not like they were on Polar Opposites and they have one-on-one with each other because they are in the converting group and the capital group kind of have to go hand-in-hand for the investment strategy. So I ended up just talking to my manager and like hay like this is something that interests me, you know, can I tie it to an R&D project that I've been working on and it was for our compact product. I've been working on this or any product since I've gotten there and they were finally going to invest in the equipment. I've been optimizing testing trying to trying to sell the company said to go

Speaker 2: in and expand the portfolio kind of thing.

Speaker 1: And so they were finally going to pull the trigger on it and I would just kind of be the R&D engineer but also the project engineer learning the the project management so it worked out for the company companies in trust because they kind of got a two-for-one

Speaker 2: for me

Speaker 1: to do that and I would be tied to the capital projects and learn that so that's kind of how

Speaker 2: it came to be. But

Speaker 1: yeah, I definitely had to talk to my manager and get it get it approved and then HR head to do their thing to make sure time and all that kind of stuff. But

Speaker 3: okay. So you're in the capital project management jobs. That

Speaker 2: one's actually, you know, when you talk about

Speaker 1: whether use your actual engineering degree or not project management is probably but the field that I would say like Here's can go into it, but you're not going to use the the engineering technical skills that you normally would use in a in a project engineering all your bouncing a lot of budget, you're requesting a lot of quotes and doing quote comparisons and and like technical comparison. But I mean, you're not getting into the weeds in design and and things like that,

Speaker 2: but

Speaker 1: and Andrew interacting with people a lot more so like you don't have any direct reports, but you have

Speaker 2: people who

Speaker 1: are the subject matter experts coming to you and telling you what you need based on the scope of the project kind of going back to that biomedical you become a jack-of-all-trades and know enough about

Speaker 2: HDC

Speaker 1: dust collection converting equipment stuff like that. So you kind of get a broader.

Speaker 2: Holistic Outlook of a putting in a project

Speaker 3: in a lot more people interaction. It sounds like

Speaker 1: you definitely have to be comfortable talking to people telling people hate or

Speaker 2: you're not you need to have this

Speaker 1: delivered while you need to be able to command a room and say hey like we need to have this decision by today. And

Speaker 2: you know, what, is it going to take to do that? So

Speaker 1: it's a lot more of that rather than you know design which At the end of at the end of the day, there's there's still some. I wish I was still very interested in doing Hands-On and that was that was what I like about the R&B. Stop it. I'm still working with machines. Where is the capital project management group? If you don't really get to do that anymore. The fun part about the capital

Speaker 2: project is

Speaker 1: when you get to the point of install and you start seeing all the work that you have done

Speaker 2: the previous year start

Speaker 1: coming to life and being installed and starting up and all the sudden you have paper towels or toilet paper rolls coming out that are saleable. That's when you get like that reward of like oh, this is what what I did

Speaker 3: did you feel like you also got a better sense of like how the business operates and run in general. I found that when when you're doing that like independent earring stuff for like this is a test. This is what I'm doing, you know, we're going to make this cuz it's the best but then you all those ideas get shot down because there's a business reason why that all has to happen. Do you feel like working on that side? You had a better brought her vision of why they did things that the company what was important and all that other like some other factors that go into making some of the bigger decisions and not just this is the best technology in and we have to do

Speaker 2: Yasso

Speaker 1: project managers are tied heavily with the business interactions. So there's typically a business person that's in charge of whatever category and you're talking to them to making sure it aligns with you know, what? Hey, we need XYZ product by XYZ date. How can we hit this with your project kind of things here that you're talking with the business to get them to the build a portfolio that is is most desirable for the company and again kind of like that that converting Technology Group developers come to you with an idea of what products make the business is coming to you for. Hey, we want to make this product in this location. How do we do it? So you're kind of the interface between the business and and the engineering as as the project manager.

