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Whether you’re an engineer working to keep greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere or a marketing person concerned with energy efficiency, you’re ultimately impacting people’s lives - people whose homes you help heat, offices you help light or clean air you help them breathe.

If you consider yourself a “people person,” read what the five passionate professionals profiled here have to say about what led them to careers they love lighting the public’s way and powering their hopes and dreams.

Managing air emissions control projects opened the door to a career at Chevron for Oscar Garcia, now a fuels compliance analyst at the San Ramon, CA-based integrated energy company.

But before he arrived at Chevron, Garcia graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned a Bachelor of Science in chemical engineering with an emphasis on process control - which, he explains, focuses more on operating a chemical process.

Prior to graduating, he did an eight-month internship at a wastewater treatment facility. “I worked on several air emissions control projects and had the opportunity to work with local air regulators that control air emissions at the plant,” he recalls.

Based on that experience, Garcia knew he wanted to work at some sort of industrial facility doing environmental work. It would not only allow him to apply his chemical engineering background, but it would also incorporate elements of the public outreach that he enjoys.

After graduation he worked as an environmental consultant, managing air emissions control projects for clients in the oil and gas industries, preparing air emissions reports and working with air regulators to get permits for new plants. He says his air emissions control experience was a major factor in his hiring by Chevron in 2012 as the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Specialist in its Richmond, CA refinery.

Two and a half years later, Garcia was promoted to his current role within corporate strategy. “I work with all of Chevron’s California facilities to ensure they’re reporting all of the necessary GHG emissions, and closely monitor their participation in the Cap-and-Trade Program*, which limits those emissions. Since the GHG emissions have direct costs associated with them, I work with several groups to ensure that Chevron properly manages this program,” he describes.

He says his chemical engineering degree taught him how to think critically when addressing challenging technical issues, such as confirming how a given air pollutant is generated and how it can be controlled and/or eliminated, and his previous work experience taught him how to be an effective project manager with regard to budgets, personnel and delivery of quality product on time.

Garcia works “with many facilities scattered throughout California and personnel within corporate.” To be able to help as many people as possible and timely complete necessary projects, he enlists everyone he works with to help him create a priority list of projects. Then, if/as necessary, he adjusts projects’ completion dates, he explains.

The engineer volunteers in youth-oriented programs that encourage Latino students to seek STEM careers and higher education - things that are personally important to him. “As a Latino engineer I’m impressed by how Chevron values diversity, and the investments they have made in various programs that encourage minorities to pursue STEM careers,” he points out.

He says the best advice he ever got was to always aim high when setting your career goals. As the son of Mexican immigrants with little formal education, he could have chosen an easier career.

Instead, “I’ve always pushed myself to go after new opportunities, and now I help manage programs that are very important for Chevron,” he concludes.

The Cap-and-Trade Program* allows companies to buy state permits to release an allowed amount of greenhouse gases into the air. Those releasing more than the amount they’re allowed can buy permits from those releasing less than their allowed amount.

More information about the program that took effect in California in early 2012 can be viewed at arb.ca.gov/cc/capandtrade/capandtrade.htm.

Rosana Laurain was initially drawn to a career in the medical field, entering college - the first one in her family to do so - as a pre-med student. She quickly realized after working in a hospital that the environment wasn’t for her. The medical profession’s loss soon became a gain for Detroit, MI-based DTE Energy, a diversified energy company involved in the development and management of energy-related businesses and services nationwide, as Laurain transitioned into marketing.

“I was drawn to marketing because I like people,” Laurain, DTE principal marketing specialist. “I like the creative process that comes along with marketing.”

She combined her interest in people with a degree that would take her in any direction and earned her bachelor’s degree in business with a major in marketing from Wayne State University in Detroit in 2005.

Her undergrad internships - in a human resources center and in an arts institute - and volunteer work - at the Boys & Girls Club - were key because they introduced her to corporate life. “Having an internship provided me a basis to figure out how I should be acting, what I should be doing,” she explains. “[It was] the first step into working in a corporate environment.”

While doing her post-graduate work, she did a co-op at DTE Energy, which “had a close relationship with my university.” DTE Energy hired her full-time as a marketing analyst when she received her MBA from the University of Michigan-Dearborn in 2012.

In her marketing analyst position, Laurain provided support to marketing managers as they developed their marketing plans. She also helped put together presentations and prepare annual strategy documents. Two years later is when she was put into her current role as the principal marketing specialist.

