The Power of the PE License

Originally published by Monster.com: http://career-advice.monster.com/career-development/education-training/professional-engineer-license-PE/article.aspx

By Jason Kent, PE, Monster Contributing Writer

Somewhere near the end of your university engineering program, you face a choice about whether to pursue the Professional Engineer (PE) license by taking the Fundamentals of Engineering exam (FE exam), or skipping it altogether. If you do take and pass the FE exam, you face another choice after roughly four years of progressive experience as an Engineer-in-Training (EIT) about whether to take the Principles and Practice of Engineering exam (PE exam), or again pass on the opportunity.

It’s easy to rationalize not pursuing the PE license. You might think you’re too busy at work, that studying will take away from your personal life or that the effort won’t be worth it if your company doesn’t require the license.

All these reasons might be true. Most people need a great deal of studying to prepare for these two eight-hour exams. And many companies do not require a PE license for someone to work in the engineering field. But the excuses ignore one indisputable truth: the power of the PE license itself.

The PE license confers many benefits upon those who earn it. Here are some of the most important that contribute to the power of the PE:

Your PE License Sets You Apart

The PE license demonstrates that you have the equivalent of a four-year engineering degree, four or more years of progressive experience (in most states), and a multidisciplinary understanding of physical and engineering principles. It shows that you have met all the standards required of the profession. For fields like electrical engineering where the PE is preferred but usually not required, it gives you another opportunity to stand out.

A PE License Generally Means a Higher Salary

According to the National Society of Professional Engineers’ 2010 Engineering Income & Salary Survey, the median salary of engineers in all professions without a PE license was $94,000, whereas the median salary of engineers with a PE license was $99,000 — a difference of about 5 percent.

A PE License Can Be a Differentiator in the Hiring Process

If a company has to choose between two qualified applicants, one with a PE license (or an EIT working toward his license) and one without, which one do you think it will choose? Companies typically decide based upon which candidate they believe will bring the most benefit to the company. Remember, a company reaps the benefits of their employees’ PE licenses as much as the employees do — so having the license truly represents a win-win situation.

A PE License Gives You the Ability to Sign and Seal Plans and Drawings

Only a licensed engineer can submit plans and drawings, and be in charge of work in the private sector. These requirements lead to more responsibility for the licensed PE, and thus greater career potential.

You Can Officially Call Yourself an Engineer Only If You Have a PE License

If you do not have a PE license, you cannot officially call yourself an engineer — and your company cannot identify you as an engineer — in official documents, such as business cards, letterheads and resumes. Additionally, you will need to register as a PE if you decide to work for yourself as a consultant.

You Can Work Anywhere in the Country

Since the FE and PE exams and the minimum registration requirements are standardized nationally, you can work as a professional engineer if you transfer to a state other than the one in which you were licensed. You would need to register with the board of engineering in your new state, and your new state may have additional requirements, but in general, you can use your PE license throughout the US.

The Web site of the National Society of Professional Engineers might best summarize the power of the PE: “Licensure is the mark of a professional. It’s a standard recognized by employers and their clients, by governments and by the public as an assurance of dedication, skill and quality.”

So when deciding whether to start down the path to your PE license, consider all the excuses not to do so as short-sighted. Instead, make the wise career choice to give yourself the power of the PE.

 

Conquer the Job Interview! Tip #3

In our previous posts on conquering the job interview, we talked about researching the organization you are interviewing with, and how to use the SAR technique to confidently answer behavioral interviewing questions.  Now, let’s talk about how to answer the ubiquitous question that many interviewers ask, “what is your greatest weakness?”

Tip #3 – Answering the Dreaded Question

“What is your greatest strength, and what is your greatest weakness?”  As a candidate for a job, I think I have heard this couplet of questions at 90% of the interviews.  There is a reason why this question is so popular:  the response can tell an interviewer a lot about the candidate.  In a professional sense, it reveals the candidate’s priorities and value set.  It also provides insight into the candidate’s personality, including their honesty, modesty, and even their integrity.  It is a revealing question that you will be asked more often than not.  For these reasons, it is important to come to the interview with a response that you have thought out.

The question about your greatest weakness is difficult for some, because it requires us to admit that we have personal flaws.  For some people, swallowing the pride necessary to give an honest response is very hard to do, especially in the high-stress situation of the job interview.   But remember that the interviewer is not there to judge you as a human.  As we’ll discuss, the interviewer is looking for something more than just an admission of weakness.

