Bridging Communities: Public Sector Engineering in Focus

Engineers are having a meaningful impact across communities in Ireland through working in the public sector.

Today we hear from three professionals with extensive experience working within the public sector about the rewarding projects they have worked on and the career paths they have taken.

Our guests are Head of the National Building Control & Market Surveillance Office in Dublin and a fellow with Engineers Ireland Mairéad Phelan, Executive Engineer with Limerick City and County Council Fergal Timlin and Senior Executive Engineer with Louth County Council Claire Hughes.

After the introductory text, but before the podcast link, put in this line with hyperlink: Listen below or on your podcast player!

THINGS WE SPOKE ABOUT

01:09 Public sector and private sector differences

02:15 Job fulfilment in public sector work

04:40 Time scales in public sector work

06:46 Working with members of the public

10:41 Advice for those looking to move into the public sector

12:06 Taking a step back from the business calculations

16:27 The variation of work in the public sector

19:02 Career progression in the public sector

26:58 Changing the perception of engineering gender stereotypes at school level

GUEST DETAILS

Claire Hughes has a degree in Civil, Structural & Environmental Engineering from Trinity College Dublin in 2006, an MSc Eng in Fire Safety Engineering from University of Ulster in 2013 and Postgraduate Dip in Road & Transport Engineering (inaugural year of the course) from IT Sligo in 2017. Claire is over 17 years working in Local Authorities (Monaghan, Offaly, Meath and now Louth County Councils) across a number of Departments such as Housing Capital, Road Design, Operations, Water & Wastewater services and Environmental services. She is currently working in Louth County Council as a Senior Executive Engineer in Waste Management & Environment Department.

Website: https://www.louthcoco.ie/en/

Social Media: https://www.linkedin.com/in/claire-hughes-3215961b7

Mairéad Phelan is Head of the National Building Control and Market Surveillance Office. A Chartered Engineer and Fellow of Engineers Ireland she was a Programme Manager with the Local Government Management Agency on national projects. Prior to this, she was Fingal County Council’s head of the Built Environment Inspectorate Division; preceded by Senior Engineer Road Safety, Transportation and Bridges Division. She spent 10 years as Municipal Town Engineer with Carlow County Council while also performing the role of Conservation Officer. Her career commenced with Consulting Engineering work on Major Water & Drainage Schemes. Mairéad is an Associate Lecturer with SETU Carlow and is passionate about promoting the construction of safe and healthy buildings and the sustainable reuse of our existing building stock. She was awarded the Civil Service Excellence and Innovation award in 2015.

She holds an MBA, a Diploma in Law, and a PG. Cert. in Governance, a PGDip in Highway & Geotechnical Engineering, a PGDip in Project Management, and a Cert in GDPR.

Website: https://nbco.localgov.ie/

Social Media: https://ie.linkedin.com/in/mair%C3%A9ad-phelan-a9b42a20

Fergal has 13 years’ experience in civil/environmental engineering. He has amassed a large amount of experience in a wide range of Civil Engineering disciplines, such as the construction of roads and drainage infrastructure.

Fergal is currently a member of the Thomond Region Committee and the Civil Division Committee of Engineers Ireland. He is also the planning lead for the Construction Sector Circular Economy Roadmap Report .

Website: https://www.limerick.ie/council

Social Media: www.linkedin.com/in/fergal-d-timlin-88ab7b39  

MORE INFORMATION

Looking for ways to explore or advance a career in the field of engineering? Visit Engineers Ireland to learn more about the many programs and resources on offer. https://www.engineersireland.ie/ 

Engineers Journal AMPLIFIED is produced by DustPod.io for Engineers Ireland.

QUOTES

The pressure is on you in the public sector, you're answerable to everybody in the general public and everything that you do in your work is under scrutiny. - Claire Hughes

I was able to improve the towns and the small villages that were in my area, and I can see where I improved the signage, the parks, the town, and putting in something simple like a basketball arena. I found it very, very rewarding working in local authorities. - Mairead Phelan

A lot of people have mixed views or mixed opinions about what working in a local authority is. It is such a fantastic and varied career. - Claire Hughes

There's times where I do need to step back from projects and stop looking at the big calculations and just remember that these small improvements have a dramatic change to people and are greatly welcomed. - Fergal Timlim

There is a very clear progressions layout  in place in local authorities. - Claire Hughes

I see myself as an engineer first and foremost, a problem solver and a designer. That's all I ever wanted to be, even as a child, but nobody ever told me that it was a totally male orientated profession  - Mairead Phelan

The simplest definition of an engineer is that we're just problem solvers. We need to explain that to the primary school students, and not that there's these gender assigned roles or stereotypes associated with engineering. We have to break them to actually get young women into engineering. - Fergal Timlin

Every child loves a brick to play with, every child loves Lego. I've never met a child that doesn't love the box that the stuff comes in. So why are we not bringing that along through the schools and teaching? - Mairead Phelan

TRANSCRIPTION

For your convenience, we include an automated AI transcription

Dusty Rhodes  00:00

So how big is the difference between the private and public engineering sectors? We're about to find out.

Fergal Timlin 00:08

Like in the private sector, it can almost feel aggressive the way you're trying to approach your job. You're trying to gain as much experience as quickly as possible to kind of, I suppose establish yourself, make people know who you are. It's more transparent in the public sector. We can talk about the grades we're at, the wages we're at, and the steps of where we are at a particular grade.

Dusty Rhodes 00:29

Hello there, my name is Dusty Rhodes, and welcome to AMPLIFIED the Engineers Journal Podcast. Today we're taking a look at engineering in the public sector and hearing some brilliant stories from three professionals with extensive experience in the area. Joining us are the head of the National Building Control and Market Surveillance office in Dublin and a fellow with Engineers Ireland Mairéad Phelan, Mairéad how are you? Thank you for having me. Executive Engineer with Limerick city and county council. Fergal Timlin is also joining us how are you doin, Fergal? Good, dusty, how are you? And Senior Executive Engineer with Louth County Council Claire Hughes is with as well. Thanks for joining us, Claire.

Claire Hughes 01:07

And good morning dusty.

Dusty Rhodes 01:09

Claire, can I start off with you by asking how does engineering work differ in the public sector?

Claire Hughes 01:16

Well, the pressure is on you in the public sector in terms of you being answerable to everybody in the general public. And everything that you do in your work is under scrutiny, you have to obviously get permission to do standard roadwork schemes, or if you're going to build houses, you have to go and get, go through public consultation and make sure that everybody is all fair with everything that you're planning and proposing to do. So I feel you're very much more answerable when you're in the public sector, because it is the public purse, and it's public spending money. So you have to make sure that you're doing it correctly, and obviously doing it to the right specifications and standards as well. So you're definitely under more scrutiny on the public end of it, and the private end of it as well. It's a different kind of pressure that's on you when you're working in the private sector. Again, you have to produce, you're under much more demand. And again, it's a different kind of scrutiny than as well, like, you know, we're not going to obviously produce something that's not workable or not functional. So it is a different kind of pressure, but it's still pressure all the same in both ends of it.

Dusty Rhodes 02:15

And you're answering to the public all the time, of course, that everybody has an opinion, and when you do that large. Yeah, absolutely. Right. Can I ask you your point of view on public sector work because it is contributing positively to communities? Do you think that that adds kind of a level of fulfilment to your job or job satisfaction?

Mairéad Phelan 02:36

Well, it did when I started off in Nicosia doors and partners building large water and sewage works which was, you know, quite intensive work design, oversight, and huge monies. Then I went to the local authorities in Kerala county council. My work was as an area engineer. And for 10 years I worked as an area engineer and he also worked as a Conservation Officer. So they work in the local authority as actually wonderful and fulfilling in that, as an area engineer, I'd over half the county, I had all the responsibility for the roads, the water services, the storage works, the town renewal, the urban renewal, so I was the 140, the road men, the lollipop ladies, this school, the school traffic systems, and I was a social worker, I was an area engineer, I was the designer surface dressing the local town engineer to the town councils when they were there, the local area engineer to the municipal authorities. As such, I had very good autonomy, I was able to do a lot of urban design schemes or urban renewal schemes. So as part of my roadworks schemes and my yulara the water and sewerage maintenance and operation, I was also able to improve the towns, the small towns, and the small villages that were in my area. And even today, over 25 years later, they invite me back to little openings for their community development works and everything. I can see where I improved the signage, the parks, the town parks that are designed by putting in something simple like a basketball arena as part of my roadworks and they work in the local authority. You can do as much as you want to give as much or you can just do the basic roads and water services and everything. So I found it very, very rewarding that piece of my early life and local authorities.

Dusty Rhodes 04:40

Burger we were chatting just before we came on about kind of public versus private and I was saying that I did 15 years of public service work with Artie and my experience there is that it can take longer to go from having an idea to something actually happening because there's so many levels to go through. That's broadcasting, is this the same with public service engineering?

Fergal Timlin 05:02

Depends on the scale of the project. Like I, when I was with Punch consulting, we worked on the mixed-use development up in Galway. Now I won't give details, but it was worth about a quarter billion. And at the end of the day like, it's the project that started back before the last recession got to put the ground, then there's a whole lot investigation works in terms of looking at the structure of the pre-existing building itself, making sure it was actually usable. And then we have the whole issue with like going through planning and onboard knowledge, appeals and actually getting that over the line. So like, realistically, even from the private side of things when it comes to like planning, and we said claim your design and everything else, it can take up to three or four years to actually get the planning secured, to actually construct something, the public sector is exactly the same, we go through the same process involved like the same, I suppose, transparency, when it comes to members of the public, the difference for us is that I suppose we are looking at the fact that we can do improvements, not just within a specific project, we're not squared off like a client who's basically trying to, I want to achieve x by doing this. And it's completely focused on himself. Whereas the public, we're basically saying, Look, while I'm doing this, I need to look into the boundary walls, I need to look into the pre-existing surface water and foul drainage, I need to look into the water mains, the air airlines, I basically need to look into what we can do if I'm going into the middle of a town and I'm tearing it up, I get one clean opportunity to talk with everyone say like, let's bring it all in terms of parks, environment and everything else. So that we actually end up with something that people have to live with for the next 1520 3040 50 years. So you want them to be happy and proud of the placemaking. We've done with them. In this particular example.

Dusty Rhodes 06:46

And I asked you all about public servants' work because it's very clear from what you are saying that, you know, the public is a much bigger boss to deal with. And you've got to think a lot wider than you would on say a singular private project. But projects in the public realm can often disrupt public life and make the general public kind of cranky, do you feel that there was a little bit more understanding of what it is that you're trying to achieve?

Claire Hughes 07:13

One project I worked on in Tullamore was the construction of footbridges over the Grand Canal and Tullamore and the construction of a boardwalk. And it was a very interesting project. And it was a fantastic idea. For the time of Tullamore, it was going to give access for different parts of the time directly into the town centre. Everything was fantastic in theory. And when it came to actual construction on site, the number of complaints, we actually had to stop the work at one stage because of the number of complaints that were coming in and coming in through elected representatives. I suppose at the time, the best way was we opened the doors in the town hall and make everything we'd already done our part here and our public consultation prior to this. But when it came to actually being on the ground and the disruption to people's lives, I think the message kind of was lost in translation. So we opened the doors in the town hall and we invited people to come in and we met with different groups and explained this as this phase of work, this street will be closed off for this, this traffic management will be put in place for this. But let's look at the bigger picture here. Let's look at what the finished product is going to be. So that project finished, let's say 10 years ago. And now it was recently in the time they're about a month or two ago. And the number of people that use those bridges, and they're fully accessible to everybody. It cuts off a massive amount of time for people travelling into the town centre on foot, which is what we all want to do. We want to get people out on their feet, out walking into town and it's all about active travel. No. So it's getting people and bringing the public along with you to see the bigger picture. Yes, there is disruption to your lives at the moment. There are delays, there are road closures, and there is what there is, but looking at the bigger picture and what will actually be there at the end of a project, getting people to see that then as well is just as important.

Dusty Rhodes 08:53

You've also worked on loads of other projects, Claire, that was a wastewater project you worked on in Burr, I've done if you want to talk about that, or maybe one of the housing schemes that you've worked on which would be your favourite.

Claire Hughes 09:05

Yeah, like Maria, I suppose I cut my teeth on the water and wastewater end of things and working in kind of Councillors. But I suppose one time that I look back at was the two years that I spent in this kind of council in the housing construction team that was there. So I was there from January 2021 to just earlier this year. And an extremely busy department everyone knows what the story is with housing at the moment the pressure that is on every country kinds of to deliver new housing units in whatever manner that they are going to deliver them whether it's through direct construction, purchasing, through approved housing bodies, etc. So the two years that I worked there, there were the busiest two years of my working life, but I look back on it with such pleasure and happiness because I grew as an engineer, I got to see the direct effects of what I was doing. In my day-to-day work. I got to see people actually moving into houses and giving people keys to their houses. And I suppose That was that's one end of things that you get in the public sector, and particularly in local authorities, you actually get to see the direct influence that your work as an engineer has on the local community. So it was a fantastic learning experience for me, dealing with contractors dealing with massive projects and massive budgets, dealing with all sorts of people dealing with members of the public, again, that are obviously maybe disgruntled with regards to what you're proposing to do. And it might be a contentious project, or you're building on what you're proposing to do. But at the end of the day, when you go back and look at a finished product, and see how it fits in with the community, and actually see people coming off of social housing lists that have been on a social housing list for many, many years, it definitely makes you feel very happy about your work.

