Amanda N. Wegner

 

 

ENGINEERING POSITIONS WITH THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT ARE A GREAT OPPORTUNITY TO DO MEANINGFUL WORK FOR THE NATION AND BEYOND

 

With a large percentage of its workforce on the heels of retirement, the Federal government is a great place to look as you find your first — or next — job. According to the Office of Personnel management, nearly a quarter of all federal employees will be eligible to retire by September 2016. That leaves some pretty big and exciting shoes to fill, especially for in-demand engineers. Here, four government employees talk about the meaningful work they do, not only for their agencies, but also for the citizens of the United States and borders beyond.

 

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE: PROTECTING LIVES AND PROPERTY

 

The core of Albert (Benjie) Spencer’s work is to ensure that the United States is a weather-ready nation, a society that is ready, responsive, and resilient to extreme weather, water, and climate events.

 

As chief engineer for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Weather Service, Spencer is responsible for overseeing systems engineering, development, and integration, as well as the testing of observing, information processing, display, and communications systems.

 

“My job here is about looking at the National Weather Service (NWS) in its totality, and our various systems and networks, and making sure it all works together to support our mission,” says Spencer.

 

With some of the most advanced computers in the world, the NWS focuses on weather data, forecasting, and providing advanced weather warning to the U.S. and its territories.

 

“Our goal is the protection of lives and property and enhancing the national economy,” Spencer explains.

 

Spencer has spent his entire 37-year professional career with the agency, starting while a student at Howard University. He began his career as junior engineer, gaining hands-on experience doing engineering design, testing, and building. He’s also worked on a number of innovations and projects, including NEXRAD, the nation’s network of 160 Doppler weather radars, and the National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS), a nextgeneration weather satellite system.

 

“I have worked in so many different capacities in my time here,” he acknowledges.

 

What Spencer enjoys most about his job is the ability to work on projects and programs and the exchange of information with other agencies to protect the nation. “We don’t just work internally, we work with other offices — NOAA Fisheries, NOAA Ocean Services, other government agencies, FEMA, DOD — to solve problems,” Spencer remarks. “If we do not communicate with them, we cannot begin to solve the problems that affect the people and the nation.

 

“I think NOAA and NWS have the most unique, important mission of any government agency — we provide weather forecasts and warnings for the protection of life,” he adds. “It is meaningful to work in a field that impacts every life, not just in the U.S., but around the world.”

 

From an engineering perspective, one challenge to Spencer’s work is the fact that we’ve become a very tech-savvy world.

 

“Everyone has a smartphone, iPad, or tablet,” he notes. “We now find that we have to be very careful from a systems engineering perspective, and make sure that IT and networking stay bridged together.”

 

Another challenge is getting minorities not just into the agency, but also into the engineering field. To mitigate this, NOAA invests about $1 million per year in the Educational Partnership Program. This program provides opportunities for minority students with an interest in science and engineering to come into NOAA and get hands-on experience as a graduate student.

 

“We want more minorities, and the program has a very high retention rate and many students who entered through this program continue on to seek employment with NOAA,” says Spencer.

 

CONSUMER PRODUCT SAFETY COMMISSION: SAVING LIVES

Arthur Lee saves lives. As electrical engineer with the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), it’s Lee’s job to protect the public against hazards from electrical consumer products that are in the home and are purchased by consumers.

 

For instance, consumers are injured or killed each year from freestanding oven ranges that tip over, and many of the victims are children who unknowingly open the oven door and stand on it, causing the whole range to tip over and crush them. Lee did a study to look at what was happening with these incidents and made a proposal to Underwriters Laboratories. The voluntary UL standard now incorporates the information prepared by CPSC staff, and oven ranges are safer.

 

Lee is also working to make televisions safer.

 

“I just released a report on TV tip-overs and helped public affairs with a Public Service Announcement about the dangers of TVs tipping over,” he explains.

 

With dual bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and electrical engineering, Lee was drawn to the field by the simple fact that “we all use electrical products.”

 

With CPSC since 2000, Lee previously worked for the Navy in designing weapons.

 

Not only did the move to CPSC provide a more rewarding work experience, the workplace has a smaller, more close-knit feel.

 

“When I was in the Department of Defense, it was so big that I felt like I was just a number. CPSC has more of a family feel. I know almost everyone and everyone knows me,” says Lee.

 

He also appreciates how co-workers work with one another to uncover and address safety issues. “The skills and knowledge of the co-workers allows you the resources to solve problems,” he says.

 

In fact, problem solving is core to CPSC’s mission. Deaths, injuries, and property damage from consumer product incidents cost the nation more than $1 trillion annually, and CPSC has worked for more than 40 years to solve this problem and reduce threats from everyday products.

 

“The biggest part of my background that prepared me for my current job is being able to problem solve,” says Lee. “All the college courses are mainly preparing you to problem solve different ways, which allows you to attack a new problem and solve it.”

 

Besides having the basics in electrical engineering, to really succeed, “you need to open your mind to other possibilities and look in other places — not the obvious — for solutions,” Lee comments.