“I manage residential energy efficiency programs,” she explains. “I do everything from overseeing contracts with vendors that support those programs to ensuring the creation of collateral, developing marketing plans and executing those marketing plans. I also do forecasting and budgeting for the programs that I manage.”

At DTE Energy Laurain finds a strong focus on diversity and inclusion. About her colleagues, she says, “Everyone’s passionate about what we do because we’re providing something that truly matters to our customers - energy.”

And, for her personally, it’s a way to do community service, to do something really good for the community: help people save energy, save money, understand the impact of their usage. She gets to do all of that while building a career she loves.

In addition, she’s currently in her third year of mentoring local Hispanic and African-American interns in DTE Energy’s Summer Talent Exposure Program.

Laurain attributes the success she’s had to her parents, who instilled in her the value of having an education. She believes you can achieve anything if you believe in yourself. What’s important, Laurain maintains, is to understand what it is you want and then build a plan to get there.

Learn more about DTE Energy and jobs opportunities there at www2.dteenergy.com/wps/portal/dte/aboutus/careers.

Javier Munoz, P.E. has been interested in how things work - taking things apart to see their internal workings and then putting them back together - since he was very young. His grandfather, a civil engineer, started him thinking about the engineering field, and he later entered college as a computer engineering student.

However, Munoz soon switched his major to electrical engineering, and that change in engineering discipline became the start of a career at Columbus, OH-based American Electric Power (AEP), where he’s currently a senior engineer.

AEP is one of the largest electric utilities in the U.S., serving nearly 5.4 million customers in 11 states. Munoz joined AEP after graduating seven years ago from the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez where he earned his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering with a focus on power systems.

“I actually started working with Indiana Michigan Power, one of AEP’s utilities. I worked there for two years, then came to AEP Transmission, where I’ve been ever since,” working in its substation,” elaborates Munoz, noting AEP Transmission is one of three main business units of AEP; the other two are generation and distribution.

He began with AEP at entry-level, engineer IV, then progressed to engineers III, II, I and senior engineer, the position he holds today. He says at entry-level he mostly did loading calculations and sag and tension studies on distribution poles, checking to make certain they could hold the weight of the cables and wires strung across them.

Today he has other responsibilities, such as the identification and selection of equipment to be installed in electrical substations. In addition, he’s working with “different teams [which] are responsible for the creation and implementation of new processes and tools in the transmission organization.” Plus, he’s now mentoring others.

In his present role he does engineering work for his projects, but he also has a project management role, ensuring the project progresses as outlined. “That role gives you an opportunity to expand your leadership skills,” Munoz explains. “It’s a perfect balance between the technical and leadership portions.”

He currently has a large number of projects, each with different deadlines to meet. Managing those deadlines is crucial. “If you miss one of the deadlines, then it could cost you thousands in construction delays,” he says.

There’s also the cost of millions of dollars in missed revenues to the company. “So it’s key to be organized and maintain constant communication with your design team to determine possible problems early and work to minimize or avoid them,” he adds.

Munoz recalls: “I think the best advice I got was from one of my mentors when I first started with AEP. His advice was to work hard and be nice to people. You never know who’ll be your next boss.”

And, whether your career, like his, takes you to AEP, which covers “11 states, with many engineering opportunities,” or another company, Munoz says to “just be open to different opportunities; you can expand your knowledge and your experience.”

“Growing up in Puerto Rico, the electricity goes out all the time; it doesn’t take a big storm for the local utility to experience outages,” explains Gabriele Liberatore, who now works as a system protection engineer III at Richmond VA-based power and energy company Dominion Resources.

This childhood experience prompted Liberatore to pursue his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering with a focus in power systems at the University of Puerto Rico. “I wanted to get into a field where I could understand how electricity is generated and how it’s delivered to customers in order to help improve the power outages situation on the island,” he recalls.

This led to his current career at Dominion. “My group keeps the lights on,” he says. “We come up with relay settings and enable protection schemes to protect our systems, equipment, personnel and the public from electrical faults. The main objective of our group is to remove the electrical faults from the system without compromising safety (remove them fast) and reliability (least amount of outages).”

During his undergraduate days Liberatore did three summer internships and a co-op in industries unrelated to Dominion’s. However, he says, those experiences prepared him for the different business units with the different roles and core duties he experienced once he arrived at Dominion. Post-graduation he was hired as an entry-level engineer at a Dominion coal- and oil-fired power station.