Dusty Rhodes 10:41

Tell me, Claire, what kind of advice would you have for somebody who's looking to begin their career in the public sector?

Claire Hughes 10:47

I speak to a lot of people who are starting out and making decisions in their careers after maybe, let's say, doing their undergraduate degree in engineering. Starting in a local authority, a lot of people probably may have mixed views or mixed opinions about what working in a local authority is. It is such a fantastic and varied career. I've worked in local authorities for over 17 years, I did six months in the private sector. However, I always knew I wanted to work in the public sector. So I've been working with clients since ever since. My advice is that coming in as an undergraduate, you think you know everything in life, we all think at 22 or 23, we know everything in life. But you'd go on to you've got the bare essentials of knowledge and engineering when you graduate from college, you go into local authorities, and you are moulded into a very well rounded engineer with a great broad knowledge, you get to work with a wide variety of people and your people skills become so developed, you get to develop your management skills and your leadership skills and working as well. There are fantastic graduate programs that will take you in and you get to work, as I said, across housing, water, wastewater, road design, face making all these different departments that are in kind of clients. And so I can guarantee that it will never be a boring career. It's very, very unexciting, and it is what you make of it every career is what you make of it.

Dusty Rhodes 12:06

Can I ask you also about projects that you've worked on in the past? Is there any one that you're particularly proud of?

Fergal Timlin 12:13

I suppose the one that I'm currently working on that we're heading out to tender on is the Abbeyfield public grand scheme. It's a national road running through the heart of every field, which the 21 basically connects Kerry to Limerick. So you get a significant amount of traffic there every day, I suppose one of the feelings that we do when you work inside the park service is that when you're looking at your towns or villages and such, and you want to get speaking with people so that they don't feel like they're getting left behind or be feeling, I think there was a kind of a feeling that they're starting to get a little bit left behind. Now, there's a myriad of issues here in terms of social issues, and cultural and economic issues going on in the background. But we were finding that basically, a lot of the younger generation was moving on to every field, and moving into the cities or moving abroad, which as you know, we all grew wings at one stage, we all left so and so I suppose some of the buildings, some of the commercial buildings start starting to kind of shut off shut her up. So I think we're looking at this as kind of an opportunity for the city and county council to actually put John's capital investment into the field, to change it from it's a true road associated with the national road into a place of its own making a place that I suppose people can stop off and do a little bit of a sharp and take a break charge a character for a cup of coffee, kind of peruse the streets, you know. So there's it's a significant significant investment. And it's over the course of nearly 1.5 kilometres, which is basically the town itself. What you're saying thereby meeting the people, it was amazing to kind of slowly but surely speak with the individuals on the street. We also have like technical advisory groups that would say like the Abbeyfield Community Account Council, so we actually do a lot of engaging with the public that I think people sometimes don't see. And I think that's what happens when when you're looking in when you're looking in and say like, look, they're the council's jumping in to plow something into the ground. They haven't spoken to anyone they haven't inferred. There has been significant conversation every step of the way to make sure that they're happy with everything that we're providing.

Dusty Rhodes 14:06

Can I ask after doing all of that, then what takeaways did you get from talking to people that changed the way you think?

Fergal Timlin 14:12

I suppose sometimes we forget to like, I'm looking at his drawings and specifications. And I'm looking at kind of the work schedules, and I suppose engaged with consultants, and it's constant like this is something that's pouring through my head all the time. I suppose in the engineering world, what we call shaving time, is when I wake up in the morning, and I kind of have a quick shave. There are problems that I'm going through, that I'm trying to resolve so that when I walk into work, I can say, right, this is how we're going to face this. Like meeting people. Sometimes we do forget that they don't necessarily have the same kind of base of knowledge that we're jumping into it. So we're kind of saying like, this is what we're doing. These are the figures that line up for what we want to do. Here are the calculations behind everything that we're doing. And that's all well and good. But not everyone you meet wants to go through that the minutia wants to go down to the piecemeal justification shouldn't cost estimates that come into all of this? Sometimes it just wants to know like, what is this, like for the people who live on this particular street? There's a community of us who live in 10 houses on this side of the road. We've been a community here for the last 40 years. What is what is it you're trying to achieve? And well, how does it help us? It's even tiny little things like I remember, we were looking at a particular section of road, and we put in a pedestrian crossing, and we moved to a pedestrian crossing a couple of times. And we finally found that we just put it outside the pharmacy. And I was going down, I was kind of having a word with people here about the footpath upgrades and the different kinds of I supposed to Landscaping we're doing, and it completely jumped off the page. And every time oh my god, we've been looking for this pedestrian crossing for 20 years. Oh, my God, it's finally here thank God Council stepped in and gave us a pedestrian crossing, and the pedestrian crossing, I was looking at it from roads, do you know a road safety point of view, I was looking from a health and safety point of view. And I knew that there was a desire line there. But like I didn't stop to say like, well, how does this benefit these people in this particular role? It's like and then that there's they're so happy and so engaged, see this, like, you could have told them you're painting do the street green, they would have accepted as long as they got the pedestrian crossing to go with it like so I suppose there are times where I do need to step back a small bit from the projects I'm looking at and stop looking at the big calculations. And I suppose just remember that when I meet the people on site, there are just the little bits and pieces the small improvements that do have a dramatic change to people and are greatly welcomed.

Dusty Rhodes 16:27

Mairead, in your experience, these stories that Fergal and Claire are sharing, do they resonate with you?

Mairéad Phelan 16:32

Yeah, I've been involved in everything from water sewerage to roads, to community development to conservation to designing play areas. So I've had kind of a long career at this stage. And I suppose the big and the small and it brings me to mind when I was an area engineer and had a derelict site in a little village. And a pair of cottages called the weavers cottages and they were quite derelict, there was a lot of rubbish around them and everything else. So as opposed to knocking them down, I did a bit of research on them got a conservation grant, put the two of them back into use, and this area beside it, which was also derelict, I also got money from the Department of Housing and built two local authority houses that actually complemented and match the old style of the weavers cottages. So I was able to house two families and clean an area and also provide a tourist attraction and tourist immunity in that village and looked at weaving and designing and got a local craftsman to design a spinning wheel and a loom which is now used. So engineering is so varied, and then you can take them to go into Fingal and be involved in the M 50 Motorway design and doing the Coolock interchange rehabilitation works and Rathcoole bridge together. So really, I suppose the way I look at it is our work as public servants, servants of the people making life better everywhere we go by using our innovative design and problem-solving skills to actually make life better. And UK that is in itself is very rewarding. And during the boom times, I was often asked why didn't I go and get a job and loads of money. And I think the fulfilment of actually using your design your innovation, problem-solving skills, to actually do the small things really well and make life very much better or do huge, big M 50. Radical, they're they're huge shops, it can be so varied, and you're not confined to one thing and community engagement, what the people want what communities want, and how you can deliver it and solve that problem. And sometimes you are there and it's like you're looking at the really the wider thing. So you have at your hands at different service delivery areas that you can access to actually bring a project to completion without having to go back out again and dig up the road again.

Dusty Rhodes 19:02

Sounds like it is very rewarding. And it's coming across very clearly from all of you that it is incredibly rewarding work and you can actually walk around in your locality to go I helped improve that. I and you can see people enjoying the improvements. But can I ask you just kind of about yourselves and your own careers and promotion because you know, we all want to move open. We want to improve and careers. And I just want to ask you about that. Claire, you've got 17 years of experience with local authorities. What does career progression look like in the public sector?

Claire Hughes 19:31

Well, there are different grades that you sort of work in. So you come in as a graduate I started as a graduate, and then I moved to an African Council as an assistant engineer. Then I moved back to Monterey County Council as an executive and then I went to meet as a senior executive and load now senior executive again. So there is progression. Very clear progressions laid out there in place and local authorities. You know, you come in and you have to be moulded into a good local authority engineer. You can't just jump in and expect to be in management or leaders from day one, that takes a bit of time, you have to cut your teeth, and you have to get the knowledge, not just the technical knowledge, the knowledge of dealing with members of the public dealing with the statutory processes that are in place, dealing with your fellow colleagues. And the way that that works is you need to give yourself time, but to have the opportunities for career progression is there, it's there for the taking for everybody. And that goes for any career, but particularly in local authorities as well. It's a very clear sort of layout of how you can progress your own career. And if you are hungry for it, and you're hungry to learn, the opportunities are there for you.

Dusty Rhodes 20:35

Forgive, you've got a bit of a taste of both moving up the ladder, do you find that kind of you know, more structured way of climbing up the the various scales is better in the public service? Or did you kind of prefer the more promotional side of things with private?

Fergal Timlin 20:51

Look, I suppose like in the private sector, it can almost feel aggressive, the way you're trying to approach your job, you're trying to get gain as much experience as quickly as possible to kind of I suppose establish yourself, make people know who you are. You're always looking for the biggest possible schemes with the biggest names so that you kind of like when you come back to your company, you're like, Okay, I've done two years of this. Now, I want to be technical director, bang, I've done 10 years this now I want to be director, you're constantly kind of you're you're pushing yourself all the time, in the public service. When it comes down to it. Yes, there is a scene taken to say that you have the experience. And you've gone through these different projects. And you've kind of, I suppose, looked at the different structures involved when it comes to public procurement itself. Now, that's a big thing that you do not do. In the private sector. There's a whole host of procurement guidelines and such where you have to build up quite a repertoire of information before you kind of make your way through the myriad of procurement itself. But I suppose it's it's more transparent in the public sector, I'll be honest with you, like we can talk about the grades we're at the wages we're at, and the steps of where we are at our particular grades, it's much more open to like you're not afraid of a topic, your wages, your colleagues. And when you look at the terms of the kind of advancing yourself, you know that there are interviews going to come up, you look at what they're looking for, in terms of experience, you apply for the jobs, a lot of what we do ticketing, once it gets to kind of senior exec kind of grades and up, you're doing a true pass anyway, which is a centralised body open Dublin. So you know that when people are assessing you and looking at you, they're looking at the merits of who you are and your experience and what you've achieved throughout your career. Whereas in the private sector, it can be a little bit more cultural in terms of the politics that may be taking place in the background that may not be spoken about as openly as we're willing to say.

Dusty Rhodes 22:31

Ah, interesting. So there's more politics in the private sector than there is in the public sector because the public sector is clearer and more open. Is that what you're saying?

Fergal Timlin 22:40

Depends on where you define politics.

Dusty Rhodes 22:44

Let's not go there. Yeah, let's not go there. It's a mermaid. Can I ask you because your career path is slightly different from Claire and Fergal, you're now the head of the National Building Control and Market Surveillance office. How did you go from all the projects and stories you were telling us earlier into that particular position? How did your career lead you there?

Mairéad Phelan 23:05

I suppose I've always followed the projects rather than the career. I've never followed the career straight lineup, and I could have done it. And I have, purposely not followed projects, I follow projects that interest me. If you look I was in the private sector, and I was a senior resident engineer and senior designer and I took a pay cut for an area engineer IVC, myself, as an engineer, first and foremost, and a problem solver and a designer. That's all I ever wanted to be. Even as a child. That's all I put. Nobody ever told me that it was a totally male-orientated, professional Tiller who walked into UCD in tears with tears promotionally from eight years in a school with not even male teachers, or girl school from five years in a boarding school girls boarding school. And I remember walking in a little bit late the first morning in terms of testing, I was looking up and I'm thinking, this is interesting. Nobody ever I actually never I never thought to ask and I had an uncle in engineering never never dawned on me. I just saw a guy building a bridge one time and he drove a lovely car and I was hooked. In Cleveland, I'm the head of the National buildings and roll-offs and how I came there really was pirate in Fingal was a serious issue. And I was tasked with dealing with people who were suffering, the adverse consequences of the floor is heaving because of impurity in the underfloor fill and meeting people who lived in houses, ordinary people who were not people that bought second houses, and the suffering that they were going through, actually did affect me. And I came back and I looked at the building control system. And I looked at it in conjunction with the chief executive at the time and said, Actually, we haven't got enough oversight here. We need to do something. This is too much self-regulation and nobody really oversees itself. That's where I went and had a look at a few of my staff and said, look at how do we collect this. So we actually designed a bespoke compliance management system and national IT system to collate all of the commencement notices, the fire safety certificates, and the disability access certificates into one place one unit. So I follow the job. And the job followed me to improve how we do building control and compliance with the requirements of the building regulations in Ireland because nobody had looked at the building regulations in the context of why they were there, because regulation in civilised societies for health and safety, the citizen and protection of the environment, and that's what we all do. But the building regulations specifically say health, safety, and welfare of people in or about buildings. So everybody was looking at the requirements, all these technical requirements, engineers have made them and it's very difficult to build and anybody can build. But every single part of the regulations is for the health or the safety or the welfare of the person living inside the buildings. And we had to kind of re-look at the way we implemented them. So part of my next couple of years was a national ICT system. So now I'm suddenly gone from a bridge designer to an ICT computer interface. So Linux, everything has, we designed up the only fully designed online ICT system for service delivery earlier in local authorities. So now what we have now is we have oversight of all the designs for every building, every home in the country, and we can go in there, do a risk assessment, get people out to inspect them, pull designers in if one designer in a county is not living up to what they should be, we have them in the system, we can pick them out of every other county and ask the billing and loan officers look at, you need to look at this building, prevent proliferation, we have a long way to go still. But as I said, I've always followed the project and the impact.

