Extreme Engineer of the Month

Profile: Dena Anthony, Senior Chemical Engineer, Eastman Chemical Company

Education: BS in Chemical Engineering and minor in business, University of Tennessee at Knoxville

Favorite Classes: Calculus, Fluid Flow, and Heat Transfer

Best Skills: Leadership, responsibility, staying productive, and making a contribution on the job.

Hobbies: Aerobics, volleyball, softball, mountain biking, and golf.

Role Models: "My parents. I admire their work ethic, morals, and what they value." Dena says they shaped her perspective and they love and support her "no matter what."

Advice: Before you choose a major, know what you can do with it. Engineering is one of the few majors where you can graduate with a four-year degree, make a great living, get to do interesting and challenging work and still have time for a personal life. "You can have it all-a family, a husband, and an engineering career."

You could say that engineering is in Dena's blood. Her father was a chemical engineer and she grew up in Kingsport, TN, where Eastman Chemical Company is headquartered and has a large manufacturing facility. In high school, Dena had an affinity for math and science and considered going to medical school. Despite her father's occupation, like many middle and high school students, she had only a vague idea of what an engineering career entailed. Rather than going the pre-med route, her father encouraged her to start with an engineering degree so that she would have options—stop with an engineering degree or go on to medical school. While Dena didn't set out to be an engineer, she says she's extremely satisfied with the path she took.

Which Engineering Specialty—How to Choose?

After graduating from high school, Dena enrolled in an engineering program at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. She liked the large school atmosphere because she wanted to experience all college had to offer. Dena began her college career with general engineering classes. She considered aerospace and biomedical engineering but finally decided on chemical engineering because it is less specialized and has more job opportunities. As a sophomore she really enjoyed her chemical engineering classes, and the positive experience told her she was on the right track.

And Business, Too

To maximize her marketability and broaden her exposure, Dena minored in business. The knowledge of basic business principles she gained has served her well in her current job and provided breadth and depth to her educational experience.

Another key in building her experience base was Dena's decision to co-op. Dena credits her co-op work at the Oak Ridge National Lab with helping her hone in on what she liked and didn't like and which engineering specialty would be the right fit. At Oak Ridge, Dena was involved in lab scale experiments aimed at removing the radioactive part of waste. Dena discovered that research was not what she wanted to do. While she liked investigating problems, she realized that finding solutions wasn't enough for her. She also wanted to be a part of implementing them.

First Job—Paint and Pigment

After graduating from UT, Dena's first job was with DuPont. She started at a smaller plant site that manufactured titanium dioxide, the base pigment used in paint. Dena said that the transition from college where you're surrounded by people your own age to a small town where everyone is married was difficult. In hindsight, however, she realized that working at a smaller plant site provided lots of opportunities to have a hand in many areas of the production process. "Having a limited number of technical people creates lots of opportunities for the people there," she said. "You can do a lot of different things in a short period of time."

In her first position, Dena was responsible for finding an outlet for off-quality pigment. She and her management support team devised a way to add back the material in the front end of the process and recover the value of the titanium by reacting it again to produce higher quality material. Dena enjoyed the challenge and the responsibility that came with managing the project.

Six Sigma and Beyond

Next, Dena was offered the opportunity to train in DuPont's Six Sigma program. Six Sigma is a data driven approach and methodology for eliminating waste and defects in manufacturing processes. One of the Six Sigma catch phrases is "sustainable gain," something that appealed directly to Dena's desire to identify and solve problems and make sure that the solution will last. One of her projects was finding a way to recover more of the chlorine that is released when the titanium tetrachloride (an intermediate in the pigment process) is reacted with oxygen. Through a lot of data analysis, she and her team discovered that a simple process change made the gaseous chlorine easier to recover.

Dena's next assignment was a shift team manager—the first step into management at DuPont. Dena worked a 12-hour swing shift and had eight operators reporting to her. During this assignment, Dena discovered her talent for managing people, and her confidence in her abilities grew. Her time as a shift team manager taught her the necessity of being able to make a decision and make it quickly—something she believes was formative for her future career opportunities.

Next, Dena was promoted to area manager. With six team managers and 32 operators reporting to her, Dena found that she thrives on the responsibility of making decisions. It makes her feel that she's an important part of the process.

At DuPont, Dena got the opportunity to grow and experience a lot of different things she says she wouldn't have otherwise. She learned to take risks and found satisfaction in knowing that she had made a difference. She also learned the value of understanding an issue from all points of view so that you can make the best decision.

The Road Home

Upward mobility at DuPont involves mastering different skill sets, which requires frequent transfers and relocation. Instead, Dena chose to pursue her career closer to home at Eastman in Kingsport, where there are lots of job opportunities at the same site. Her experience and success at DuPont made her a sought after candidate.

Eastman manufactures and markets chemicals, fibers, and plastics worldwide. It produces 1,200 products that are used in making everything from the packaging for your food, drinks, and personal care products to the fabric in your clothing and home furnishings, the paint on your house and automobile, and the plastics on your bicycle helmet and golf clubs. At Eastman, Dena is involved in the heart of the Polymers Division (specialty plastics) by making sure the right material is in the right container and to the customer on time. She is also back to managing people.

Dena and the four shift team managers, six day staff and 44 operators who report to her are responsible for all interplant chemical movement. They are also responsible for chemical movement to other Eastman sites, inside the United States and overseas. They manage customer shipments, whether the product is packaged in boxes, sacks, bags, or drums. They also load and ship product by railcars, trucks, isotainers (chemical containers), or sea-bulks (box containers for overseas shipment). Their challenges are numerous. They must move the material so that the production areas have room in their silos to store product and avoid running out of raw materials needed to run their processes. They must also make sure that Eastman's customers get the product they ordered when they need it. They do all this while maintaining safety and for the least cost with the highest quality.

Sleuth at Work

One of the interesting challenges Dena has had during her two years at Eastman was a Six Sigma project to determine why a customer, who was using Eastman polymer to make pink- and blue-colored cosmetic jars, was unable to achieve consistent jar color. Dena enjoyed working on a customer issue and playing detective to discover and solve the problem. Through a lot of work and experimentation, she and her team were able to determine that the customer needed a higher clarity polymer. As a result, Eastman was able to retain the customer's business by providing them with a polymer that met their need.

Balancing Act

Dena rates her career as highly satisfying and has found that she is able to balance it with family. "An engineering career gives you options and allows you to have it all," she says. "You can have a family, a husband, and an engineering career."

Dena appreciates the evolution of her career and where she has landed. At Eastman, Dena enjoys the daily challenge of solving a problem, finding a solution, and making somebody's job better. One thing she has learned is that no matter what you are doing, do your best at it because you will gain something from it, and it's going to benefit you in the end.

Eastman gives a lot back to the Kingsport community, and Dena says her home town in the Tennessee mountains is a great place to work and raise a family. "It's a great fit for me. At the end of the day, I'm happy," she says.