Speaker 2: So

Speaker 3: are you still on that job are you so you met him a good deed recently moved to a different role

Speaker 1: which is a short little blip but with with the training and internship, I feel like I've done it for three years

Speaker 2: almost so but that points covid-19

Speaker 1: and that project management

Speaker 2: job

Speaker 1: went from the transition from converting technology to project management. I went up in travel to about eighty-five 90% So

Speaker 2: I mean you

Speaker 1: kind of have to have that in person face-to-face site site visit and and all of that

Speaker 2: and

Speaker 1: Especially for installed in startups. You need to be on site supporting. So I was on the road

Speaker 2: a whole bunch

Speaker 1: and racking up the travel miles and all the points and things like that and then covid-19. One of the things cuz I had a career Mentor that GP set me up with, you know early on in my career and one of the things that we had talked about

Speaker 2: was the gain

Speaker 1: more experience. Eventually you will need to go in the top which is the mill. And there I got a phone call from my

Speaker 2: manager's manager saying that there was a position

Speaker 1: open in Louisiana that they needed somebody with capital that has a capital project experience because they're looking to invest of major major Capital money into this facility to bring it up to you. No chewing up all the paper on the paper machine and you know, this would be a really good fit. This was expand my project portfolio. So in August I interviewed for that position ended up taking it and now I'm in Louisiana.

Speaker 3: I mean, I do it from the outside perspective you just saying like you like to see it come into place and do it and it sounds like position you found wasn't I mean, I'm sure there's operations. Like hey, we've been doing this for 20 years. Let's make sure we keep the same productivity rate Ops jobs, but it sounds like we're going to be building and putting in installing a bunch of equipment and we need someone there who has budget experience who kind of thought through this. Can actually help us make sure the implementation goes. Well, it sounds like an implementation op shop which is exactly what you said that you liked. That's great.

Speaker 1: The other the other side that really interested. The mail is the project manager no more intricacies with the equipment and the vendors and you know, the negotiations that can happen between

Speaker 2: them. So the mill always

Speaker 1: from Mike's. It's always interesting what they asked for and what they don't know is on the table could be on the table kind of thing. So having the experience of being part of how to get the best equipment possible for the best price possible

Speaker 2: kind of thing

Speaker 1: is something that I've learned in that I could bring to the mill team they know

Speaker 2: but

Speaker 1: the best thing they could ask for Kind of things so that that I think that aspect

Speaker 2: you really interested them

Speaker 1: because some of the best equipment might not be on the table right away, but if you asked for it,

Speaker 2: you might get it kind of thing.

Speaker 3: It sounds like all the other experiences as As you move forward you would still be able to apply what you learned previously to the new job and I'm sure some of that is being within the same company the same industry, but just in general the idea that what you were previously may still be related to what you want to do in the future even though they're not like that closely related. I think this is this is a good example of that and I wonder if there's anything else that you you feel like in your current role or even a project management that you picked up from your previous jobs that you were really able to go move forward with you and you're like, hey, I'm glad I had that experience of that knowledge. I see how it applies the job I have now or I see how it could buy something in the future is everything like kind of stand out to you in that area.

Speaker 2: I think that the biggest

Speaker 1: thing that I've learned is not working and the importance of networking and building. You know, who who can I call that's going to be the subject matter expert and who's going to know a little bit more than I know or who who can provide the list. For that we're looking to provide so I think not working and knowing knowing that and keeping your network strong like once you transition to a different role, you know, you still can fall back on those connections you made from the first goal because they could help you later on though. One of the examples is in the shop job. We're having paper quality issues. But the people I've met at at that R&D Facility Who are paper experts and who are some of the smartest paper people, you know in the company has no facility doesn't really know those connection to bringing that group in to help with our

Speaker 2: outcome is it

Speaker 1: is something that has helped.

Speaker 3: There's always these people already seen that bigger companies that they look like they're on the executive track and they're going and doing in 6 to 9 months tint in a bunch of different groups in the initial my initial engineering responses. What are you going to do in 6 to 9 months? It's going to contribute to anything. Like what is this person doing this and as I've grown a little bit wiser. I started to realize that maybe they're just building a bunch of connections and on the value of a high-level c-suite person is someone who has a bunch of networks and can connect to get knows a little bit about what everyone does and knows how to connect the right people so that they can see how to place people like the man the man who killed Bobby that called you that knows how to see we're moving these pieces together can help really add value initially intuitive and I don't know. I don't know if it's the best way to do it. I don't know but it's kind of realize A different light on that because it is really emphasizes networking in the importance of networking, but I think that's Tidbit that everyone can take with even if you're not planning on moving a lot and doing different things like not working won't won't hurt you, You know, it's a it's only going to create potentially more opportunities for the bigger. One of the biggest things that the show is careers are random there their they're seemingly random in terms of the paths you make and so if if you make the assumption that your future is random you want to create as many opportunities then to access act allow that Randy missed at work in your favor and networking to me is how you do that you allow it allows you to open more doors. So that random is can flow in and then you get to choose what you want to do. So it sounds like that that's worked out really really great for you. I mean, I'm at mine and also for the Millie work and I'm really glad to hear that I think probably one of these things for the people I at least in this current time is what's it like to work in paper products during the pandemic that has caused. Paper products to just be ripped off the shelves like I don't know the