Dusty Rhodes 26:58

And I asked you about what you were saying when you know you just saw the guy building the bridge, neat, nice car and you went, I want to be an engineer and you never thought about gender. It never entered your head, which is great. And then you ended up as an Air Force terrorist and you kind of go, Huh, hello. Has that changed in your time?

Mairéad Phelan 27:16

I'd say Not really. And I'm now I'm coming back. And I thought about this quite a lot. And I'm looking at it in the context of education for people building houses. The subjects in secondary school are still the same boy-girl subjects, the way they make them up that they were in my day. Even the community schools, will package domestic science or home economics as it's called these days, which I believe should be be subject for everybody, because people I tell you what, when I was did engineering, all the guys that couldn't cook, they couldn't do anything. And I couldn't draw because I didn't do mechanical drawing or anything else. So I took them jelly, and they helped me do my mechanical drawing. And they thought I was a genius. You know, you guys look at not being able to make better custard or jelly or something. But anyway, that's an aside. But the thing about it is, the schools are not doing enough with this boy-girl subject. I had severe difficulties, even the nuns told my mother about doing engineering, and they wanted me to do primary teaching. So there is still the nursing, the teaching, the civil service aspect to every secondary school in Ireland. And that's very disappointing.

Dusty Rhodes 28:27

Fergal, do you want to come in there?

Fergal Timlin 28:30

Yeah, look, I was just gonna say my work with the Thailand region and civil division of engineers, Ireland, and I suppose Women in Engineering is a big item on the list. It's always been pushed for the last 1520 years, I suppose everything they've done, they've only changed the percentages, a couple of points still the same way. It was like when I was in any way G I think it was something to 10% of the undergrads are women. And like, it's, I think it's up to 14%. Now, you know, we're not talking about major changes, even though the culture has changed. I completely agree. There's a big push on, though, for engineers to get into primary schools and secondary schools. And realistically, it's to get into primary schools and to meet them when they're in the formative years. And kind of explain particularly to the girls what it is like to be on-site or what it is like to be a designer. And what is like in the industry, I think we can all agree the simplest definition of an engineer is that we're just problem solvers. We love problems. We love solving them. And like just explain that the students and why it's open to everyone, and not that there's these, I suppose gender assigned kind of roles or stereotypes associated with engineering that we have to break to actually get young women into engineering.

Claire Hughes 29:35

Absolutely. Yeah, I would agree. I would agree with Maria, they sort of have the same experience as you Maria would go into an all-female secondary school, and I was very lucky to be able to actually do physics and chemistry. Together. There was no option for Applied Maths or engineering or computer science or technical graphics. None of that was available to me when I went to college, and like that, I went into a room of 200 people, 170 of them were males and I hadn't seen a guy in a bar I took 15 years. It's quite a shock to the system and feel like you're constantly on the catch-up the first two years in Trinity we did all engineering mechanical, and we did all subjects that were for all different types of engineering. And you constantly felt like you were on the catch-up all the time because you were in a class with students that had done tactical graphics that had done all these other different subjects that were available to them. But coming from the school that I had, I literally just had physics and chemistry and maybe a strong background in maths. So definitely looking at, in particular all female secondary schools, to see the subject choices that are available and see what can be done having these subjects available to everybody, and tend to look at it from a grassroots point of view.

Mairéad Phelan 30:42

I take it another step forward, forward, sorry, I'm interrupting you, am I, I take it another step forward, in that we actually all live in houses, houses need maintenance, children are not taught how to hammer a nail straight anymore. So there's a whole lot of education is for life, and to actually be able to live in the world that we are that you know, we live in. And we should actually come out with the tools to actually be able to eat to be able to survive, and to be able to live in our houses. So we're not getting that anymore. And I think that's a shame because I am on building sites and I'm in houses and I see the poor younger that comes out and you can't even hammer the nail straight. And I'd like to take the nail and then say, well, could I show you how to do this. And then I look at nice brickwork and I'm thinking, that actually would be a lovely job for a boy or a girl, because the bricks are lies, but they're not exposed to it at an early enough stage. And I think every child loves a brick to play with every child loves Lego. I've never met one that doesn't. I've never met a child who doesn't love the box that the stuff comes in, the dialogue comes in, and they want to play with the box. So why are we not bringing that along through the schools? We've kind of headed in the wrong direction, I think. Anytime to teach.

Dusty Rhodes 32:01

I love this because we don't restraint into what engineering is all about. We have come across a problem. We need more women in the industry, and why are they in there? unbraid has got some brilliant ideas. But I'm wondering what you think, about this particular problem? What would you suggest as a fix?

Claire Hughes 32:18

Just I'm thinking back on my own experience. Career Guidance is also an element in school that I find, like Maria was saying there. When I mentioned engineering to my career guidance counselor, I was an older lady, she was a non it's like, what is that? She got her perspective Stein on she was like, going through the pages going what is engineering, again, she was pointing in the direction of nursing or primary school teaching that seemed to be just what we were meant to do, or whatever, you know. So career guidance is very important. You have to recognise that everybody has so many different talents, so many different areas where they will flourish and I suppose maybe making sure that they have a very strong element of that. And the schooling as well would be very important.

Dusty Rhodes 32:59

And Fergal any quick fix them yourself?

Fergal Timlin 33:02

Yeah, I think I'm a firm believer in placement programs. Now I know not every student is going to have access to kind of the year or two, six months to actually undertake these placements. Like a good example for me is that my family, my father, and most of my uncles are engineers. My mother is a town planner. So like I've always had this background that I kind of wanted to kind of fit into that role and construction itself. So I wanted to be a civil engineer, I have wanted to be a civil engineers since I was seven years old. When I did my first year in college, my father met me after I got back off the bus and said to me, right for what is the civil engineer. And I went, I don't know. So after all this ambition, all this passion to become a civil engineer, I actually didn't know what it meant to be one. Because like you said, you can just read a prospectus or read a summary of what engineering is and go, Oh, okay, that's what I want to spend the next 50 years of my life doing. It's, it's something that you have to jump into. So like I took a year out of college, and I worked for a construction company, Brian McCarthy. So yes, it was it was tough. It was long hours, it was constantly up against in terms of resources, making sure we managed time and everything else. And I absolutely adored it, I loved it. And it just ignited the fire inside me, even more, to get back into cars to get through college to get out and cited stuff. So like for me, if I hadn't done that kind of taste or if there was a potential that all this time had been spent convincing myself and wanted to be a civil engineer would have done four years of degree. Okay, most of it. He's had been on site. He's been working in the office, doing the designs all day, and maybe went off and being an accountant. But I would have thought I'd wasted four years of my life. So for me, like I've seen when I have students inside the offices, if we've undergrads working with us, like I love spending time with them explaining what we're doing and why we're doing it. I love bringing them on-site so they can actually see it. So like I think a big one for me is that if you can get them for even three months inside a placement program you can give them an amazing perspective on what we actually do and he why we want people to do with us.

Dusty Rhodes 34:53

Well, I have to say from from speaking with the three of you on the podcast today, the passion that each of you have for what you're doing and all of you have been in the career for, you know, kind of you're not beginners, shall we say. It's great to see that you still have that passion. I love that, and the satisfaction that you're getting from working kind of on the local and the more public end and being able to walk around. I think it's just, it's amazing. It's been a real eye-opener for me and just absolutely brilliant. And then we came up with loads of great ideas to fix the problem. So this has been the perfect engineering podcast, as far as I'm concerned, Mairéad Phelan from the National Building Control and Market Surveillance Office, Fergal Timlin with Limerick City and county council, and Claire Hughes from Louth County Council. Thank you all for joining us today.

Mairéad Phelan 35:35

Thank you very much. Thank you.

35:36

Thank you very much.

Dusty Rhodes 35:39

If you'd like to find out more about Fergal, Mairéád, and Claire and some of the topics that we talked about today, you'll find notes and link details in the show notes area on your podcast player right now. And of course, you'll find more information and exclusive advance episodes of our podcast on our website at EngineersIreland.ie. Our podcast today was produced by dustpod.io for Engineers Ireland. If you'd like more episodes, just click the Follow button on your podcast player to get access to all of our past and future shows automatically. Until next time from myself, Dusty Rhodes Thank you for listening.

Engineers are incredibly innovative and ambitious, but having the right skills and mindset is key to having your ideas heard and supported.

Through self-development and continuous learning you can make yourself stand out in the crowd. Today we find out what education options are available to engineers and what skills you need to focus on to become an invaluable pi-shaped professional.

Our expert today is an electronic engineer who is incredibly passionate about professional development and learning. She is the former Dean of Graduate and Professional Studies and current Director of UL@Work at University of Limerick, Professor Ann Ledwith.

Listen below or on your podcast player!

Things we spoke about

01:09 Ann’s Start In Engineering

05:03 How to make an impression and progress

09:19 Transversal Skills and becoming a pi-shaped professional

13:27 The difference between management and leadership

16:20 Advice for young engineers pursuing leadership

18:13 Business-oriented skills for engineering

20:30 How to approach continued learning

21:54 Further education opportunities with UL@Work

24:50 Learning time commitment and workplace support

Guest details

Professor Ann Ledwith is a graduate of N.I.H.E Limerick where she obtained a degree in Electronic Engineering.  She subsequently completed an MBA at the University of Limerick and a PhD in Managing Product Development at the University of Brighton. She has held a variety of positions at UL including Dean of Graduate and Professional Studies, Director of Continuing and Professional Education, and Assistant Dean of Research (Adult and Continuing Education) with the Faculty of Science and Engineering.

Currently Prof Ledwith is the Director of HCI and UL@Work, and is responsible for delivering UL’s Human Capital Initiative project, UL@Work, which aims to develop digital, industry 4.0, talent through flexible, innovative and technology-enabled, experiential learning; linking enterprise and education to form a co-designed future learning environment.  She is passionate about the role of the university in supporting regional growth and currently chairs Explore Engineering, an industry-led initiative to  increase the quality and quantity of engineering talent (apprentice, technicians and engineers) in the region.

Prof Ledwith worked for over twelve years as a Product Development Engineer and as a Manager of Product Development in small high-technology firms.  She spent 2 years managing the Centre for Project Management at the University of Limerick.  Professor Ledwith has a keen interest in work-based students and flexible learning. Throughout her academic career, she has designed and delivered part-time and blended programmes for both under- and post-graduate students on topics such as Project Management, Entrepreneurship, Innovation Management, Technology Management and Reliability.  Her research interests include new product development, project management, R&D management, innovation and technology management in small firms.

Website: www.ul.ie

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ann-ledwith-65873a/

Further education links:

https://www.ul.ie/gps/professionalflexible-programmes

https://www.ul.ie/gps/microcredentials

https://www.ul.ie/gps/springboard-courses

https://www.ul.ie/gps/professionalflexible-programmes/apprenticeships

More information

Looking for ways to explore or advance a career in the field of engineering? Visit Engineers Ireland to learn more about the many programs and resources on offer. https://www.engineersireland.ie/ 

Engineers Journal AMPLIFIED is produced by DustPod.io for Engineers Ireland.