There are many perfectly acceptable ways to answer the “what is your greatest strength” question, so we’ll skip that one.  There are two unfortunately common ways that the “what is your greatest weakness” question is answered.   We’ll discuss those two answers, and then we’ll present the right way to respond.

Here is a response that we sometimes hear in an interview.  It is a great example of how not to answer this question.

Interviewer:  What is your greatest weakness?

Candidate #3:  My greatest weakness is that I just care too much about the job that I end up working overtime and try to get everything done.

The above response demonstrates an attempt by the candidate to pass off a strength disguised as a weakness.  This is a method used to deflect the question away from the candidate’s flaws.  Interviewers see right through this response.  Everyone has flaws.  Failing to recognize or admit that you are human will come across as arrogance or, even worse, suggest that you have something to hide.  By responding in this manner, you also miss your opportunity to connect on an emotional level with the interviewer.

 Here’s another example of what not to say:

Candidate #3:  My greatest weakness is that I’m not detail-oriented.  Last year, problems with my design calculations cost my company $100,000 in change orders.

OK, there is such thing as too much honesty.  It’s okay – indeed it is encouraged – to be honest about a weakness, but never state a weakness that has no resolution.  Responding in this manner implies that you bring an unresolved problem to your new position.  You can be sure that the interviewer will be asking all your references about the severity of your weakness if you don’t put some closure on the issue.

 That leads us to the correct response to the “what is your greatest weakness’ question.  Like the last example, you do want to present a genuine weakness.  In addition, use the SAR technique to describe how you have mitigated for this weakness, and the result of your efforts.

Candidate #3:  My greatest weakness is that I am not detail-oriented.  I know attention to detail is a trait that is very helpful in the field of engineering.  I put into place a manual tracking system that requires me to focus on the details.  In addition, I am very much a proponent of following quality assurance and quality control procedures.  I always practice quality control reviews on work that I perform, and I likewise require it for my team members.  A result of these systems is that at my current job, our team has not incurred an error-based change order in more than three years.

This response is powerful for two reasons: it shows that the candidate makes a sustained and concerted effort to rectify the problem that she readily admits could affect her performance.  It also uses a proven technique – Situation, Action, Result – to help her show the interviewer what specifically she has done to mitigate for her professional limitation.

In these three articles, we learned three tips that can be easily applied in any interview – research your target, excel at behavioral interviewing, and how to answer the dreaded “what is your greatest weakness” question.  Use these tips to make the interview your time to rise to the top!

 

Conquer the Job Interview! Tip #2

In our last post, we discussed researching your organization as the first step to conquering your job interview.  The next step is to give confident, powerful, and meaningful answers to the interviewer’s questions.  Utilizing a simple technique to answer behavioral interview questions will do just that.

Tip #2 – Giving Highly Effective Answers

Behavioral-based interviewing, also known as competency-based interviewing, has been gaining popularity for the past few decades.  It allows you to demonstrate your abilities by relating a situation in your past, what you did to resolve it, and what the result was.  Interviewers that conduct behavioral interviewing are trying to determine a pattern of the candidate’s problem-solving skills that are considered successful markers for the available position. 

Here is an example of a mediocre response to a behavioral interview question.

Interviewer:  In this role, you would be managing a team of people in your department.  What is your philosophy about reprimanding people who aren’t performing up to standards?

Candidate #2:  In a situation like that, I would bring the person into my office, sit them down behind closed doors, and tell them what the problem is.  We would then try to determine the cause of the problem, and find solutions to the problem so the employee can improve.

 

What was the problem with that answer?  It seemed reasonable, right?  While the candidate outlined how he/she would have acted in a particular situation, the response didn’t provide the interviewer with any sense that the candidate would be able to apply those principles to a real life situation.   Essentially, the candidate missed the opportunity to “prove it” to the interviewer.

Behavioral interviewing emphasizes past performance and actions.  You should be prepared with some anecdotes from your life or career that illustrate your skill sets, including:

• Leadership
• Motivation
• Communication & interpersonal communication skills
• Planning & organization
• Handling stress & difficult situations
• Team building
• Critical thinking

 The best process for answering behavioral interviewing question is 3-step technique called SAR – Situation, Action, Result.  Your response should include a few sentences in each category: describe the situation, relate the action you took, and state the result of your actions.  Keep your SAR response succinct; avoid rambling.  Make distinct transitions between the three categories.

