Chemical Engineer

Always comfortable with math and science courses, he headed to college with a career goal, but a summer job altered his path. Later, he combined business education with his technical knowledge for a more interesting career. 

FAMILY BACKGROUND

RW was the oldest of four boys. His father was a salesman, initially for industrial equipment and later for appliances. His mother was a nurse. Neither parent had attended college, but they encouraged their sons to continue their education past high school to provide a wide range of career opportunities.

CHILDHOOD THOUGHTS OF AN ADULT CAREER

An uncle RW respected, was a physician (doctor) so RW thought that if his first career choice – professional baseball player (a pitcher with a flaming fastball and a wicked, overhead curveball) – didn’t work out, he would like to be a doctor (with no medical specialty then considered). 

SCHOOL DAYS

Math and science courses were easily mastered by RW, an all-around good student. On a whim due mostly to the fun personality of the teacher, RW took a course in Latin, which he reasoned could be helpful to understand the meaning of many words involved in his eventual medical career. 

AFTER SCHOOL AND SUMMER JOBS – LEARNING BUSINESS AND INITIATIVE

When not in school or on the baseball field, RW was busy delivering newspapers and later clerking in a small, local grocery store, where his responsibilities increased from stocking shelves to helping the owner cut meat for the deli and eventually overseeing the store when the owner was away. As a friend of math, RW was able and trusted to manage the store’s payroll accounts. 

COLLEGE

There was never any doubt within RW or his family that he would head to college. RW’s physician uncle recommended attending a relatively small college rather than a large university, based on the perceived opportunity for receiving more individual attention as a student at a smaller school rather than having many classes taught by graduate students, not professors, as sometimes happens at universities. 

RW accepted his uncle’s advice and applied to three small colleges. With his high school GPA and SAT scores to his advantage, RW was accepted at all three schools. One of the colleges provided an ‘early admission’ notice, which promptly became RW’s choice to resolve the issue and not have to wait for any further news regarding his applications. 

Pre-med majors at RW’s college typically chose their courses focus between biology and chemistry. RW thought chemistry would be more interesting. He was also required to take two years of a foreign language so based on his pleasant experience with high school Latin, RW enrolled in a course involving Classical Greek, which fortunately dealt more with Greek history than its language. 

While RW continues to be interested in reading about history, he never considered involving history as the basis of a career, for example, as a teacher or professor of history. 

ACADEMIC CHALLENGE – BALANCING THE STUDENT’S SOCIAL LIFE

During his first two years of college, RW maintained his interest in attending medical school after college graduation, toward his career goal as a doctor. However, at the same time, RW and his girlfriend were in a serious personal relationship and the thought of their being separated for more than three years while RW attended medical school and then served a Medical Residency, gave RW concern about balancing his personal and academic lives. 

RW mentioned his current thinking to his father, who set up a meeting with a friend working for a company which designed blast furnaces for steel mills. The family friend suggested that RW, with his math background and overall academic record, consider ‘Engineering’ as a career, starting with summer job experience working with the friend’s company’s engineers to see if he liked it. 

ACADEMIC CHALLENGE – LACK OF COURSES IN NEW CAREER INTEREST

RW immediately enjoyed working with the engineers but back at his college, there appeared to be a major problem in pursuing his new career interest: the college offered no courses in engineering. However, the college guidance counselor informed RW of the college’s partnership with several different schools which concentrated on engineering. Under this ‘3/2’ arrangement, students achieved a broad education (referred to as ‘liberal arts’) during their first three college years, followed by two years at the other college, where the specific focus would be on engineering courses. 

RW was glad to take advantage of this opportunity and again consulted his uncle for advice in choosing among the partner engineering schools. He strongly urged that RW enroll in one of the partnership schools, even though RW had never heard of the school, and it was located even further from RW’s girlfriend. At the risk of disappointing his girlfriend, RW deferred to his uncle’s judgment. 

ACADEMIC CHALLENGE – INITIAL COURSE FAILURES – YIKES!

Unlike his first three years of experience taking tests within ‘liberal arts’ courses, the engineering professors invited students to “Bring any resource to the exam: books, notes, calculators, etc., BUT you better know the materials because you will have only one hour to complete the lengthy exam!” RW had always been a (very) good student – his two-year college GPA was 3.5 out of 4.0 – so he was shocked to fail both the first two engineering exams. “What did I get myself into?” 