Quotes

You have to be willing to step up, you have to be willing to say, ‘Yeah, I can take charge of this project, or I can manage a few people.’ - Ann Ledwith

When you're working with people, you need a certain amount of single mindedness and focus, but you also need to be able to bring your people along with you, you need to appreciate and listen to what people are saying. You need to have a vision, you need to be able to communicate that vision, and you need to be able to convince people that's where they want to be as well. - Ann Ledwith

We often talk about a pi-shaped professional, you need these broad skills along the top, and then your areas of expertise. You need both if you want to be successful. - Ann Ledwith

I think that sense of having a vision of how you want to move things forward is very important, but that's useless unless you can bring people with you - Ann Ledwith

It is so important for job satisfaction that people can see that they've contributed to something. I think that's why people follow leaders because they feel that it's adding more meaning and more relevance to what they're doing. - Ann Ledwith

The first thing is to let people know you're there and to let people know that you do have ambition. Very often that's the toughest step for a young engineer, we're not taught to go forward and to share your ideas like that. But I think it's very important that you make sure people realize that the potential that you have - Ann Ledwith

One of the key things if you are getting on that journey of continuous education is to get the support from your manager. Tell them how this program is actually going to progress you, it's not just that you're getting skills, but your company is getting skills - Ann Ledwith

Transcription

For your convenience, we include an automated AI transcription

Dusty Rhodes 00:00

In your engineering career, do you want to be a manager or leader? And what's the difference? We're about to find out.

Ann Ledwith 00:07

When you get into leadership, you have a vision, you're able to say, well, this is how I think things should be. First, that's useless, unless you can bring people with you.

Dusty Rhodes 00:21

Hello there, my name is Dusty Rhodes, and welcome to AMPLIFIED the Engineers Journal podcast. Most successful engineers agree that continuous learning is paramount to a successful and progressive career in engineering. But when innovation and technology are moving at such a rapid pace today, it can feel overwhelming to keep up. So today, we're going to find out what further education options are available to engineers and what skills you can develop to help move yourself forward and upwards in your career. Our guest today is incredibly passionate about professional development and learning. She is the former Dean of Graduate and Professional Studies and the current director of UL@Work, at the University of Limerick, Ann Ledwith. Thank you very much for joining us on the podcast. Thank you. So listen, tell me Ann you're a big advocate for careers in engineering. How did you get into this business? How did you know it was the right path for you?

Ann Ledwith 01:18

I suppose it was a bit serendipitous when I was at school and ended up breaking desolations in Limerick, we didn't have physics and I decided I wanted to do physics. So about four of us had to go to the local Christian Brothers school that was just across the road to do physics. And up to probably the end of fifth year, I was going to be a dentist, I'd probably be a lot richer if I was a dentist but who knows I wouldn't be happier. But all the boys were going to physics, we're all going to do engineering. So I said, and I was good at physics, I was good at math and those types of subjects. And I said, Well, if they're going to be engineers, then I should be an engineer too. So to be honest, it wasn't a career that had ever entered my mind. Until I heard my classmates talking about the classmates and my physics class talking about it. Now he's helped that we have a passionate female physics teacher as well, that was very, very supportive. But that's where I decided to do engineering. And at the time, and he, as it was then was just starting, they had a very good program in electronic engineering. And that's where I ended up with quite a few of my colleagues from our physics class, Limerick as well.

Dusty Rhodes 02:30

So when you got out into the real world, what kind of engineering work were you doing?

Ann Ledwith 02:34

Well, I did electronic engineering, and I worked for a while with analog devices, I moved to Germany on a contract for about a year. And then I came back to Limerick and worked with a company called Interpro. As a design engineer and an entrepreneur, we were designing automatic test equipment for power supplies. So I was involved in hardware, and software firmware, and worked there for about seven, eight years, it was a small company, it was a startup, a great place for an engineer to start. Because I think in a smaller company like that, you're exposed to everything you're exposed to how sales work, how orders are fulfilled, how manufacturing happens. And I felt that was a really, really good start and foundation for my career in engineering. And that's where I started to get opportunities for leadership as well. Again, in a smaller company, I started being the manager of our software development and ended up being the R&D manager in the company. So I was looking after all of our development. But I suppose at that stage, I knew the business inside out, I had been there for a good number of years and knew everybody involved. So it was a very interesting and very kind of exciting time.

Dusty Rhodes 03:44

I liked the way you say that you went into management. And you mentioned leadership because the two are almost completely different things. And it's something I want to delve into a little later. But looking back at your engineering career, what would you say is the one thing that you're most proud of?

Ann Ledwith 04:00

Oh, that's, that's a hard one. Because I moved, my career changed quite a bit. So while I was at Interpro, I was very proud. We developed a new system, a new test system, I was responsible for developing the software and how the software looked, and also for developing some of the hardware modules on that. And it was definitely very rewarding to see the equipment in use in companies to see, you know, something that you were able to step back and say, Well, I designed that, you know, and it's part of a production for and there were maybe four or five of these things lined up churning through power supplies, testing them, and you can kind of say, well, well, I did that. That was me. So I think that's one of the things that's great about engineering is that we make things and very often when you make things you can see the things that you made, and you can see them working and people using them. And whether it's something else kind of mundane as a piece of test equipment, or a new bridge or you know, a new mobile device or whatever it is but we make things and we make things that work and I That's one of the things that I really love about a career in engineering.

Dusty Rhodes 05:03

So one of the things that I do want to chat about a little bit later is management and leadership because there's a huge difference between them. But can I start by asking you about your own journey kind of moving from the shop floor as it were into management and into leadership? Then how does somebody move upwards in a business? What steps should they take?

Ann Ledwith 05:23

Like, I guess, to a certain extent, it's different depending on the business you're in, like I was in a small company, and I was willing to take on the responsibility, I think that's an awful lot of it, that you have to be willing to step up, you have to be willing to say, Yeah, I can take charge of this project, or I can manage a few people. And that's not for everybody. But I think, you know, if you have a bit of ambition, and if you like to, my I hate to say if you're a bit of a control freak, like you like to determine the outcome of things, and I think an awful lot of engineers do, like you don't like things to just happen to you, you like to have some control over what's happening to you and how systems are developed and, and how you make decisions. You know, in my case, it was in how we were developing our software. And I actually ended up having some quite strong views about that, because of how our system was configured and how I felt it should work. And we'd be better to move to something that was more modular. And it's by deciding that you want to take ownership, I think it's an awful lot of where you're at that you have to decide, I can do this, I will step up and do it. And to look at the other people around you and think, look, I can do at least as good a job as they can do. So why not me? But I think maybe two things have to happen. One is that your company has to appreciate you and be willing to promote you. And by and large, people are happy to prod people who want to do the work. But I think an awful lot of it has to come internally from you, as an engineer, that you're saying, Yes, I'm willing to take this step forward. Yes, it's not beyond me to decide, I'm not just going to implement a design what I'm being asked to design, but I actually want to be more involved in making those decisions and directing what's happening and have more control over where our product or technology or whatever else it is, is going.

Dusty Rhodes 07:07

There is a world of difference in designing something and controlling that thing, as you say, and then controlling people, which is the team. But there are similar two skills at the same time. So what kind of skills do you think are important for progression in that way?

Ann Ledwith 07:21

Like, I think of the two, it's controlling the people and managing the people that number one is actually what's critical to making projects happen. And is something that's more difficult. And I think it is something that comes a little bit more with age, you need a bit of experience and a bit of maturity before you can start to manage other people and bring them along. That's my opinion on it. I think you need a lot of empathy. When you're working with people, you need a certain amount of kind of single-mindedness and focus. But you also need to be able to bring your people along with you, you need to appreciate and listen to what people are saying. But you need to have a vision, you need to be able to communicate that vision. And you need to be able to convince people, that's where they want to be as well. But they are two different skill sets. And of the two I'd say the one that takes a bit longer to develop is the people management and the people management skills.

Dusty Rhodes 08:16

And where do you learn those skills? Or where do you start learning those skills?

Ann Ledwith 08:20

You start in kindergarten, you know, I often think that how you interact with people starts at the very, very beginning. But it is kind of when you get into your career. And when you start moving forward, I think you just have to observe what's happening around you. Now there are lots of programs that will help. And I know when I was kind of going through that management phase earlier in my career, I did take part in a leadership program. And it was very useful. But an awful lot of the use of being on a program like that is really talking to peers and talking to colleagues and finding what are other people doing and realizing that you know, other people have the same problems as you have heard, and they have different ways of solving them and different ways of going about things. So I think anywhere in my life when I've gone back for additional learning, the learning itself has been useful, but almost more useful is that peer-to-peer learning. And I think that that still holds true in almost any area of kind of upskilling and rescaling is that peer learning can be really, really important. So I think that's a key place where you learn and where you observe what people are doing. 

Dusty Rhodes 09:19

One word I have heard bandied around in relation to this is transversal skills. What exactly are transversal skills?

Ann Ledwith 09:26

They're just a new thing. Know, I think they are a new name for things that we always had to do you know, for things that you gained with experience, but I think they are a very important skill set that we have maybe over the last years started to kind of pigeonhole different people into particular professions and particular skill sets. But yes, when you get out into the workplace, you need to be able to work with people. You need to be able to communicate effectively. You need to be able to manage teams and work in a team. And they're all those kinds of what used to be softer skills and are now more commonly referred to as power skills. But to be honest, you know, way back kind of 1015 years ago, when I was more involved in engineering programs here at UL and getting programs accredited, there were always those learning outcomes that were about managing teams and being aware of society and being aware of the people around you. And making sure that engineers had those skills, as well as having the technical skills, which I think is really, really important. So I think transversal skills are very, very useful, I think they're things that should be part of all of our degrees. And all of our undergraduates should get them, I think, to be honest, are coming to the forum. Now, post COVID, because we've had whatever it is for three, four years, where people have been working in very kind of isolated ways. And it's almost like we've got to bring them back together and teach people how to work with each other and work together. So we often talk about that kind of pie-shaped professional, that you need these broad skills along the top, and then your areas of expertise. But you need both if you want to be successful.

Dusty Rhodes 11:02

That's another phrase that I've heard is T shaped professionals that somebody is somebody brought up at the top. And yeah, when

Ann Ledwith 11:08

I'm saying pie, I'm just putting an extra leg on that T because very often we need somebody who you know, understands it, as well as understanding telecoms, or whether it's very close, or circuit design or, or even medicine, we're seeing so much more of an overlap between an awful lot of these professions that that in areas of biological sciences, medical sciences, that research is really delving into how technology is informing that how AI is informing that. 

Dusty Rhodes 11:39

So you need more than one expertise very often when you're thinking about your career, and you're kind of thinking I want to move on and do something else... engineering related, what kind of opportunities are there for engineers outside of the direct industry itself?

Ann Ledwith 11:52

I take there are a lot of different careers and career paths that engineers can take. That's one of the things that I really like about an engineering degree and would encourage, you know, parents talking to kids to look at engineering, because I think sometimes when you're at the start of it, you think, Well, I'm going to be an engineer, and that's what I'm going to do. But to actually develop a skill set as an engineer, that can apply in an awful lot of different areas. So you would see engineers talk turning up in sales and marketing, in systems an awful lot in education in a lot of different spheres. And I think one of the things that an engineering degree gives you is almost a way of thinking as a systems way of thinking because I find that something that to me an awful lot in my career, that I can look at, you know, a problem or a mess, you know, what, whether it's to do with engineering, whether it's to do with how we're structuring a program at work, or whether it's dealing with another project at work, and I find I can put a structure on it, you know, I can pull the bits of it together that matters. I can say, well, this is how we should do this. This is the way we should put this as a project. And I think it's that kind of high-level systems thinking that engineers are actually quite good at that there is a kind of a way that you think that that's very structured and systematized and you think, well, we're going to do that, and how are we going to measure it? And how will we know? What resources will we need? So you start to think in a far more kind of structured way. And I think that can apply across the board. And that's why you find engineers, very often in management roles in a lot of industries. So they've left behind the engineering, and they're working in kind of general management areas.

Dusty Rhodes 13:27

I think what I hear you saying is engineers are problem solvers. And you know, leadership and management are all about solving problems with teams, we often the arrow of the importance of leadership in engineering, one is the difference between management because lots of people go into management, or very few people become leaders. What is the difference between management and leadership?

Ann Ledwith 13:49

I think one of the key differences is when you get into leadership, you have a vision, and maybe you have visions about several visions, but you have, you know, you're able to say, well, this is how I think things should be. And I was actually thinking about this recently. And that's one thing that I found that the later stages of my career, that I'm actually much more willing to step forward and say, Well, this is where I think you should actually go with this. And this is how it should look in the future. And I think that sense of having a vision that you want to show how you want to move things forward is very important. But that's useless unless you can bring people with you. So I think it's being able to do both of those things. Because we can think of and even within companies, you will get these people who have crazy mad ideas, but nobody listens to them. And that can sometimes be big, it's not necessarily the best thing. But I think if you can bring people along with you on those towards what that vision is, if you can be inclusive in developing how you think you want things to go forward and actually bring things with you. I think that that's the key with leadership is that you can have that vision, but that you could communicate and bring people along with you towards that vision.

Dusty Rhodes 14:58

Then when you are a leader either and you have a vision and you're going for this particular goal to improve the world. And you've got 50 PP behind you. And man, I like the way that guys think I'm going to work with him. Alright, so your leader, how does that kind of leadership improve the quality of work and experience within a company, for the people who were behind you and supporting you?