Here is the same behavioral interview question with a response that utilizes the SAR technique. 

Interviewer:  In this role, you would be managing a team of people in your department.  What is your philosophy about reprimanding people who aren’t performing up to standards?

Candidate #2:  That question can be illustrated by a similar situation that happened at my current job.  Our monthly productivity reports showed that one employee was producing at about half the level of the rest of the team.  I talked to the employee in the privacy of my office about the report, and asked him what he thought the issue was.  He said that he was really struggling with the new software, and was too embarrassed to say anything about it.  It turns out he missed the two-day training seminar because he was out sick.  We send him to the next available software training course that happened to be scheduled at our office in Medford only a few days later.  By the next productivity report, his numbers were right on track with the rest of the group.

 

The SAR response is superior because it demonstrates how you handled the situation and how you made it a success for you, your coworkers, and your organization.  Interviewers love this kind of response because they want to hire winners who will help their organization be successful.  Nothing is a better indicator of that than your past performance.

The next tip will address the dreaded interview question – “What is your greatest weakness?”

 

Conquer the Job Interview! Tip #1

As of today, the unemployment figure in the US is 9.7% – 1 out of 10 people in this country is actively seeking work.  There are a lot more people looking for jobs than there are jobs available.  That means competition.  Odds are that for every job you apply for, you are competing against dozens of people for the same job.  We all need something to set us apart from this stiff competition.

Nothing is a good substitute for our work experience.  We relate our work and education experience and our goals in the resume and application.  Then we hunt for the right job, and apply.  The next step is the job interview, when the prospective employer has essentially narrowed down the competition to the top few.

The interview phase is where the competition is the strongest – and here is where we need to shine in order to stand out from the competitors and win the job.  My goal is to provide three useful tips that you can use in preparation for your job interview that can help you win the job.

Tip #1 – Research Your Target

In an interview, you want to grab the interviewer’s interest right out of the gate.  One of the first questions in an interview is typically a softball question like “Why are you interested in this position?”  Here is an example of a mediocre response to this question – and what NOT to say. 

Interviewer:  Welcome to Big Power Company.  Thanks for taking time for talking to us today.  First, please tell me why you want to work for Big Power Company.

Candidate:  Well, I used to work in the finance division of the ABC Company and also for the federal government.  I haven’t worked in the power sector yet, but I feel I have the background and the experience to do a good job here.

Why is this response mediocre?  It sounds reasonable enough, right?  Yes, but “reasonable” and “mediocre” will not help you stand out from your competition.  An easy and sure way to impress right off the bat is to research the organization you are interviewing for.

Not too long ago, research meant going to the library and spending a few hours pouring over sourcebooks and industry magazines.  But in the current information age, you can learn as much as you need without even leaving your couch or home office.  A great place to start is the website for the organization you are interviewing with.  Look for their annual report and mission statement.  Most larger and publicly-held companies are required to provide this information for their investors, and they make it easily available via web search. 

Privately-held companies are not obligated to make company information available for the public.  However, many private companies communicate their mission, values, and goals to their current and respective customers via their website.  If you’re interviewing with a government agency, information may be easy or difficult to find on the internet.  Try looking for the public documents from the city council, county commission, state legislature, or the Federal Record to glean what is happening that is important to the position for which you are interviewing (hint: do a keyword search in Word or PDF documents).

Other ways to find out about the organization is to perform an internet news search.  There are dozens of news aggregators on the internet.  You can also go to the website for your industry’s trade magazine and search.  For example, the definitive source for the construction  industry is Engineering News-Record (http://enr.construction.com).  Another great source are the current or former employees of the organization.  If you don’t know anyone that works for them, search your connections on LinkedIn (http://www.linkedin.com).  You can even call the Human Resources department – in your hometown office, or even an office across the country if you want to be discreet – they are typically more than happy to answer your questions! 

When it is time for the interview, you should bring two items with you.  They can be written on paper (bring a professional-looking briefcase or portfolio), or you may memorize them.  The first item to bring is knowledge of the organization, their mission and goals, and be ready to describe how you will help them meet their mission and goals.  Remember, in the end, the organization wants to hire someone that ultimately will make them more successful, more profitable, or more efficient.

