Extreme Engineer of the Month

Education: B.S., Civil Engineering, University of Missouri - Columbia; Master of Civil Engineering, University of Kansas Favorite Classes: Steel design, structural analysis, and statics Best Skills: Work ethic and organizational and communications skills. Hobbies: Music, tennis, golf, reading, and family. Role Models: Her dad, who worked hard and really enjoyed his career as a civil engineer. Advice: While it's important to have good skills in math and science, you also need good written and oral communications skills. If you can't convey your ideas to the people you're working with you will not be very effective in your job. Try to be well rounded. College is a time to learn about life as well as engineering, so take some courses that aren't engineering related. Don't get so focused on your engineering classes that you forget about the rest of your life.

Music or Engineering?

Amy's dad was a civil engineer, so she grew up hearing about engineering and was particularly interested in the environmental aspects of the field of civil engineering. She had always been good in math and science and also had a strong interest in music. When it came time to decide what she wanted to study, Amy was interested in being either an engineer or a music teacher. Thinking it through, she decided to pursue engineering because she knew it would be a good stable job. She was a good student and with several good engineering schools in her home state of Missouri, Amy decided to pick the one that offered her the largest scholarship which happened to be the University of Missouri-Columbia, where several of her good friends and family members had gone. As Amy began to take more classes within the civil engineering department, she found the structural classes to be very interesting and decided to change her emphasis area from environmental to structural.

Alphabet Soup—SWE, ASCE, Chi Epsilon, Tau Beta Pi

While in college, Amy was active in SWE (the Society for Women Engineers), the student chapter for the American Society of Civil Engineers, Chi Epsilon (the civil engineering honorary society), and Tau Beta Pi (the engineering honorary society). These activities helped her develop her organizational and leadership skills. She also enjoyed getting to know people with common interests, and it provided a great balance with school. She was also determined to not give up on her love of music. Another reason she chose the University of Missouri-Columbia was their music program. Even as a non-music major, Amy was able to participate in several ensembles while working on her civil engineering degree.

Internships: Real World Experience

During the summers, Amy participated in two internships with the Missouri Department of Transportation. These were her first real work experiences. She discovered that government work and transportation engineering weren't the best fit for her. She realized she was more suited to work in an environment with a faster pace and decided she'd like to work for a large engineering company. During Amy's senior year, Black & Veatch had a college weekend in the fall, where, Amy says, the company did a great job of presenting itself as a friendly, innovative, and interesting place to work. Another appealing aspect of Black & Veatch was the wide variety of projects the company was involved in and the opportunity to transfer to other divisions and geographical locations. Amy was sold and accepted a job offer in the company's power engineering division the October before she graduated. "It was great to know that early what I was going to do," she says. "It took a lot of pressure off my senior year."

Amy didn't know much about power engineering at the time; only that working in the power industry meant dealing with very large structures. Today, she is the lead steel designer on one of those large projects. She has worked on structural design for both new and existing power plants. "New emissions regulations can require power plants be renovated to bring them up to code," she explained. "While most of the work to reduce emissions is a mechanical engineering issue, the solution typically involves adding new ductwork and equipment, which requires structural steel or foundations for support."

Amy is currently working on a project in a high seismic zone, which presents many structural challenges and the need for special bracing to meet code requirements. This project provides additional challenges as it's an EPC (engineer, procure, and construct) project in joint venture with a construction partner. In addition to the structural engineering, Amy will stay involved in the project until the construction is completed, working with the construction staff to make adjustments as needed to fit actual construction conditions.

For retrofits, Amy says that you often have to work from old drawings of a power plant that many not be complete or entirely accurate. "You think you have room for a brace according to the drawing, but when you get in to do the work, you discover that there is a pipe or another piece of steel in the way." Then the structural engineer has to find a way to make it work.

"As an engineer there is always more than one way to resolve a challenge. The key is to find the best way considering cost and schedule," Amy says.

Engineering is a good fit for Amy's whole life. As a mother of a one-year-old daughter, she would like to add one more child to her family. She also looks to further her career by moving into project management. She enjoys working with people and engineering management was a large component of her master's degree program. She likes to look at the big picture—including budgeting and scheduling—and feels she's found a good fit in structural engineering for power plants.