What does Empowering Women in Industry mean to you?
Empowering Women in Industry is an uplifting, energizing statement for me. I feel that I am actively empowering women to pursue careers in industrial fields, like oil and gas, through the work I do each day. It seems that women often overlook the industrial sector when contemplating their next career move which precludes them from exploring some very stimulating and rewarding professional opportunities.
How did you get started working in your field?
I graduated with a Bachelor’s in Industrial and Systems Engineering along with Project Management certification from Texas A&M University in 2012. During this time, I did not only come to hone a lot of my engineering skills, but it also exposed all the different paths an engineer can take. I was given the opportunity to work with NASA, logistics companies, and other fields to which an Industrial Engineer can overtake and improve.
My work experience has always been in Manufacturing and Operations. I moved to Illinois out of college and worked at Caterpillar my first few years as a Manufacturing Engineer prior to joining the Oil & Gas sector.
Moving back to Texas provided me the opportunity to join Weir Oil & Gas in 2014 as an Industrial Engineer where I have further grown my skills and responsibilities over the years. With my Lean process and Six Sigma certification, I currently lead the company’s implementation of Lean principles and Process Improvement within its service environment.
What do you love most about your job / What are you most proud of?
Weir Oil & Gas has provided me an environment where I’m empowered to drive my team vision and make decisions that impact the long-term goals of the company. It is exciting to work with a team that embraces new ideas and isn’t afraid to be the first to do something. For example, Lean is typically only applied in manufacturing. However, we are the first in our industry to apply Lean in a service environment.
Lean is an approach where an organization takes on continuous improvement as part of their culture to eliminate waste and add value to customers. Our company’s existing culture of continuous improvement within other departments made it a logical progression to see how Lean could impact our service and aftermarket capabilities. We started our Lean journey prior to the pandemic and created Centers of Excellence around it. Our Centers of Excellence are centralized networks of knowledge that provide leadership, best practices, and support for the service organization to drive business results. It was important to create Centers of Excellence around Lean to always maintain our customers’ needs as a priority and establish management operating systems and success metrics aligned to this focus. This has allowed us to guarantee our quality around the network while helping customers reduce costs and meet deadlines.
What advice would you give to someone considering this line of work?
Explore positions in the industrial sector, especially oil and gas. There are many opportunities to leverage your skills and experience to modernize existing methodologies and implement novel approaches to further a company’s commitment to continuous improvement. Your ingenuity can have a measurable impact on a company and its customers.
Anything else you would like to add?
Share opportunities that arise in oil and gas with other women. It is important for women to be aware of the challenging and rewarding work they can undertake in this industry.