You should also come prepared with a number of questions designed to help you determine if this organization is the right one for you.  Here’s a personal story to illustrate this point.  My wife interviewed last fall for a position with a large health care provider.  She was hired.  A few weeks later she went to lunch with her supervisor, who had interviewed her and was the decision-maker in the hiring process.  She asked him, “What made you decide to hire me?”  He responded, “A major factor was that you were the only candidate that wrote down questions and brought them to the interview.  And you had three pages of questions!  This showed me that you did your homework and that you were very interested in the position.”

Here’s another crack at this leadoff question, this time with a response that shows that the candidate did their research on the company and knows what traits they are looking for in the open position.

Interviewer:  Welcome to Big Power Company.  Thanks for taking time for talking to us today.  First, please tell me why you want to work for Big Power Company.

Candidate:  There are three major reasons that I was very happy to see this opportunity with BPC.  First, I am very impressed with your company that started from scratch 60 years ago and has grown to be the largest power company in the Pacific Northwest.  Second, I believe very strongly that alternative energy sources should be a major part of power production in this country.  I like that BPC states the very same thing in their mission statement in the Annual Report, and has committed tens of millions of dollars in alternative energy production over the next 10 years.  Most importantly, I believe my background and education is an excellent fit for BPC, and will help the company achieve its goals of profit and efficiency. 

This response shows that you are “in the know” – you are familiar with the company’s past, it’s current initiatives, and it’s goals of profit and efficiency.  As the interview proceeds, sharing insight on the company will put you in a better position to describe why you are the best candidate for the job.

The next post will describe Tip #2 – Behavioral Interviewing.

 

The Power of the P.E. License

Somewhere near the end of your university engineering program, you are presented a choice – to pursue the Professional Engineering (PE) license by taking the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) exam, or to skip it altogether.  You are presented another choice after roughly four years of progressive experience as an Engineer-in-Training (EIT) – to take the PE Exam, or, again, pass on the opportunity.  These two choices may well be the most important choices you make in your career.

Let’s face it; it’s easy to rationalize not taking the FE or PE exams.  There are many reasons that are out there: “it’s not worth my time;” “I’m too busy at work;” “studying will take away from my family and/or personal life;” and “my company/profession doesn’t require it.”

All these reasons might be true.  Most people need a great deal of studying in order to feel prepared for these two 8-hour exams.  And many companies do not require a PE license for a person to work as an engineer.  But they also all ignore one shining, indisputable truth – “the power of the PE” license.

There are a lot of benefits to taking the effort to test for your PE license.  Here are some of the most important benefits that contribute to “the power of the PE:”

• Your PE license sets you apart.   The PE license shows that you have the equivalent of a 4-year engineering degree, 4+ years progressive experience (in most states), and a multi-disciplinary understanding of physical and engineering principles.  It shows that you are someone that has met all the standards required of the profession.  For fields like electrical engineering where the PE is preferred but usually not required, it gives you another opportunity to stand out.
• A PE license gives you the ability to sign & seal plans & drawings.  For public authorities, only a licensed engineer can submit plans and drawings.  This requirement leads to more responsibility for the licensed PE, and thus higher career mobility.
• You can only officially call yourself an engineer if you have a PE license.  You – and the company you work for – cannot officially identify you as an “engineer” in official documents if you do not have a PE license.  This includes business cards, letterhead, and resumes. 
• A PE license is typically expected for consulting.  Engineering consulting firms that are hiring entry-level engineers usually consider whether the applicant is working towards their PE or Engineer-in-Training certifications, particularly for civil engineering.  Most engineering managers and leading engineers for the top engineering consulting firms have their PE license.  A license is typically required for civil engineering, and it is expected in many cases for other fields as well.
• A PE license gives you jurisdictional mobility.  Since the FE and PE exams and the minimum registration requirements are standardized nationally, you can still work as a professional engineer if you transfer to a state other than the one in which you were licensed.  You would need to register with the board of engineering registration in your new state, and your new state may have additional requirements, but in general you can use your PE license throughout the United States.
• You will need a PE license if you decide to work for yourself.  To perform engineering work as a consultant or as a home-based business, you will need to be registered as a PE.
• A PE license generally means a higher salary.  The National Society of Professional Engineers 2007 Income Salary Survey showed the median salary of engineers in all professions without a PE license is $69,000, while the median salary of engineers with a PE license is $86,000 – this is a 20% increase in median salary for licensed engineers.  (Source: Consulting-Specifying Engineer 67A-80 10/1/2007.)
• A PE license can be a differentiator in the hiring process.  If a company has to choose between two qualified applicants, one with a PE license (or an EIT working toward their license) and one without, which one do you think they will choose?  Companies typically will act based on which person they believe will bring the most benefit to the company.  Remember, a company reaps the benefits of their employees’ PE licenses as much as the employees themselves – it is a “win-win” situation.