Speaker 2: latest toys. So I currently work in paper towel,

Speaker 1: which is one of the hottest Commodities and paper products right now. You obviously can't get enough production out the door. So it's been really interesting to see that shift because toilet paper has been a focus for you know, extended periods of time paper

Speaker 2: towels has

Speaker 1: always been there but not to the extent of what it is now still production. There's a higher pressure on production and then there's also you know, obviously the pressure to stay safe during these

Speaker 2: times because you know covered so definitely out there and wreaking havoc. So

Speaker 1: seeing how the company has transitioned with that and you know, the opportunities that are coming. Yeah. It's it's just been crazy in my mind and I mean, like I said, we can't make it up paper towels. So I mean capital projects are shifting to to the paper towel

Speaker 2: world.

Speaker 1: Optimization project paper project is it just like yeah, it's long hours

Speaker 3: the back to executing everything have gotten harder. So if I got like a double double whammy of hey we need to do this as fast as possible, but also people can't really interact with each other so you can have to figure out how to build a machine install a people run it without them really being next to each other

Speaker 1: don't think any Capital product has had the trigger pull yet to where we're experiencing quite it's just more of like the production aspects of like Hayes machines down for longer than 4 hours. You're getting a phone call from a

Speaker 2: VP kind of thing

Speaker 1: saying what's going on because I mean it's to the point. I mean, he's being store shelves everybody seen the store shelves of where you know, there's

Speaker 2: there's nothing on it. So obviously,

Speaker 1: Wants to go to the store.

Speaker 2: But yeah, it's

Speaker 1: optimizing the machines at a faster rate

Speaker 2: than I've seen in a long time. So like in any

Speaker 1: down time has to be more Justified and you know, just saying, oh, well, I'm just I feel like cleaning up the machine today. No, you need to have you know,

Speaker 2: what? What is the purpose

Speaker 1: of doing this? And what is it going to gain for the

Speaker 2: company kind of thing

Speaker 3: with preventive maintenance on the equipment? Right? As always this gas if I go out every approximately 500 hours. We need to replace this bearing. What's the technical science could probably well, but if it gets a crack at 200 am I fell I don't know like him either engineering decision that are put in the engineer to decide and they're sincere that goes into him, but they're really just rules of thumb. Can we press this bearing life a little bit more? Do you really need to replace it in loser? I do interesting thing. Those are ancient time to be in here cuz it's it's an example of where. You use your engineering knowledge in those problem times, you know, you don't know the answer. It's not a 2 + what's the answer to 2 + 2 it's just it's weird abstract things where you going to leverage your whole knowledge base say well, I think so. I'm at my guess is yes, and that those are engineering times. That's what an engineer does is when they're they don't have all the information. They're not a scientist going to make a perfect calculation there an engineer. They're going to try and do the best looking in the past. They came they can when the budget that they have and so it's always going to be exciting time to be an engineer cuz you probably really being leveraged on

Speaker 1: manufacturing engineer. So I'm in charge of the app that strategy and then the actual machine in the production. So I have to own whatever my machines doing and then they're leveraging me for putting in new equipment because I'm currently my case Packers getting replaced for the thing that loads the cases and puts it all in the

Speaker 2: book cardboard boxes

Speaker 1: because the one that's currently on my line

Speaker 2: has

Speaker 1: Noah Wyle ER which is operational and blow something. I don't know. They always throw those acronyms that you but it it's not performing to where it needs to so we're playing in the new one, but that ass is crazy that you're talking about is whether you know, you should be replacing bearing

Speaker 2: 6 months or is it three months

Speaker 1: and if it's three months making sure it gets on the calendar at the proper time and then

Speaker 2: executed properly.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's it's it's really exciting. It's definitely a good experience because I don't think it's ever is ever going to be this high pressure or something like that.