Ann Ledwith 15:20

Well, I think it gives you I mean, there's a great sense of grace, satisfaction and being part of a team, that that is working towards something and something that's going to improve whether it's improving how we work, improving how we teach, improving what our product looks like. But that is working towards improvement and to feel that you're listened to that you're part of that you're of achieving something, and that you're confident contributing. And I actually think that I mean, that is so important for job satisfaction is that people can see that they've contributed to something that has made an improvement. And I think that's why people would very often follow leaders because they feel that that it adds more meaning it's adding more relevance to what they're doing. And they're actually they're achieving something, as opposed to, you know, the same thing as I did yesterday. And here's what I'm going to be doing next week, and my manager says, I should do it x, y, and z because that's the way the company does it. And I think that's part of the difference. And it's a much more exciting place to be, you know, when you're trying to create something new or do something new.

Dusty Rhodes 16:20

So this is developing really nicely because a leader is somebody who has vision, he's got people who agree with our vision, who are following him, but the leader is also interested in helping the people who are following him, develop themselves. So if I'm sitting here, and I'm an engineer, and I'm kind of thinking this sounds good, I want to get into management, because I've got ideas, I want to change the world in my own way. I mean, how do I start all of the, you know, I'm just working at a desk as a regular engineer, how do you start the journey towards management and leadership?

Ann Ledwith 16:53

So you're sitting at your desk, but where are you? You know, why does your company what are you passionate about? You know, are you designing, you know, a communication system that you think should be done differently and should use a different type of technology? And I think it depends on your context. And I think part of kind of the first thing that you need to do is to step up and to make sure that the people who are working with you, and particularly the people who are senior to you in the company, know that you want to go further, I know that you want to take on a leadership role. And they're aware that you're there. So very often kind of as a junior engineer there, and there's a tendency to keep my head down and get the work done. That's not going to get too far if you want to get involved in leadership. And you don't have to be the person who's shouting for the trees or anything like that. But you do have to be the person who will make sure that their voice is heard, and their opinion is heard. And if you have a good idea, well articulated and share it. So I think the first thing is to let people know you're there and to let people know that you do have ambition. And I think very often that's the toughest step for a young engineer. Because I mean, very often we're not taught to kind of go forward and to share your ideas like that. But I think it's very important that you, you make sure people see you and you make sure people realize the potential that you have.

Dusty Rhodes 18:13

You think if you're going to then go into the leadership side of things that you need to do you need to be business orientated. For that, you have to do a business degree on top of everything else.

Ann Ledwith 18:25

I think that depends, I think in some of the kinds of larger technical companies, they would have a route for leadership on an engineering side that needn't be as involved in the business. But to be honest, I think, really, so if you're in a smaller company, then there is more of a need to have a better idea of where the business is at. But in either case, I think you have to be aware of the implications of the decisions that you're making. So you do have to be aware of the business. And I think as an engineer, again, that would be advice to kind of engineers starting out, become aware of what your businesses, you know, who are your key customers, what are the, you know, how was your product differentiated from other people's products, because that is important, it is important that you know, where the business is going. And I know when I was kind of mid-career, as I said, I did, I did a leadership course. But I went on and did an MBA as well. And that was very, very useful to me at the time that I did it. So I think that you know, whether it's an MBA or whether it's, you know, even in something in project management or management in general, I think that skill set that's kind of outside of engineering is very useful for you. But I would say to engineers, get your feet under the table, you know, I wouldn't be jumping into something like that when you're two years out of college. Wait until you actually know what way is that up and you know where your industry is before you go and get that skill set.

Dusty Rhodes 19:44

Do you think another way of possibly doing this and letting people know that you're interested and progressing but without being pushy if you want to put it that way is to ask questions as you say to reach out and to learn is it okay to ask people questions about the business.

Ann Ledwith 20:02

Absolutely. And I think most people will be happy to share with you. So, yeah, inquire and find out what's going on. I think that makes an awful lot of sense. Because, again, like I said earlier, it's context, I think you have to know where you're operating and where you're working, and what are the goals of the company? So what are the key aims of the company because you need to align yourself with that if you want to be moving up in a leadership or even in a management role in a company, you need to be aware of what their goals are.

Dusty Rhodes 20:30

My mind is just worrying with the amount of things that you're saying that I would have to learn about Android engineering is such a fast-paced industry and with so many different opportunities for learning, it can be a little bit overwhelming for some people, how should engineers approach their continued learning?

Ann Ledwith 20:47

Well, I mean, I would say you can't do everything. So I think sometimes you have to make choices. I can remember back, probably about 20 years ago, I put a lot of time into redesigning one of our programs. And we launched the program, and it was very successful, and I was very happy with it. And I could have decided to pursue that to stay on with that program to grow it to be the course director. But at the same time, there was an opportunity in working with continuous education, lifelong learning, and driving that. And I had to let go of something and decide to do something else to go with a lifelong learning piece because you can't do everything. And I think there are important kinds of inflection points in people's careers where they have to make decisions like that and decide, well, what's going to be taking me further apart? Am I really passionate about it? And I think when you've when you've made those decisions, then start looking at what kind of learning and what kind of upskilling you want, because it has to be relevant to you. But that's my opinion, that when you're moving forward in your career, and you've decided where you'd like your career to go, that's when you should be looking at what part of education what programs or courses can help me along the way with that.

Dusty Rhodes 21:54

So listen, tell me about you. Well, you're currently the director of UL at work, can you explain what kind of opportunities you are at work at present?

Ann Ledwith 22:02

UL as work is part of a program called the human capital and asset that was funded through the National Training Fund. So about four years ago, they open to competitive funds for universities to innovate and innovate in ways that were going to really support the development of skills and work closely with industry, looking at what kind of graduates do we need to produce. And what we did at Limerick is that we focus very much on professional education and postgraduate education. So you will at work has developed a range of programs, a lot of them are one-year part-time programs called professional diplomas, where people can upscale on areas, very diverse areas. So we've got programs in sustainability and communications and PR programs in strategic leadership in data analytics, in artificial intelligence. So there are there's a whole range of programs. But one of the things that we've done with that, which I think is a really great opportunity for students is that we've put in place a new masters called a Masters of Professional {ractice. And what the Masters is about is that you can pick any three of those professional diplomas that are going to suit your career, and you can put them together to get a master's. So you will do one of them in one year, you can do the second one, and then you can do the third one. And with your third one, you get your Masters. And it's proving really, really popular. And what it allows students to do is to really customize their learning. So we have, for example, we've had a very good program in aviation, leasing, and finance, and we've called a couple of good aviation programs, and students will do those. But they'll say, Well, actually, I need a bit of leadership with that as well. Or I need to find out about Lean, and how do I implement Lean in my company, so you'll get very diverse kind of mixes of diplomas and various of learning, but they make sense for a person's career. What we have is a structure that kind of scaffolds you through from microcredit to Masters, where you can pick a microcredit that's related to or that's part of one of these professional diplomas. Go ahead, do the professional diploma, once you know that, it's where you want to be, and then build three of these. And it goes back to my comment at the start about these kinds of pie shapes. The T-shaped professionals are now becoming pie-shaped professionals and maybe show professionals where you need a couple of deep dives and a few things, you need a couple of areas that you can say, well actually look, I can stand up and talk about that because I know that as well as having the transversal skills. And I think that's what our master's in professional practice does. It allows you to build, you know, up to three different areas that you know a lot about that you've advanced to kind of level nine to Masters level in a particular topic, but that you can bring them together kind of with some of these transversal skills,

Dusty Rhodes 24:50

the range of content of things that I can learn sounds amazing from the way you describe it and the fact that it can help my vision to move up in a career sounds amazing. I do want Want to be a leader that people are following me rather than being a manager with a hammer and playing Whack a Mole with employees all day. And the one thing that does worry me is the time elements. And it sounds great when you say it's a part-time when you're I've got a full-time job I've got, you know, three kids hanging out I've got a wife is always cranky, I made sure to mean, what kind of time commitment is there in here.

Ann Ledwith 25:23

We've been at this for a long time, and people can put in between 15 and 20 hours a week. And more than that isn't going to happen. So we can design any program we say and say there's 30 weeks studying that, it's not going to happen. As you say, for somebody who has children, a career, or a wife, sometimes older parents do all of these husband, Max, you'll be able to put in 15 hours a week, 15 to 20 hours a week. So you might put in an hour to kind of during the week after work, and then maybe one or two longer stints at the weekend. But you've got to get the balance right. And I think I suppose I'm comfortable talking about that, because I did my MBA, as I was managing things, I had my baby in the middle of my first child in the middle of my MBA, so I put a totally different color on the whole thing and trying to finish it off. It is doable, but you have to be focused on it. And I think one of the things that is quite nice about the model that we have is that you pit you take it one piece at a time, you know, so it's not saying you're committing to three years are you committing, you'll commit to one year and one year is actually two semesters and two semesters is to 15-week blocks. And you know, if you break it down like that, you can rationalize it and say, Okay, I will have a nice bit off at Christmas, I will have a short break at Easter, I've my summer off. So I think you have to keep that balance kind of between how you do everything

Dusty Rhodes 26:47

in the workplace, then how can managers and leaders that you're working with support you if you want to follow this journey of continued education,

Ann Ledwith 26:57

I think one of the key things is, you know, if you are getting on that journey of continuing education is to get the support from your manager because they need to know that you're doing this program. And they need to know that you might need a little bit of slack that you're not going to be working till eight o'clock, kind of three evenings a week, but that you need to finish up because we have more work to do. But I think part of that has to be a conversation with your manager about how this program is actually going to progress you and how it's going to help you. So it's not just that you're getting skills, but your company is getting skills, and the way an awful lot of our programs. And again, I know I'm talking about what we do at your will. But other universities have similar types of programs. But a lot of our programs are very linked to your business and linked to your workplace. So where you know, I take the lead program, it's a very good example, that as you're moving through Lean projects, your projects are requiring you to review your current working situation to look at how you can improve things. And in fact, on our lien program, the thesis that you do at the end has to make a particular contribution to your company. So you only get through with your thesis proposal, if you can show how it's going to save your company money or time or whatever it is, or improve things. And I mean, we've had some fantastic program projects there where people have saved hundreds of 1000s for the companies by being involved in a project like this. So I think the conversation very much has to be I want to do this program, it's going to help me it's going to help you this is how I'm going to bring this learning back into the workplace. And programs have to be designed like that.

Dusty Rhodes 28:29

That is almost how you start thinking like a leader because you're going home and you're saying to your partner, I want to do this extra work. Because after I will be able to do boom, which will bring benefit to us, then you're going into your employer and you're saying, I want to do this blah, blah, blah, and the benefits of the company will be bumped. And you're starting to be a leader then because you're sharing a vision for our people kind of go I want to be part of that. That's love the way you think.

Ann Ledwith 28:55

Yeah, no, it's very true. It's very true that you're looking at where this is taking me. But it's not just me. It's how it's improving the other things around me, very important.

Dusty Rhodes 29:05

If I'm considering taking on some more education in order to improve myself and to move forward. Where do I start? I mean, is there stuff that you're aware of with engineers, in Ireland? Is there stuff that I can find on your website with you? Well,

Ann Ledwith 29:21

yeah, I mean, there is stuff that you'd find on engineers, Ireland, and upskilling. But the government has actually done really good work over the last number of years and we were very supportive of people who want to go back to education. So our Springboard program is a fantastic place to start. And the springboard offers programs across the range, a whole pile of different areas. And they're pretty much you know, they're very well funded, but about 90% funded, and those are all open now. So, anybody who wants to go on to the Springboard web website, we see a whole range of programs. The other group that works really well with upscaling our skill nets and our skills are working across all the regions across all the different areas of technology. And they're also looking at what are the needs of the industry, what are the skills that they need. So those would be two very obvious places to go. But also on for any of the universities, I mean, now is the time where we're kind of coming to the end of our recruitment cycle for September. So depending on what you want to do, or where you want to go, if you go on to our URL website and look for postgraduate education, you will find a list of different programs that are available there. And you know, the same in any institution. 

Dusty Rhodes 30:32

You have affected me and I hope you have affected the person listening to the podcast at the moment in that I want to be a leader. I don't want to be a manager. I want to be a leader. And I find that everything that you've said has been very inspiring today. So thank you so much for sharing with us on the podcast today. Thank you. If you'd like to find out more about Ann and some of the topics that we did speak about today, you will find notes and link details in the show notes area of your player right now. And of course, you'll find more information and exclusive advanced episodes of our Engineers Ireland AMPLIFIED podcast on our website engineersireland. ie. Our podcast today was produced by DustPod.io for Engineers Ireland. If you'd like more episodes do click the Follow button on your podcast player right now to get access to all of our past and future shows automatically. Until next time, from myself, Dusty Rhodes, thank you for listening.

Looking Up and Looking Out

As the engineering sector continuously evolves and grows, how can you stay on top and progress in your career?