 The website for the National Society of Professional Engineers (www.nspe.org) might summarize the power of the PE the best:  it shows a person has the “experience, education, judgment, and trust” to be a successful engineering professional.

 So when you are faced with the choice to start down the path to your PE license, pass off all those excuses as short-sighted.  Make the wise career choice to give yourself the “power of the PE.”

 

Handling difficult people…..incredibly difficult people

Last week I drove to a meeting about 90 minutes away with a senior project manager in my office.  I had worked with this senior project manager before, when he was leading a large project in our Anchorage, Alaska office and I was a task leader working from my home office for that project.  My task on that project “went south,” as did some others, and both the senior PM and I took the fall.  We had a coworker with us, so we filled him in on the gory, gory details of the project.

It was evident that rehashing the experience to our colleague was uncomfortable for both of us, but as I listened to the senior PM recount the story in his own perspective, it really sunk in to me how well he had handled the situation.

By “the situation,” I mean our client’s project manager.  He was a situation unto himself.  A former principal at an environmental consulting firm, he was now the leader for the environmental study of a very large project for a large resource development company.  Let’s call him “Mr. Jones.” 

I still remember my first meeting with Mr. Jones; I flew to Alaska to meet with him and his project management team.  He was palpably intelligent, wonderfully well-spoken, and was an expert at wielding his positional power in a physical manner.  He was able to simultaneously analyze and synthesize, drilling into the details of a study plan with the big picture squarely in sight.  He fairly bounced around the room, alternating between writing key points on a flip-chart and drawing diagrams and schematics on the white board.  In short, he was an impressive person.  I even recall looking up to him for a time as a role model. 

It was only a few months into the project when I first saw the dark side of Mr. Jones.  I had heard whispers from my coworkers that he had been unhappy with us, and had been taking it out on my current colleague, the Senior PM.  Upon inquiry, the Senior PM just shrugged and said with a low voice that he was “shielding his project staff from flak from above.”  My favorable impression of Mr. Jones was not tarnished, however, until the all-staff meeting that December afternoon.

Based on my initial meeting with Mr. Jones and his staff, I had written a study plan for a habitat assessment and led the field study that summer.   I made some modifications to the way the assessment is usually done on request of Mr. Jones in order to meet his budget.  In retrospect, that was my biggest mistake.  Being eager to please, I caved in to his budget-trimming wishes, and in the process made the fatal error of delivering a product that the client ultimately didn’t want. 

Another major error is that I didn’t communicate enough with Mr. Jones.  Communication, as I have written about in this blog, is to me the most important business tool there is today.  I definitely communicated with my project team, but I mistakenly relied on the Senior PM to relay the status of my task to Mr. Jones.  He probably did, but I had a line of communication already open with Mr. Jones from my trip to Alaska, and I should have used that to my advantage.

Even if I had realized these two mistakes in advance of our fateful December meeting, I would not have been prepared for the humiliation I received at the hands of Mr. Jones.  My study was up for discussion about halfway into our multi-company project meeting.  There were about 25 people in the room representing about 8 different companies, including my own and the client’s.  Mr. Jones had reviewed my draft report.  He started his interrogation of me with a series of questions that went into minute detail, even more detail than I had included in the report.  I had answers for him, but I couldn’t figure out where he was going with it.  Still calm and inquisitive, he asked, “did you use this method as a kind of shortcut?” 

I instantly knew this question was a trap.  My stomach jumped up into my throat, and whatever confidence I had left got up and left the room.  I paused and stammered for a few seconds, and finally said “well, kind of because…”

By this time, Mr. Jones had turned from his whiteboard and faced me, hands on his hips, glaring at me over the top of his reading glasses.  All eyes in the room were on me, and I felt really hot all of a sudden.  “Mr. Kent, was it a shortcut?”

Again I paused, then I started to explain.  He cut me short with a loud voice. 

“Was it a shortcut, yes or no?”