Speaker 3: You know, we're kind of wrapping up on time here. I have to have one last question for you. So it sounds like you've interacted with the business Unit A Lot in your experience. And you know, I think there's a lot of people who think at some point I get a master's degree. I should get maybe my Masters in Business in these things and there's always an argument about whether or not it's it's valuable and more than that. You should do it. And you know, I'm so we haven't had anyone on the show though who seems like a candidate of deciding whether or not I should get a master's degree and maybe I can pull the trigger on it. I'm just curious as to your Reflections on that. Do you think you'll get a master's degree? Do you think you need to if you don't why and if you do why you know, I do for those who may be are in a similar thought of of debating that topic.

Speaker 1: Early for me just because like you said

Speaker 2: it and it comes into play

Speaker 1: quite often. I have a lot of co-workers were current like that are my age who are currently going through it and decided that you know, it can't hurt to have an MBA or anything like that

Speaker 3: opportunity, cuz you're going to give up timer. I mean that that's that's what you do for people that opportunity cost is a thing where you at you or your by executing a master's degree. You were giving up time doing something else, even if your company pays for its not a financial opportunity cost. I mean, it sounds like you're super busy right now, too. So sorry to interrupt you. I just think that's an important point for people to know what that even if there's no Financial cost and still is it cost?

Speaker 1: I don't think I could do an MBA or the other master's program. That was highly recommend me when I was in project management was Masters in Engineering Management, or even the Pea Winter vacation. So there's there's other routes. So the certification I think it's like one class and then you take a test and then you can have that those letters at the end of your name, which is highly recommended I think by our company just because it's the one class and he get the certification and you're good to go. But I mean right now I don't think I could do an MBA but it's on the radar as something potentially, but I really think it depends on

Speaker 2: where your careers bringing you

Speaker 1: and I'm kind of where you want to go. So a good friend of mine was it was in the position I'm in now, which is the manufacturing engineer you're all but he wanted to be more in the business and be one of the other people interacting with the project manager is trying to decide where Investments are going to go with what if it's going to be that he went for an MBA which I think makes a lot of sense cuz he's more of the business now rather than you know the actual engineering so Really? It's kind of where you invest in yourself. I don't have measure myself ever in the business knock on wood. It could happen or something like that, but I don't think an NBA would stop like if I didn't have my MBA it wouldn't stop me from getting that

Speaker 3: position. You and don't don't let a advanced degree or lack of one think you can't go on to do something else. That's really all about being in 10 full about what you're going to gain from it in the show. Even Brennan sister Caitlin Tamarac when we get around the show her using am at her master's degree to pit. It was in a technical field. She wanted to be in a different technical field. So she got a master's in that other technical field and use that to pay that technically that's the self-awareness as well as we talked about before even just where you going to do what you want and need or what but it's a complex thing you do if there's a lot of things you know, what am I going to give up? What am I going to do? I think I'm going to It's either a video with daily really we don't know the answer but we kind of got to make a decision

Speaker 1: that I've run into is the the position if it requires it and you don't have it. Sometimes they will let you get it while you're in

Speaker 2: that position as well.

Speaker 1: So say I wanted to go in that business Direction. They would allow me to do that and give me time to go do that as well. If if that is a requirement for that position and that would be part of the career development into that role.