Today we discover how leading managers achieved their ascent in the industry and what key qualities they look for in their teams. We also hear how employee wellbeing is crucial to operating a safe workplace.

Joining us to tell us more is Director of TII’s Professional Services Division, Helen Hughes and Director of Operations with Jacobs, Jillian Bolton.

Listen below or on your podcast player!

Things we spoke about

1:21 Finding your chosen discipline
3:31 How engineering has evolved

6:20 5G in cars of the new future

7:57 Work/Life Balance

10:33 How safety to changing on site

13:40 The qualities required to move up the ladder

17:00 The importance of being visible

19:49 Moving into management 

24:21 Continuous learning - exhausting or exciting?

Guest Details

Helen Hughes

Helen was appointed Director of TII’s Professional Services Division in 2015 following the establishment of Transport Infrastructure Ireland. Helen has over 30 years of experience in transport planning, project appraisal and project management and has worked in the UK, Ireland and France in the public and private sectors. Helen has been a member of TII’s Executive Team for 7 years, has 18 years’ experience with NRA and 10 years with Consulting Engineers.  She has experience in delivery of capital projects, development of strategies, policies, technical reports, road design standards, specifications, and research.

She is a Chartered Engineer and holds a Bachelor of Civil Engineering degree and a Diploma in Project Management. She has been a Council Member of Engineers Ireland and Chairperson of WITS, a voluntary organisation supporting women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Jillian Bolton

Jillian Bolton is a Chartered Civil Engineer with 20 years’ experience in the engineering industry, predominantly supporting capital infrastructure clients in the development and construction of national infrastructure. As Regional Lead for Water Ireland & Scotland, Jillian is responsible for the continued development and growth of the region, supporting and developing an extensive team of engineering professionals within the water infrastructure sector delivering on capital investment frameworks and projects for our clients.

More information

Looking for ways to explore or advance a career in the field of engineering? Visit Engineers Ireland to learn more about the many programs and resources on offer. https://www.engineersireland.ie/

Engineers Journal AMPLIFIED is produced by DustPod.io for Engineers Ireland.

Quotes

When you start in engineering, you realize how many different disciplines there are, but they also have many different types of roles within all of those disciplines. - Jillian

The thing that's very rewarding is that you can see very visibly the difference you make. You're delivering infrastructure for the people of Ireland, so I think that's quite gratifying. Jillian mentioned the major inter urban road network that we delivered in the naughties. And that's a huge legacy for generations to come. So the love of engineering is directly related to the impact you're making, for me. - Helen

It's the always-on culture. People are now saying that they're going to leave their mobile phones off for six hours or 12 hours to switch off. We shouldn't be always-on, we never were in the past. - Helen

I would say making sure that you're looking up, and you're looking out. It's saying yes to other things that may not be just purely in the engineering fixed fields that you're in. But it's also looking up from what you're doing at the moment. You've got to be aware of what else is going on within your organization or within your sector and even within the wider infrastructure sector - Jillian

Transcription

For your convenience, we include an automated AI transcription

Speakers

Jillian Bolton, Dusty Rhodes, Helen Hughes

Dusty Rhodes  00:00

Right now on Amplified, the Engineers Journal Podcast. We're about to talk career progression. Somebody with

Jillian Bolton  00:06

an inquisitive mindset and somebody that wants to find solutions. I

Helen Hughes  00:09

totally agree about problem solving. If there were no problems, none of us would have any job.

Jillian Bolton  00:14

It's about finding your way through the problems and being able to identify solutions for a problem that gives the best benefits

Helen Hughes  00:20

openness to new learnings and enthusiasm for new learning.

Dusty Rhodes  00:25

Hello there, my name is Dusty Rhodes. Welcome to amplified the engineers journal podcast. As the old song says, The only way is up but many people in engineering can struggle to make that next step getting up the ladder. However, one of the great things about engineering is that there is unlimited opportunity for learning and development. And there is lots to be learned from those who've come before. So today, we're with two people who we hope will inspire us to reach for the next rung. First off joining us, we have the Director of Professional Services with ti who has over 30 years of experience in transport planning, project appraisal and project management. Helen Hughes, thank you very much for joining us today.

Helen Hughes  01:06

Good morning, dusty.

Dusty Rhodes  01:07

And we're also chatting with the director of operations with Jacobs, who brings 20 years of engineering experience predominantly in the development and construction of national infrastructure. Jillian Bolton, you're very welcome as well.

Jillian Bolton  01:20

Thank you. Dusty.

Dusty Rhodes  01:21

So Helen, tell us how did you first get involved in engineering?

Helen Hughes  01:25

And well, obviously, I studied engineering, I actually went to UCD. And then, where I was very interested in water and wastewater at the time, but I graduated in the late 80s, and went directly to England. And my first project was on a motorway construction site. So since then, I've never actually worked in anything with transport, both from construction, design, delivery, all the way through in all the phases of these projects.

Dusty Rhodes  01:54

And Julian, how about yourself? How did you get how did you get into this business?

Jillian Bolton  01:58

Well, interesting. Lee, I was also when I finished university, I was also mostly interested in water and wastewater sector. But originally, I also went into the transportation side. So I worked on some of the major inter urban highways in Ireland for maybe the first sort of eight or nine years, and then with the establishment of the water utility in Ireland, maybe about 10 years ago, and then spent nearly the last 10 years there as well.

Dusty Rhodes  02:26

And it's, it's a kind of a thing with, with both of you, where you kind of got into the engineering first. And it was only after you got involved that you found your your love,

Helen Hughes  02:34

and love, love engineering. That's a strong word. But I think the thing that's very rewarding is that you can see very visibly the difference you make. So you've got something tangible at the end of it. And, you know, you're delivering infrastructure for the people of Ireland, really, and it's quite gratifying. And that's a huge legacy for generations to come. You know, by the way, we'll be driving on electric or automated vehicles, or a railway line, you know, it's an infrastructure, they're, like the railways of the Victorian era. So the love is directly related to that the impact you're making,

Jillian Bolton  03:14

I was just gonna say, like, there's a, there's a real you can see a real people have real passion, about about, not necessarily about like, the engineering, technical details, but it's about the delivery of something that is, is valuable and worthwhile and can make a difference to people's lives.

Dusty Rhodes  03:31

Helen, can I ask you kind of like looking back over the last, whatever, 1015 years or so how do you think engineering as a profession has evolved?

Helen Hughes  03:40

In the last 1015 years? I think it's definitely engineers now are working as part of a multidisciplinary team, which is very, you know, it's very interesting, and it really helps your engineering skills.

Jillian Bolton  03:54

Well, I would agree, first of all Italian, originally, kind of engineering was in isolation. But now all of their projects are delivered by each of those sort of elements coming together in order to successfully deliver the project, it can't be done on its own. But the real shift, I think, in the last maybe five plus years is around well, in what you mentioned, during sustainability, and also the digital piece, you know, that those, those are, how we're going to sort of, well, I mean, society is moving along in that in that regard and these expectations around sustainability, and there's, there's regulatory requirements in terms of meeting carbon targets, but also the pace of digital is just unbelievable. So, you know, as an engineering industry, we have to try to also keep up with that.

Dusty Rhodes  04:38

So how do you see that Julian kind of like, if you were to look like, let's just say five years into the into the future, or even say 2030 Whatever we really think it's gonna be or what did he do you think it'll be a fundamental change?

Jillian Bolton  04:49

Well, I hope that all of the projects that we are working towards delivering and programs of work that they're that sustainability and carbon management is a is Driver as opposed to being an add on or as a as something else just to do that, you know, energy efficiency reduction and carbon catchment management type approaches or systems management types approaches where it all needs to come together to make a really effective solutions and to make really positive shifts for society going forward. So I think hopefully, in that, in that timeframe, we are looking at our programs and working our projects from a from a whole system's approach rather than in isolation.

Helen Hughes  05:31

Just on that whole aspect. For example, now transportation is very linked in with the whole energy sector, as we go to electrify our fleets. But it's also linked into the communication networks because because we will need to link into 5g networks to communicate between vehicles as part of this connected world. So So now you're interfacing with communications, electrification, and transport transport before was just transport. That interdisciplinary nature is fascinating. And I always remember, as a student, we talked about engineering, harnessing the great forces of nature, and that whole area of resources and using use of resources and efficient use of resources. This is another key aspect of the work we're doing.

Dusty Rhodes  06:20

Can I ask you, Helen, because you mentioned electric vehicles, and I think everybody's kind of thinking, well, we're definitely going electric vehicles. xiyue kind of everything. Well, you said 5g as well. I know internet is important. And I would imagine at a national level, and when you're talking, you're kind of taking trains and planes and buses and those kinds of things. Do you think 5g is going to make its way into our cars?

Helen Hughes  06:43

I do. All cars will be connected to the internet, I think all cars at the moment on production will be so instead of us putting up variable message signs on our on the motorway network, you're going to get messages into your car sending a roadworks ahead in three kilometers. Beware, instead of putting up with these hard gantries, you're going to be told there is a accident 10 kilometers ahead, maybe we want to divert to another route. So that whole and messaging information will be a key part of how we travel in the future.

Dusty Rhodes  07:22

And it's quite I mean, it's we haven't today on our on a mobile phone. So if you've got Google Maps or something like that, are you linking in with Apple CarPlay or Android, auto or whatever, it will tell you that there's a problem overhead. And what I find amazing is that it will tell you that it's going to cause you a seven and a half minute delay. And it can be quite accurate. Sometimes it's quite scary, but you think that that is going to actually built into the motor vehicle itself into the dash

Helen Hughes  07:49

is wherever you can get your onboard unit should be part of this standard dashboard. So you won't be hopefully won't be distracted looking at your phone.

Dusty Rhodes  07:57

This is I want to chat with you both about careers. But before we kind of get onto that on our last episode of the podcast, it was a very big emphasis on the importance of safety in engineering. And I just want to have a quick chat with both of you about that. Julian, the well being of employees. I mean, it's hugely important, and it's very high, it can be a very high pressure and fast moving industry. What do you feel the industry is getting right and wrong with well being?

Jillian Bolton  08:24

I think there's a lot of change. You can see you can see in the industry, I think I don't know how long if you agree. You can see a lot more talk and a lot more initiatives and a lot more consideration around things like we call them Mental Health First Aiders, but there's other there's other terminologies and organizations about so it's not just again about the when you're actually on your you're on a bill on a construction site. It's about exactly I think so. I do think that's really encouraging to see, I think that you know, I think that people are more considerate of their own work life balance and their own expectations and their own needs around what they want from their career and what they want from their employer. So that obviously hasn't hasn't benefit from a wellbeing perspective as well and needs to be we need to be mindful of that you know, that people work is not everything, you know, that there's there's a lot more to people's lives now.

Dusty Rhodes  09:25

Helen, do you think that when you're looking at it from a managerial point of view that when you take a person's work life balance on their wellness and safety and kind of look at it all together that you're getting more out of people

Helen Hughes  09:36

like to see it as part of good management like this work life balance. So what initiatives can you help do to help work life balance so we have a policy for digital switch off so that you don't send emails after six o'clock? Only if it's urgent, so people need to be able to switch off I think, now that we're working in a more blended way even more so. We have to be able to say okay, this is so switch off at a certain time and not be always on. And I think that's, it's always on culture. Even talking to people now people are saying they're going to leave their mobile phones or for, you know, six hours, 12 hours. So this switch off, we're not we shouldn't be always on, we never were in the past. I think that's, that's huge. And generally we, we look at sickly statistics, check that they're sort of in sort of in line with what's normal and certified. So you know, how many people we have employee assistance programs, how many people are benefiting that, because there has been a, you know, a rise in anxiety since COVID. So, we monitor those things we can measure, we monitor, and then we can do sort of employee engagement, or check ins, very, very often. So to try and really cool also safety culture in the organization. But I'm also in charge of road safety, construction, safety, light rail safety, and occupational safety. So safety is a core part of my job.

Dusty Rhodes  11:06

And when you are looking at out there in the workers, we're talking a lot about office space stuff. But when you're on site, what what ways are safety changing what's what's the concern in your head?

Helen Hughes  11:16

Well, I think the good things that happened when I worked in a construction site in the UK, and my site and duction was honest, the resident engineer said to me on the site this size, it's going to be two fatalities. That's the statistical norm. And what he should have said to me is on a site this god size, statistically, there may be two, but on this site, there's going to be zero. So it's that fatalism that that's just the way it was, so that that's a positive change. That no, this is not acceptable. So the zero tolerance has, it's not just a nice thing to say, it's definitely happening. It's also happening for insurance reasons, as contractors do not want to have, you know, large any fatalities or serious injuries on their construction sites, a lot of motivators for that, as well as, obviously, the the demiral. The amount, there's, there's, there's financial and economic considerations, too. So huge change, I'd say we never get complacent, the whole area of monitoring and data and saying, How are we doing, like we report every month, to our board on safety, and we need good quality information. Julian, you look

Dusty Rhodes  12:34

slightly shocked. And I am as well, when you say, when you look at a site, and there's gonna be x amount of deaths. Well, what's going through your head about what Helen is saying?