“I spent the first four and a half years of my career in the power generation side of the business. My core duties were to measure the efficiency of the systems within the power station involved in generating power and provide input [about] how to improve them. I also owned the code welding program at the station, and I made sure all welding done on pressure vessels in the station were done in accordance with the state and engineering codes,” he describes.

Liberatore was impressed by what he calls Dominion’s “diverse power generation portfolio” and the vastness of its service territory, operating in one of the highest growing regions of the country. The company, he adds, not only produces electricity, but it also transports and delivers it. The electricity is produced with every available fuel, including nuclear, natural gas, coal and renewable energy.

Liberatore says Dominion is very employee-oriented and has created an environment where employees from different backgrounds can succeed, as well as feel welcome and they’re a part of something big. They’re given the tools to perform their job and are challenged to grow within the company, according to the engineer.

His best advice is to keep learning and challenging yourself, and to not do the same job for more than five years. In fact, he says, put yourself in uncomfortable situations, allowing yourself to improve on your weaknesses. “Work on your soft skills. The hard skills will develop naturally within the job,” he adds.

First impressions often mean the difference between success and failure. For Karent Balda Rivas the positive first impression she left with Tulsa, OK-based energy infrastructure firm Williams opened the door to a successful career.

“There are times when you only have a few minutes to leave an impression on people,” says Balda Rivas, who now works as an engineer III at the firm.

For her, coming to Williams as part of a group of graduate petroleum engineering students from the University of Oklahoma in Norman, OK that first impression was everything. After completing her process engineering internship, and even before she received her masters’ degree in natural gas engineering and management in 2012, Williams offered her a full-time position as an engineer I, where she was “second support for more experienced engineers in their assignments in the different geographical areas” that Williams serves.

Balda Rivas first became interested in engineering when, as an 11-year-old, she joined a program called the Petroleum Olympics in her native Caracas, Venezuela. “That’s when I decided I wanted to work for Venezuela’s national oil company,” she admits, noting her initial ambition to become either a petroleum or chemical engineer.

Of the two, it was her mother, she adds, who advised her to become a chemical engineer so she would have more career flexibility. As a result, she went on to earned her bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Universidad Simon Bolivar in Caracas in seven years ago. Balda Rivas says she’s glad she listened to her mother.

In the five years she’s been with Williams, Balda Rivas has been promoted from engineer I, through engineer II, and into her present position as engineer III in the asset reliability and performance, processing and fractionation group.

She explains: “Currently, I’m assigned to several geographical areas in the Gulf Coast and the Transcontinental Gas Pipeline (Transco) system** and I’m a key contact [about] issues like hydrates prevention in our offshore and onshore gathering pipelines.”

Her responsibilities include providing tier II and III technical support to operations and engineers in the field, engineering and construction, business development and commercial groups in the geographical areas assigned to her.

Balda Rivas’ present position allows her to be involved in different stages in the life of projects, including technology selection, front-end engineering design (FEED) studies and decommissioning (taking equipment out of service). She interacts with people from different backgrounds and geographical locations. She shares that because she’s among few women in the oil and gas industry, especially in the field locations, she’s had to work hard to prove her work could be trusted despite her short work experience.

Among the things Balda Rivas likes the most about working at Williams is the strong safety culture. “We’ve invested a lot of resources to make sure our facilities operate safely,” she explains. “As a main player in the gas industry, we need to be responsible to our people, neighbors and facilities, and the environment.”

Her advice for those seeking a career in the energy sector and for those just choosing a career path: Choose a field that gives you flexibility; take courses that allow you to expand your areas of interest; and value and be receptive to other people’s experience.

The Transcontinental Gas Pipeline (Transco)** delivers natural gas to its customers through its 10,200-mile interstate transmission pipeline system, extending from South Texas to New York City. The Transco pipeline system is a major provider of natural gas to the northeastern and southeastern states. Its compressor stations help move gas from the Gulf Coast to 12 Southeast and Atlantic Seaboard states, including major metropolitan areas in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Additional details regarding the system can be found at co.williams.com/operations/atlanticgulf-operations/transco.

About: An integrated energy and technology company based in San Ramon, CA, with subsidiaries that conduct business worldwide under the Chevron, Texaco and Caltex brands.

About: A diversified energy company based in Detroit, MI involved in the development and management of energy-related businesses and services nationwide, with its largest operating subsidiaries being DTE Electric and DTE Gas.