Speaker 2: As well. So yeah, so you can if you don't have it, you can get

Speaker 3: you and your situation where like your ear in the company, you know the company you're not trying to move to a different company. You're not trying to use the degrees that your resume looks good. So you can get a job at a different company. Like you would already know them hiring manager. You would know the stakeholders. They would like to know you like I think that makes a lot of sense when you're in that type of in green position that meet ya there would be other opportunities for you to you to get to get I think that's great. I really good really good point that I never thought about before. I think it makes a lot of sense. Great, excellent. Will thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show. I think it's been really really helpful for me. I think I learned a little bit about paper products, which a lot of people don't think about what it takes to know. I don't know I think maybe for the 9 if there are not Engineers I listen to the show that are like wow, like if it takes a lot to even just make that the simple things you don't even have to really think about it. And I think it's supposed to have it sized when those products become incredibly high demand for whatever Market reason, but thank you for your time. And I really really appreciate it. self-reflection man paper products in a pandemic industry of a Product Industry sound the paper product like the toilet paper to buy for work out the garbage and there's a machine that makes it right in there are any of the machines that make your 68 ply soft little small bear that that's a different capacity, right? But all these people so it's not only did you have more demand but you had less Demand on these on the commercial side machine since all these like residential machines just got like overloaded and so that's a tough time everything to be a manufacturing engineer on that. She About it with Grace. I think really compared to what I would expect if you are in charge of a line and it had that much demandware VP calls and a huge company are happening a son like that. Can't imagine what got me. Com. What is this is your thing with manufacturing engineer, but it seems like the people who are manufacturer and Manufacturing Engineers. I can handle it they have this is call Miss about them. So it sounds like she at least come across as well suited for the job and have to travel 90% of the time in one place. Well from either of the big there's one big kind of thing that I really loved about her story and it's this idea of management both from other people but also internally, so they finish the idea of management helping me out is kind of her later story of how her manager about your current manager looked inside. Okay, I think movie Her with her knowledge to this position is going to be better for her. But also have synergistic values to the mill. I think that's great. I could what it what you would hope a great manager would do would be looking down and helping moving pieces to get a bigger benefit. But I was cool as for her is her earlier story when she moved from her R&D job to our corporate planning job of how she get us little bit of self-management and she's like, I need the skills. I need to kind of adjust to get these project management skills and she made that happen talk to the stakeholders executed it to the betterment of her and her company and I think that's a good thing for people to realize that good management happens externally, but also happens internally and so I love that. I thought awesome to have it in a single example. I totally agree. I think that's been something we leave here about 5 people. Come on the show have been successful as it's one of us figuring out where where you need to improve your skills what you need to learn whether that's formally and getting a master's degree in something whether that's informally and trying something out in the company to eat to gain those skills and he is always something if you want to be thinking about just advancing to the company, but just being better at your job and opening up doors for different opportunities, even laterally like that's when you got to be aware of sand and so for me, I think we talked about the biomedical think before we talked about a lot this episode, but just the idea that that what you learn in school and what your first or second job is isn't necessarily what you have to be destined to be for the rest of your career your learning skills that are valuable in and how to problem-solve and how to think in RI is Casey know what she has the most net working things out how to connect her with stuff. Like there's a lot more to you and the opportunities you can pursue than just this the paper and just the years of experience doing YZ so it's important I was think about that especially if you're in a position where you're trying to make him move you want to do something else but you're not sure you're like well, I don't know if I can do this I don't know if I have the qualifications or whatever like you might be because of all the stuff that you pick up just by doing your job if you're being aware of it if you're kind of gliding through your job, maybe not so much but if you're you're being self-aware you're thinking about your learning and how to apply those there going to be a lot more doors open in this case. It was R&D was punch management operations, who knows where she's going next. They could be anywhere in the company because she's taking the time to think about that folks. Are you of that like a lot of time you might think while okay, I'm an unemployed me to do this for 5 or 10 years and I'm going to make a change when I make that change. I mean to be a detriment to the company because I'm going to be an unqualified person moving into new role. Where is this going to turn back. On head into it more? So no you can actually be really advantageous because now you have a person with five or ten years of skill set in the company doing X going over to Y where y really needs or can really What is it from a little bit of X and that can actually be a huge advantage to a new group and I think you know, what a great example of that and kind of the counter the Counterpoint to people who think that maybe moving is going to be a testament or the company's going to view it as a negative thing. Cuz if they're smart they met and they do it right and maybe a huge synergistic bad play something that more companies and will people be aware of of how skills can be fit into different roles and they make a huge impact. Some of them is a big company really like if you're a big company, right you want to think about what it what are the things that me is a big company can do better than if I was a small company and so things like in her initial example where she's like they let me try out for three positions in the same interview leveraging your big company nest and I think you are as a big company want to continue to do that in another way. You can leverage your big company has is just to allow your employees to do these kind of things and so Props to props to them for leveraging their big company this well, I think that's excellent. I'm in the end of benefits of the employees to so well something special for gas up next get excited not going to tell you about it. You should yeah, it'll it'll be an adventure. It'll be a trip for sure. We're taking a trip everyone get excited. Talk to you next time. All right. Bye. Thanks for listening this episode of engineer your career with Troy Bauman and Brennan Tamarac for more information about the show visit our website at byc podcast.com there you can find show notes for each episode and get in touch with Troy and I if you or someone, you know are an engineer with an interesting or even not so interesting career journey, I would like to be on the show go on the website send us a short bio and we made it to invite you to come on and she Your story and finally if you want to show your support, please rate review like or subscribe to the show on your podcast player of choice. Your story and finally if you want to show your support, please rate review like or subscribe to the show on your podcast player of choice.