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National Engineers Week

National Engineers Week 

The goal of National Engineers Week is to increase the understanding of and interest in engineering and technology careers, ensuring a diverse and well-educated future engineering workforce. We asked some of our engineers about the characteristics that help someone considering an engineering career, the skills that help an engineer be successful and the best career advice they’ve ever received.

Research and development director with Carlisle Brake & Friction, Greg Sturdy described the advice he’d give someone interested in becoming an engineer. “Look at all avenues as ways to learn and improve yourself, whether it’s technically, socially, interpersonally or through time management,” he said. “Grow in many dimensions, at work and in your personal life.”

Looking back on his engineering career, Sturdy talked about the best advice he’s ever received. “Don’t assume parts are correct as provided. Always verify your inputs to be sure of the path you take to understand the outcomes of your testing and decisions,” he said. “This becomes a simple parallel to ‘take care of the little things, and the bigger things will take care of themselves.’”

Sturdy believes inquisitiveness coupled with an openness to learning helps an engineer be successful. “The communications skills needed to explain a complex scenario can often be more daunting than solving the technical challenge itself,” he said. “In my experience, the characteristics or qualities that help someone in engineering are curiosity, creativity, logical thinking, an analytical mindset and diligence.”

Sturdy has spent a lot of time throughout his career auditing quality and technical aspects of manufacturing. “This helped me to see the interconnected and interdependent relationships between how parts and processes function and how and why many metrics are created,” he said. “Sometimes those metrics are deliberately at odds, others because functions do not understand how and why they should work with other functions.”