ACADEMIC AND PERSONAL CHALLENGE – ROMANCE ENDED

What is the student to do when his romantic partner declares they no longer have any chemistry? (Sorry, the Editor could not resist the pun within the context of this career story). The student / rejected romantic, seems to have two choices: (1) neglect his studies due to the disruption of his personal life or (2) don’t let the disruption be a distraction; instead, focus harder on your academics, especially to learn how to succeed in courses where your first two efforts were failures. Fortunately for RW’s career choice, he chose option (2), working harder to study and be tested more successfully, ultimately achieving Honor Roll status while graduating with dual degrees: BS in Chemistry and a BS in Chemical Engineering. 

FIRST ADULT CAREER JOB – NOT ALWAYS EASY TO ACHIEVE

Having graduated with dual degrees in chemistry and engineering, supported by high academic achievements, RW hoped to soon land an interesting job. Following his pattern of working hard toward any goal, RW sent his resume to over 100 different companies, whose business ranged from chemicals to petroleum, pharmaceuticals, and steel production. This effort achieved only 6 interviews, followed by only 2 offers – but 1 offer does equal employment! Coincidentally, both offers were within the petroleum industry. How to choose? For RW, the deciding factor was geography: he opted for the company located closer to his family’s home base. 

PROCESS ENGINEER

RW’s initial job title was ‘Process Engineer’.

The typical job description of a ‘Process Engineer’ involves the following activities and responsibilities: 

• Meeting with production managers to assess existing processes
• Drafting process ideas to reduce costs and improve production
• Performing risk assessments
• Designing and testing process upgrades and new procedures
• Ensuring processes comply with safety and quality standards
• Performing process simulations and troubleshooting 
• Ultimately, the process engineer is responsible to maintain the efficiency of production to reduce costs. 

Essential requirements for eventual success: Extensive experience in process design, excellent technical skills, and high-level analytical skills. 

Of course, the new hire in any job, whose experience has been only academic, does not start with real-world, on-the-job experience, which is best achieved working with mentors within that specific profession. RW was fortunate to work with supportive mentors. 

ADDING ADVANCED BUSINESS EDUCATION 

Editor’s note – An option for any career not initially focused on factors to assess and achieve profitability, is to enroll in business courses on a part-time basis while maintaining the main career path on a full-time schedule. A friend recommended that RW would add to his overall career knowledge by taking night and weekend courses within a local university offering business courses toward an MBA (Masters in Business Administration) degree. Even if the business knowledge is never utilized, the degree improves one’s professional resume. 

Typical “B-School” course offerings include applied quantitative analysis, accounting, and legal environment of business, micro and macroeconomics, organization behavior and management, financial foundations for managers, information systems and data analytics, managerial economics in an innovative environment, strategic financial management and managing for results. 

Looking back, RW is glad that he took the opportunity to add the fundamentals of the business-world to his knowledge base, then limited to chemistry and engineering. This expansion opened additional professional doors and led to a more interesting career. 

CAREER CHALLENGE – EMPLOYER’S RIGHT TO TRANSFER EMPLOYEES

Editor’s note – Large corporate employers sometimes transfer their employees from one location to another, often including job title promotions and additional compensation as incentives for the employee to accept the transfer, inevitably involving relocation (and disruption) for at least the employee and possibly others important to the employee’s personal life (e.g., ‘significant other’ or spouse and children). 

RW was aware of his employer’s frequent transfer of its process engineers to the employer’s different refinery facilities across the country. He assumed that with his level of experience, he would soon be relocated. However, he was now married, still enrolled in the MBA program, happy with his residential area and not eager to move away. Thus, when escorting a group of engineers from another company around the refinery to inform them about an innovative chemical engineering process, which meeting coincidentally served to demonstrate RW’s expertise with the process the other company was interested to develop for itself, RW asked the group’s leader – very confidentially – whether that other company had any relevant job openings. The leader whispered: “Call me tomorrow.” When RW called, he was essentially offered a job ‘on the spot’ which RW soon negotiated for a new position which he considered an upgrade due to its opportunities for further advancement, which increased both his professional enjoyment and compensation at the same time. 

PROFESSIONAL EXPERTISE AND HARD WORK YIELD NEW OPPORTUNITIES

Although RW was initially hired by his new company as ‘Process Engineer’ (the same job title with the employer he just left), he was soon given more interesting (to him) opportunities as an ‘Operations Tech Specialist’ and with the ‘Economics and Planning’ units, which led to RW being the first chemical engineer to get involved with contracts and later, trading responsibilities. 

‘NETWORK’ MAY OPEN NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES

Editor’s note – An employee performing duties for his or her employer, often has contact with people employed by other companies. These business relationships – among employees of different companies – are informally called “business networks”. Within the network, employees of one company often notice the expertise and proficiency of an employee of a different company and wish to add personnel with that same background to their own company, thus leading to an offer to change jobs. This is the value of participating in a ‘network.’