I looked Mr. Jones in the eye, then quickly looked away and answered “Yes.”  I was defeated, mortified, and confused, particularly because he himself had asked me to use the shortcut!

At this point he addressed the room and berated me and my study, implying that I was trying to cheat him and willing the project to failure.  After twenty or thirty seconds of this, he demanded I work with the Senior PM and another consultant to write a technical memorandum due in two weeks, then he sat back down at his chair and mercifully moved on to the next subject.

This was a tough moment for me, because although I had made mistakes before, I had never had an entire study excoriated as bad as this, and I had never been publicly lambasted like this since, well, 9th grade.  I felt even worse because while I didn’t know Mr. Jones very well, I had considered him a role model – before this episode, of course.  No matter how it happens, it is difficult for a young professional to receive disapproval from an experienced person that they admire.  Especially if they drive a stake through your heart in the process.

That actually was the last time Mr. Jones and I said anything more than ”hello” to each other, even though we were in the same room at least a dozen more times over the next three years.  He essentially demoted me by hiring a former employee of his to run the study.  I had to swallow my pride and lead the field data collection for the next three years.  It was actually a pleasant experience because his former employee was a good guy and we formed a bond, probably because he, too, had been burned by the same fire called Mr. Jones. 

While I was safely out of harm’s way, the fire only grew and grew for the Senior PM at my company.  In addition to my study, Mr. Jones was unhappy with other studies we were conducting, and the Senior PM took the majority of the blame, and the weight of the blow that went along with it.  Occassionally I met with him after he returned to the Anchorage office after a blustery meeting with Mr. Jones.  He looked a lot like I felt after the December meeting.  He would take fifteen, twenty, even thirty seconds to fumble around for the diplomatic way to explain what happened.  I could see the check-down progression happening in the Senior PM’s brain as his eyes darted around the room.  It was clear even back then that he had taken some abuse.  Check that – he had taken a LOT of abuse.   

As the Senior PM tried to recount the experience to our colleague on the drive back to our office last week, I could tell it still was painful for him to recall.  I thought as we drove that no one should have to take that kind of verbal abuse in any setting, especially in what was supposed to be a professional business setting.  Then I thought about his off-the-cuff remark three years ago that he “shielded the staff from flak.”  Here was a guy that was taking abuse and blame from the client, and resolutely refused to forward either on to his staff.  Furthermore, he couldn’t reciprocate the abuse because we had a multi-million dollar contract at stake.  One cross word would critically jeopardize our contract, and in turn the jobs of about a dozen staff that worked nearly full-time on this project.  He had to bite his tongue, no matter how much he wanted to tell Mr. Jones exactly where he should go.

My respect for the Senior PM grew quite a bit on the drive back to the office last week.  In some way, I probably owe my continued employment at my company to him.  I’m not sure I could have handled the confrontations with Mr. Jones with the same poise.  And the Senior PM’s ability to salvage a somewhat functional working relationship with this incredibly difficult person allowed my company to bring in millions of dollars of fees, keeping a dozen of my coworkers gainfully employed for 3 years. 

Senior PM, you are the person I should have looked to as a role model instead of Mr. Jones.

 

Welcome to…The EngLife

Welcome to my blog about being a young professional in the engineering consulting industry.  Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions about anything I write about.

In two months, I will hit my 10-year anniversary as a consulting engineer.  I thought this would be a good time to reflect on my experiences and share the lessons I have learned as an engineer in a large consulting firm.  Over the last ten years, a lot has changed in my career – as I believe it should.  I started as an EIT with a firm in Boise, Idaho; finished my Master’s thesis and received my MS degree in Water Resources Planning and Management; became a project manager at my firm; got my PE license in my home state of Idaho; spent 18 months “temporary duty” in Alaska; increased my visibility in my firm by becoming a national practice group leader; and was promoted and transferred to Portland, Oregon. 

In addition to sharing the lessons of growing as an engineering professional in the private sector, I will occassionally post links to articles that I will submit to other websites.

My goal with this blog is to help young professionals, recent graduates, and graduates-to-be, in the fields of engineering, science and business, gain some perspective on what it takes to be successful in the world of consulting. 

In addition to my career as an engineer, project manager and business group leader, I enjoy speaking to groups about these issues and others, and appreciate every opportunity to do so.  If your organization is looking for a speaker or trainer on the issues you read about in this blog, please contact me.  My contact information is on the sidebar to the right.

Best,

Jason