Jillian Bolton  12:42

I mean, it is a fact on it. And it's really, as you say, Helen, it's incredible to think that that's not acceptable anymore. And it's and that and it isn't, you know, and I think that some of what we're talking there about well being it's also about somebody mentioned it like psychological safety that, you know, when we have people on sites that they are, they feel comfortable to say, I don't feel like this is a safe environment, or I don't feel like this is safe behavior. And whether or not they're wrong, it shouldn't matter. You know, if it doesn't, and they should feel confident that will stand behind them. And we'll say that's fine. You didn't feel safe in that environment. And you were right to call it out, right to get it checked, right to have people to take a step back. That's a big thing we talked about, take a step back, have a think about it again, make sure you're comfortable, and then see see how we can go ahead. And again, I

Helen Hughes  13:31

forgot to mention in this act on that site, there were two fatalities. So it was selling prophecies. So these are a lot better now. Thank goodness.

Dusty Rhodes  13:40

Well, thankfully, we're not the days I remember when I was visiting New York and the Empire State Building, and it said there was one fatality per floor. Anyway, listen, let's move away from that and chat about kind of moving up the ladder as it were. Because I mean, you both have a great perspective from from a management role. And that's kind of what I wanted to tap into on the on the podcast today. And somebody who's kind of listening kind of want to move up, or how do I do it? Or what's the best way? Or what are shortcuts or one of the, you know, kinds of proven techniques is those kinds of things I want to find out about, I kind of started with your self, Julian, what advice would you have for someone who wants to move up the ladder in engineering?

Jillian Bolton  14:18

Yeah, I would, I would say, making sure that you're looking up and you're looking out, and also saying, making sure that you're are saying yes to to being asked to do various different things that may not, as far as you're concerned, be solely related to the role that you're doing now. So, you know, engineering, like Helen was saying earlier, it's there's so many different disciplines. Now there's so many different aspects and it's not just purely doing the design that's in front of you on or on the computer, I suppose more to the point now, from from my perspective in the industry, you know, there's work on tendering and getting new work and engaging with clients and, and then there's all the whole people management side, like we still need to run all of that people perspective. And it's. And it's not just in isolation of a project. So I would say it's saying yes to other things that may not be just purely in the little engineering phase fixed fields that you're in. But it's also looking up from what you're doing at the moment. That's what I would always say you've got to know not not to know, but you've got to keep be aware of what else is going on within your organization or within your sector, and even within the wider infrastructure, infrastructure sector.

Dusty Rhodes  15:36

Helen, what advice would you have for somebody wanting to move up?

Helen Hughes  15:39

Well, I'd echo Julian's advice about volunteering, being open to learning. And really that links in with, you know, CPD that engineers Ireland encourages. So we're moving beyond competence, that's just taken as a given. So then the other area is very much networking, you have to network with people in your field and outside your field, to learn, and you know, that they that you always learn from networking, and unconsciously network. And you can use engineers, Ireland, for different conferences. Networking is key visibility, you need to be visible, it's not good enough in really good at your job and expecting somebody to tap on your shoulder and say, Yeah, this is the job for you. So you take a proactive approach to your career development, and not waiting for somebody to suggest something to you in that area, then you need to eventually say, well, I need to learn some of the softer skills, too, if you want to go up we and I about 10 years ago, I did training from technical experts to leadership. So a lot of that engineers do that transition to being technical, competent, and now they want to be competent in management. So that's a huge area as well.

Dusty Rhodes  17:00

So when you're saying, you can't wait for somebody to tap you on the shoulder, you've got to go out and get it. So that's kind of like you're almost you're almost need to advertise, I want to move on in the career, I want to go places I want to do better than where I am now. But a lot of people would feel that seems very egotistical of me, or people will look at me and they go, oh, man, look at look, look at your man or your woman and big head on her and you know, kind of all that kind of stuff. How do you do it in a sensible way? Helen?

Helen Hughes  17:30

Well, you don't want to be a pain in the neck either. Exactly. Balance between? Well, volunteering, I think, as Julian said, you know, do give a talk, if there's they're looking for lunchtime talks in your organization. For for younger engineers have volunteered to do things. So write a paper, do an article for you know, to put in your head, I had a exalts thing for a committee in work, you know, whether it's the health and safety committee or the the pyramid committee, whatever committee just just get out of your comfort zone. Julian,

Jillian Bolton  18:12

it's about being visible. It's not that you have to say I want to be this or I want to be last but equally, it might be somebody saying, Oh, I really need help, urgently. What's with such and such a thing that's maybe not quite day to day day job. Yeah, I'll help i No problem. And then you're, you, you become more seen within your organization, you become seen within your within your team. And when other when opportunities come through to your managers or to senior people within the within your, your organization, they'll think, oh, Helen was really helpful. And she was really, she put herself up, but she put herself out there. And I'd really like to give her this opportunity. So that that way, for people that maybe aren't quite so outspoken or maybe aren't quite so comfortable pushing themselves up. That's also a way but it still comes back to the part of, you've got to put your head up and you've got to be visible.

Helen Hughes  19:02

Another was showing up. And actually, at any opportunity of a meeting or something. Be somebody who Yeah, recognizes problems, but offer solutions. And I think that's really important that you always are suggesting things, looking at innovative ways of doing things. So really showing up

Jillian Bolton  19:22

even if it's wrong, you know, like, if someone comes to you and says, I have this problem, but I think this might be the answer. That is so much better that someone that just comes in says I have a problem. You think right, well come up with something, even if it's not the right answer, you know, you can help. Yeah, exactly. They've tried and it might just be that they haven't hit on the right thing, or they haven't the right experience to have to come up with the right answer, but at least they've tried and you will recognize that recognizable and valued.

Dusty Rhodes  19:49

What I love about what you are both saying is that you're not just giving this advice to people. This is stuff that's happened to you and this is stuff that you've done, and the proof is there. I mean, you're both doing very well. You in your career, and for myself, networking was always a mystery to me. What is networking? How do you do it? And then eventually I twigged? It's, as you say, it's showing up and meeting somebody. Hello, how are you? Yeah, I'm Dusty. And you are. Networking is people you've met. And it's as simple as that. You don't have to be friends or you don't have to be, you know, sucking up to them all the time or whatever. It's literally just somebody you've met. And as you said, Julian, them when they're looking for somebody, the goal was then what was the name of that fella that we met or whatever, like, you know, so, but then away from the networking and kind of the advice that you have for people moving up the ladder? What about the actual path? Going into management? What does that look like?

Jillian Bolton  20:43

So I'm originally a civil engineer. And so I kind of moved from, I guess, a purely technical civil engineering approach into kind of contract documents, and then into project management, then some of the some of the sort of softer skills that Helen mentioned, and that sort of managerial skills around people in management and, you know, engagement around progressing, the progressing our business and growth of our business sort of, was more visible to me and more available to me, and I took those opportunities to go on to them. So that's how it worked for me. I mean, I don't know, it depends, you know, you've got kind of, we would also have very senior heads of discipline, you know, who would still be very technical people, but that would be equally a managerial role. But my role is more operational. And I, you know, I manage our team, I support them from a people perspective, but I also support them from a delivery of projects and programs from a, like a project director or an oversight role, as well. And I'm responsible for that, you know, for the delivery and the growth of those, those programs of work. So that's how that's, that's, that was my route. But I think there's probably lots of different ones. And, and it will be different, depending on people's preferential skill set, or their, you know, their what they do really well. So obviously, people that go into more of a head of discipline, managerial role are obviously quite knowledgeable technical experts.

Dusty Rhodes  22:16

Does that sound familiar to you, Helen? Or did you have a different path progressing into management?

Helen Hughes  22:22

It's a very gradual process. So it normally starts with having one or two people reporting to you. And then you learning people management skills gradually, and, and then eventually, then if you've a larger team of six people reporting to me, then you, you hone that skill, and you learn how to get the best out of people and how to understand their different perspectives and managing different personalities.

Dusty Rhodes  22:47

When you say it's a gradual process. It makes it sound like it's very long. I mean, how long does it take to get into mode? Are you a dog in like, a year, two years, five years, 10 years?

Jillian Bolton  22:58

I don't think people necessarily go, you know, people start in our sector as engineers, and that's what they want to do. It's what I think it's a good point, like, you might as well hold on, like, we're still originally engineers. And not all engineers will make good people managers. So you've got it.

Helen Hughes  23:17

I'm managing archaeologists and environmental scientists, people who are editing, you aren't engineers. So it's being hired to manage people that are beyond not in your area of specialty is a key skill. That doesn't matter that I know, people about archaeology, although I'm learning a lot, I can manage the archaeology team because i Manager, even though it's like expertise are good.

Jillian Bolton  23:41

That's an like, projects have so many range of disciplines in design as a project manager, or as a manager, you can't understand all of them, but you need to just be able to know how to get the best out of the people on your team.

Helen Hughes  23:53

And just to know how much that you need to know. So that we have, you know, in any need to core core core information, you don't need to go into the weeds. So it's keeping that a high level overview, but not losing the important facts, which is, as he get more and more I used to remember when a famous politician saying I just want an a4 sheet of you know, briefed and I understand that more and more as a result.

Dusty Rhodes  24:21

We all get into engineering for our own various, you know, reasons for getting into engineering, but then when you're moving into management, it's almost like a completely different skill. What kind of have learning is there for people who want to develop their career and go into management?

Helen Hughes  24:37

Well, there's lots of courses out there, you know, I would suggest, you know, doing to sort of diplomas whether it's in project management, or management or leadership, so it's a lot of different courses available and, and I've been lucky enough to do several leadership training courses, which have really helped me develop That's, and we've done it and you learn so much from the other people that you're doing the courses with, and that they're really vital.

Dusty Rhodes  25:08

What would you say is one of the most valuable things that you learned?

Helen Hughes  25:13

Self awareness?

Dusty Rhodes  25:16

In what sense? Explain that to me.

Helen Hughes  25:18

You just knowing your strengths and weaknesses, and yeah, what areas you need to work on in your own personal personal development, because that has a huge impact on the people around you very important,

Jillian Bolton  25:28

really important actually, to know what you're good at and what or when you need to let other people step in.

Dusty Rhodes  25:34

Julian there seems to be a constant need and a certainly a constant drive for learning and progressing and getting new skills and stuff. Do you find that constant need for learning exhausting?

Jillian Bolton  25:46

Well, no, I'm exhausted. But that could be loads of other things. Know, because, because it's exciting. You know, like, we talked about earlier on about how disciplines are changing, you know, that the sector is changing with all that. What was really interesting with Alan was saying, buy cars having 5g, I never would have even thought of that. But that whole digital piece is moving so quickly. But it comes back to the point about knowing your own skill set. And so there are people that will be really knowledgeable and educated and expert in those areas, and whose skill set maybe is more aligned as the sort of newer disciplines come on board, or more aligned to lining with them. But to the point that Alan was making as a manager, as a project manager, it's your job to get the best out of those people. And that's a different skill in terms of understanding how to get the best out of them. So it's, it's it's a yeah, that, that leadership is, is a constant learning. And I find a lot of it is learning as you're learning as you're doing. And as you're having more visibility in different parts of your own organization, like Colin was talking about being on the executive board, and I, but when I move into different levels, you know, you can, you can see, and you can get a little intimidated at first and think, oh, right, while I'm a long way from there, but that's fine, because you have just moved into that area, and you need to listen and learn to see how everybody else behaves doesn't mean you need to behave as they do. But understand what take what you need from that to develop your own skill set and move it on. But it's exciting to see like there's so much to go, I

Helen Hughes  27:26

just it's definitely not exhausting, because of the the opposite would be true, you'd be exhausted. And you'd be so bored. So a lifelong learning is part of life for everybody. And even when I'm retired and like you can't, but openness to to new learning is key.

Dusty Rhodes  27:45

Well, let's leave it there for today. Helen Hughes and Gillian Bolton, thank you so much for joining us on our podcast. Thank you.

Helen Hughes  27:52

Thank you very much.

Dusty Rhodes  27:55

If you'd like to find out more about Helen and Jillian and some of the topics that we spoke about today, you'll find notes and link details in the show notes area on your player right now. And of course, you'll find more information and exclusive advanced episodes of our Engineers Ireland Amplified podcast on our website at engineersireland.ie. Our podcast today was produced by DustPod.io for Engineers Ireland. If you'd like more episodes, do click the Follow button on your podcast player to get access to all our past and future shows automatically. Until next time from myself Dusty Rhodes. Thank you for listening

Female engineers represent just 12% of the profession in Ireland. With International Women In Engineering Day upon us, how can we encourage more young women to join the industry?

What would a workforce with a better gender balance look like? How could the industry benefit from the unique skills and attributes of women that can often be missed in male dominated spaces?