While moving from one internal employment position to another within the petroleum production company, RW found himself coordinating with lawyers aiming to increase their client base by developing work with utility companies (gas and electric). Creating business relationships through a business network led to a new job offer for RW.

‘IN-HOUSE’ CONSULTING

The law firm (wisely) wished to hire a full-time expert with an engineering background to be readily available to consult with the law firm and its clients on technical issues. This arrangement is known as ‘in-house’ consulting – it’s in-house because the consultant is a full-time employee within the ‘house’ of the employer. (In contrast, ‘outside’ consultants are not employed full-time by the entity paying the consultant for advice.) 

RW was initially reluctant to leave the petroleum industry for employment within the legal profession as a consultant, but the lawyers had apparently decided that RW had exactly the experience and personality they needed so they kept after him, which enabled RW to negotiate favorable employment terms, including increased compensation and working from home. 

CHALLENGE – CO-WORKERS WHO ARE COMPETITORS, NOT SUPPORTERS

Editor’s note – Lawyers are often involved in daily competitions: within the law firm, to perform better than other beginners (‘associates’) to earn promotion as ‘partners’ and concurrently outside the law firm, to compete against lawyer adversaries in negotiations or the courtroom; also, there is competition among lawyers within the same firm, for better salaries and bonuses, based on who receives credit for bringing in clients (‘originations’) and who is credited for working for those clients; the net result is that law firms are highly competitive working environments, which can be a rude awakening for in-house consultants hired by one practice group within the law firm. The consultant to one practice group may be viewed with (unreasonable) suspicion by the other practice group, who wonder if the success of the other practice group will affect their ultimate compensation. Sound crazy? Trust me, this editor has “been there, done that.” 

To RW’s surprise and disappointment but continuing career education, his work with one of the law firm’s practice groups (focusing on utility clients) was unable to be coordinated on a cooperative basis with lawyers from the firm’s other practice groups. While RW’s work was appreciated by the clients and partners with whom he worked regularly, RW was increasingly uncomfortable with having to work within the competitive tension between the different lawyers within the same firm. Thus, RW became open to the idea of working with a respected friend, who he had learned to know from his business network, who had joined a business of ‘outside’ consultants to utility companies. 

‘OUTSIDE’ CONSULTANT

The more RW learned about the potential opportunity with the ‘outside consulting’ company, the more he liked the idea, which would continue to develop his expertise on the business side of engineering, away from internal competition among co-workers. Thus, RW decided to depart his ‘inside consulting’ job with the law firm, to join the ‘outside consulting’ firm which would continue to utilize his core knowledge of engineering, now enhanced with understanding the business world’s need to assess projects for profitability. 

CAREER CHALLENGE – PREDICTING A BUSINESS DOWNTURN

While RW’s outside consulting work was increasingly lucrative for himself and his employer, RW began to realize that their relatively small business, which he had helped grow from 12 to over 100 employees during his promotion to Vice President, would soon have a difficult time competing for business due to the current regulatory (or deregulatory) environment. RW brought his concern to top management, who, RW concluded, ‘kept their heads in the sand’ – i.e., they were enjoying current profitability, assuming it would last forever while more astute business owners would appreciate inconvenient facts over hopes. 

As demonstrated throughout his career path alterations, RW has never ‘kept his hand in the sand’ – preferring instead, to do his best trying to control and enjoy his career path by buckling down in school to learn the fundamentals of chemistry and engineering, later adding to his knowledge base by studying business issues and then staying alert to grab opportunities for more interesting job responsibilities while utilizing his core knowledge of engineering, supplemented by business training and experience. Accordingly, RW initiated discussion with one of his former petroleum industry employers for possible job openings. Based on RW not having ‘burned any bridges’ when he departed years ago from his former employer and since then, continuing to earn respect within his network of engineers and others associated with the various businesses within the energy field, the former employer created an opening to rehire RW after extended negotiations involving job duties and compensation. 

Eventually, RW became employed with a separate business allied with his employer, where he continues to utilize his knowledge, skills, and judgment within the general business field of ‘energy production and processing.’

CAREER SATISFACTION

• Utilizing formal education to resolve issues involving applied science and engineering
• Teaching younger professionals is rewarding to watch them mature
• Taking extra effort to learn a new field of knowledge (business) added both interesting work and more flexibility to move to other employments as opportunities were presented
• Earning respect of fellow professionals for his detailed knowledge and judgment in both the technical and managerial aspects of business