 

He also believes everyone should have a degree in mathematics, because it is used in all fields and disciplines, not just engineering. “Math is everywhere,” he says.

 

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION: MEETING PUBLIC HEALTH CHALLENGES

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is filled with more than just scientists.

 

Some of today’s leading economists, budget analysts, statisticians, and architects work alongside physicians and technical researchers to help protect the nation’s health. So do engineers, but Katina Johnson, one of the agency’s leading electrical engineers, gets puzzled looks when she tells people that she works for the CDC.

 

“The public has a very broad view of CDC’s involvement in public health emergencies, like Ebola, influenza, and polio. It is important to educate them about the pivotal function engineers provide to the agency in support of its vital work in public health,” says Johnson.

 

Johnson works in the agency’s Engineering, Maintenance & Operations Services Office, where she is responsible for ensuring electrical distribution systems are available and reliable. She tests and maintains equipment for critical electrical systems, and ensures it is compliant with electrical codes and standards. “The work my office does behind the scenes is very apparent in CDC’s overall ability to meet the public health challenges of this ever-changing world,” Johnson adds.

 

Johnson’s support of critical infrastructure systems in public health includes laboratories and utility systems at CDC. She notifies stakeholders of planned maintenance and repair outages. She also works to educate internal customers about preventative measures engineers utilize that reduce the risk of unplanned electrical outages due to equipment failure.

 

Engineers are equipped to adapt to change, which is evident in Johnson’s case as she oversees electrical systems in the agency’s Atlanta headquarters, as well as facilities in Fort Collins, CO and San Juan, Puerto Rico; each campus has a uniquely designed system. “The same solution hardly ever applies twice,” she says.

 

Johnson began her career as CDC engineer in 2009, noting that she felt her background and experience were a great fit for the position and team. “CDC is one of the most highly regarded federal agencies in the United States government. It was an opportunity that I could not pass up.”

 

She encourages interested students of all backgrounds, especially young women, to have their school ad - visors help them align coursework to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) career opportunities. In addition, she advises following up with mentors and recruiters, taking opportunities to speak with or shadow professionals in that field when they become available, and picking a college that has a program with a great curriculum suitable to your career choice.

 

For a successful career in engineering, flexibility and adaptability to advances in technology is key. “The technology is constantly evolving and you have to be able to evolve with it,” says Johnson. “It is important to accept that there may be a better way to do things than how they were done 20 years ago. Be open to that change and embrace it.”

 

U.S. GEOLOGICAL SERVICE: KEEPING PEOPLE SAFE

Sanaz Rezaeian uses her knowledge about earthquakes to help others make better decisions to keep people and property safe.

 

A research structural engineer with the United States Geological Service (USGS), Rezaeian has a strong background in earthquake engineering, seismic hazard analysis, and risk assessment. These skills, she says, “allow me to serve as the link between the USGS scientists in the earthquake hazard program and the outside engineering community who end up using the USGS products in their everyday engineering applications, for example, in the building code.”

 

As one of only three engineers in the National Earthquake Information Center, it is Rezaeian’s job to translate the science that the USGS seismologist and geophysicists work on into engineering applications, she says.

 

Recently, Rezaeian worked on the 2014 update of the National Seismic Hazard Models, which is one of USGS’s most important products and is used to develop the seismic design maps. These maps are directly implemented in regulatory standards of the U.S., such as the American Society of Civil Engineers’ 7 Standards, which outlines minimum design loads for buildings and other structures, and the International Building Code.

 

Rezaeian’s role in the update was to develop the earthquake ground motion models used in the hazard modeling for the Western, Central, and Eastern U.S. regions and the subduction zone in the Pacific Northwest.

 

It was a love of math and particularly calculus that drew Rezaeian to the field. However, “I was not interested in being a math major as much as I was interested in its practical applications, so engineering was a great choice for me,” she says. “When I learned about the lack of women in the field, particularly in structural engineering, it became even more important to me to become a structural engineer. Once in grad school, I was naturally drawn into the earthquake hazards focus. It’s such an interesting field with so many unanswered questions.”

 

Rezaiean joined USGS as a Mendenhall post-doctoral fellow in 2011. “I found the research very interesting and loved the work environment so much that I applied for a permanent position after my postdoc,” she says. She’s been a permanent employee since May 2014.

 

In the research field, math skills, problem solving, and the ability to search for answers when no one can tell you what the right answer is are critical. And, “most importantly, not giving up if you get it wrong the first time,” says Rezaeian.

 

What Rezaeian particularly loves about her work is her research and being able to share it at meetings and conferences: “I love it when I get the chance to show others what great research we have been working on at the USGS and what new products we now have available for the public.”

 

She also loves the people she works with.

 

“We have some of the best scientists in the field, without exaggeration,” she remarks. “Their passion for their research is admiring and uplifting.”

 

Loving what she does and being inspired by her work and the work of those around her is well-aligned with Rezaeian’s top job search advice: “Make sure it’s a job that you enjoy doing.”