Today we’re speaking to two female professionals who excel in the space of safety and sustainability, and are passionate about highlighting the variety and creativity available in an Engineering career. They are chartered civil engineer and artist Regina Clery, and safety specialist and experienced auditor Mary Foley.

Listen below or on your podcast player!

Things we spoke about

01:53 How to recruit young women into engineering

08:39 Better representation of female engineers

10:45 Safety measures in action

15:17 Why prevention is better than a cure

19:10 Staying on top of changing environments

23:40 Sustainable development goals

26:56 Applying safety to other industries

31:56 Everyone is responsible for safety

Guest details

Regina Clery

Having first started out as an Art & Design student, and now an Engineer, Regina Clery  is interested in projects that involve a range of technologies, culture & art to deliver STEM data across multi-disciplinary audiences.

Regina is a Chartered Engineer CEng MIEI - currently working in Transport (railroad & structures) with previous roles as a Civil Engineer in the Construction Industry, Third Level Education Program Coordinator of Civil Engineering and as a Third Level Lecturer - teaching Mechanical and Civil engineering, Building Construction, Environmental Sustainability and Renewable Energy.

Regina is passionate about Environmental Sustainability & Intrinsic Ecosystems, where the built environment meets the natural world. She is a Master of Science in Sustainable Energy and Green Technologies focused on development & optimisation of renewable energy resources, life cycle analysis & efficiency in power generation, mitigation of environmental impacts, plant biotechnology & business innovation.

Mary Foley

MaryFoley  is a Safety Professional with exceptional cross-industry experience in Pharma, Biopharma, and general industry manufacturing spanning almost 25 years.   She has vast experience in planning and Safety Management and in developing Major Accident Plans for many of the County Councils.  She is experienced in working closely with regulatory bodies as well as charities and planning authorities across a number of EMEA territories.  

Mary is an experienced Auditor with over 10 years of Experience as Lead Auditor. She is the author of National Industry standards and has advised at Government level on developing Safety Management Systems for sections of industry previously unregulated.  She has created and contributed to Risk and Risk Management Programs for numerous Irish companies, government departments, multi-nationals and National Governing Bodies. She is an entertaining public speaker and a highly competent expert Witness with experience in both the Circuit and High Court.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/foley-safety-solutions/ 

More information

Looking for ways to explore or advance a career in the field of engineering? Visit Engineers Ireland to learn more about the many programs and resources on offer. https://www.engineersireland.ie/

Engineers Journal AMPLIFIED is produced by DustPod.io for Engineers Ireland.

Quotes

In general, women have a really, really good follow through. I also know that their attention to detail, in my experience, has been much, much better. And I think in my industry specifically, that's so important. - Mary Foley

I started off in art college and in fashion design, and now I'm an engineer. Nobody could have told me at that stage of my life that I was going to be an engineer, I wouldn't have believed it. The link is how to create and fix problems. You have to get into the schools and get them at an early age to attract women into these industries and show them that they can do this, that women are already doing it. - Regina Clery

Engineers Ireland has been incredible in terms of providing us with continuing professional development, new stuff coming down the track, new information. We absolutely have to stay on top of it all time, because it's ever moving, ever changing and thankfully ever improving. - Mary Foley

Prevention is always better than a cure, but unfortunately, people have this image that safety is expensive. It's not as expensive as a claim, but a claim isn't the be all and end all. It's the personal injury, the pain, the loss, the suffering, the everything else. You should be looking after your people. - Mary Foley

There's a huge drive at the moment, particularly with the sustainable development goals. A lot of companies know they should work towards becoming an SDG champion, which is rare nowadays. Maintaining safety in the workplace, the well being of employees, having wellbeing programs, and even gender equality, all those things make your workplace safer. - Regina Clery

When we're talking about longevity, changes need to be made to acknowledge that the female body needs particular sizing to comfortably wear PPE. There's no such thing really as unisex PPE, especially when it comes to protective equipment.  - Regina Clery

Transcription

For your convenience, we include an automated AI transcription

Dusty Rhodes  00:01

right now and amplified the engineers journal podcast, we're about to discover how to engineers are striving to keep us safe every single day.

Regina Clery  00:11

Somebody who's very curious, otherwise nosy. I'm describing myself. Since I was a kid. I always wanted to know how does that work?

Mary Foley  00:24

The underpinning for me would be somebody who is a problem solver. Somebody who can see an issue and find a workaround find a way in which it can be made to work safely and cost effective.

Dusty Rhodes  00:39

Hi, there, my name is Dusty Rhodes and welcome to amplified the engineers journal podcast. Often, safety regulations only make the news when something has gone wrong, but what about all of the ways that they keep us safe? From trains planes construction sites to leisure centers, we're faced with an unlimited number of risks and hazards every day that are analyzed and managed by the unsung heroes of safety. Today, we're going to find out how people in the field are consistently working and learning to protect us from harm, and why strict regulations and codes are necessary to keep our infrastructure operating smoothly. To find out more about this, we're joined by two professionals who have excelled in the space of safety. From Foley safety solutions. We have a safety professional and experienced auditor, who has worked across numerous industries and advised at government level on developing safety management systems for unregulated industries. Mary Foley, you're very welcome.

Mary Foley  01:38

Thank you so much dusty, thank you.

Dusty Rhodes  01:40

Also, joining us is a chartered civil engineer and artist who works with Irish rail, and has a vision that aims to achieve global environmental sustainability. Regina Cleary, you're welcome.

Regina Clery  01:51

Thanks very much for having me dusty.

Dusty Rhodes  01:53

We've got lots to talk today about safety. But before we do, can I just take a moment to ask you about engineering overall, as an industry? Mary, I'll start with you. Because as a CEO, you'll have experience of this, whenever I'm speaking to CEOs on the podcast, they're always have struggles with staff, I bet without even saying what those struggles are, you can tell me what they are.

Mary Foley  02:17

Well, you've got your staff retention is a huge issue, the balance, the gender balance within that is an issue. So and then, you know, any CEO in any company, you know, unless you've got a really, really strong HR department, you know, you've got a nightmare in your hands.

Dusty Rhodes  02:34

And tell me more about the gender balance. Why where does that sit in your head?

Mary Foley  02:39

Well, in my head, no disrespect, present company excluded, of course. Just in general, women have really, really good follow through, you know, we develop a plan, and we follow through on it. I also know that they're very, very, their attention to detail, in my experience has been much, much better. And I think in my industry specifically, that's so important. And attention to detail and follow through,

Regina Clery  03:11

I think I'd have to second that, Mary. Yeah, I did a little bit of lecturing in Australia for years, and I had the predominantly I was teaching male students, and maybe there might be three females in the class. But that attention to detail always stood out, particularly with the females in the class. And that work, not that the work ethic was terribly different. But definitely, like you said, you describe it as the follow through and the ability to communicate as well, we're already conditioned or expected to communicate well. So that probably underpins our attention to detail. I know working with Irish rail, they've put their hands up as well and acknowledged that there is a problem, there's a gap in that the gender gender in the workplace. And they've acknowledged that there's 10%, females working across Irish rail. And they plan to at least double that by 2030, to try and fix that gender gap. And already, I think there's something wrong 56% of the intake of graduates into the company, have been female this year. So they're already making that those steps those waves to practically not just for the sake of the profile of the company, but to actually make those steps to start making that change. And it's not an easy one, to to change. But you have to physically allow or physically target those audiences, those particular schools and to make them make girls and women young women are aware that you're actually hiring and to say that in your advertisement in your marketing to say that females or women are welcome to apply.

Dusty Rhodes  04:50

So Regina, let me ask you then how would you encourage women who are considering a career in engineering what what would be the carrot you dangle

Regina Clery  04:59

out? We're like that I have that same experience when I was lecturing in Australia, in Perth, there was a government wide initiative there for the same thing to get more women into STEM roles in particular. So we realized the research that we did that we had to go to the schools and not just to transition your leaving cert that we have here. But to get them at a young age into the primary schools into the first second year of secondary schools, and to present ourselves to come as women who are working in the science of tech, the mathematical side of, you know, the industries, the workplace is there that are predominantly held, they're all They're held by men. So it just for I suppose you like that thing, just to be it, you have to see it. And I started off in our college and in fashion design, and now I'm an engineer, nobody could have told me at that stage of my life, that I was going to be an engineer, I wouldn't have believed it if he told me. So moving from fashion design and holding on to that curiosity of design and process and how things are made. I was always interested in architecture and design and garments. And that's the link is how to create and fix problems and how to make it fit the people that you're designing for civil engineering. And designing building infrastructures is the exact same thing in my mind as designing a garment or a dress or a parachutes. You have to make it fit and suit the people that you're designing for. So yeah, you have to get into the schools and get them at an early age to attract the women into these industries to show them that they can do this, that the women are already doing it. And also to promote and market it and use that particular language and be specific, and invite women women into the companies that are at the moment dominated by males or by men marry,

Dusty Rhodes  06:50

when you are recruiting, do you do anything in particular, to encourage women to consider a career in engineering?

Mary Foley  06:58

I don't have to agree there with Regina. Like, we don't get enough applicants. And I don't think women are not among them. But I don't think you know, at school and when the kids are still in school, I don't think they're grasping kind of the variety of roles that engineering presents. And your story is just a perfect example of that, that technically, you're doing the same thing that you wanted to do when you were leaving theropods. You're doing it in a different with a different focus, so to speak. But it's still the same, it's still the same concept.

Regina Clery  07:28

And your ice? Yeah,

Mary Foley  07:30

I mean, mine is mine is the same, like it's still taking it and you can take safety engineering and bring it to literally any industry. Yeah, and the same rules will always apply, you know, the same risk management concept is always going to be the same. I mean, I, when I do hire, I kind of I do pay a lot of attention to feedback that I'm getting from, you know, previous people they've worked with previously or with, you know, where they've had experience with a they've been, we do a lot of training, a lot of safety training, a lot of kind of consultancy work. So I would testimonials are very important to me, and, you know, feedback from previous experiences and so forth. And I don't think women are looking for it. I mean, does this concept out here virgin and true, you'll agree with this. As women, we're not looking for special treatment? No, we're not looking to only work mornings. No, we're not looking to have right as well. You know what I mean? We're perfectly prepared to work, you know, 5060 hours a week if needs be together to race. We're just as hard working and there's no special treatment

Regina Clery  08:35

just as resilient. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Dusty Rhodes  08:39

I think it's really interesting because we're recording the podcast in the same month as International Women in Engineering Day. And I think it's getting better to see more women in engineering if you look at any engineering website now they're all using stock photos of women and men on site and stuff like that.

Mary Foley  08:54

I just drew a bunch of stock photos referenced there a moment ago dusty though you don't advise me absolutely not. So I do some news, you know, makeup like the testimonies out there is no woman on earth with looks like that on the building play. Yeah, I

Regina Clery  09:12

can tell you, Mary and I, especially the last year, what feedback I gave some feedback to my own company tires rear and I advise to use the people who are already working in the company, for those photographs for marketing. So now, I suppose I was already holding my hand up to take part of and to so only recently I've had a photographer follow me in my everyday work and role and I'm not I mean, my orange hive is working on track. And we we attended the I wish event in the RDS which was about getting more young girls and women into STEM roles. And there was a poster bigger than myself of my of me and my hive is standing on a platform and And like that they've acknowledged what you just said, Mary is that it's very important to make it look real as it is. We can of course go in with our nails painted if we so choose. But we're not like that every day, we're there working. And we've to wear PPE the same as everybody else. I have my hard hat on some of the days. And yes, you get to duck in just like everybody else. And you're not always going to come home the same way you left the house. Part of the message I'd like to give you know not to be should assume that women will be afraid to do these roles. Because we are well able to pick up the equipment and the tools and the shovels. And do as men do climb the ladders. And you know, it's it's no different. Yeah,

Dusty Rhodes  10:45

let's let's chat about safety. I think a lot of people underestimate the importance of safety. I mean, we seldom hear things like, you know, bridge collapses, there was one huge one in Italy a couple of years ago. However, catastrophes when things like that do make the headlines, Regina, I'm just thinking of yourself. When I think of bridges and trains and stuff like that. How would you balance that kind of bad news, if you like with some everyday examples of consistent use of services that work seamlessly and safely,

Regina Clery  11:13

every single day that I go to work safety underpins what I do every single day, before we even begin our work, we have our safety briefing or Method Statements, we're all trained we have we take a personal track safety course, that's the first ticket that you get to make sure that you know that you are responsible for your own safety, it takes could take a train up to 800 to a kilometer and a half to stop a fast train. That's the level of risk. And that's important for the public to know as it is for an employee working on the track. So your personal safety and the safety of the team you're working with is first and the most important thing that you have to have in your head before you start your work. And as you continue to work throughout the day. And the objectives is to get everybody home safely not just to complete the work as prescribed, but to get everybody on safely first and foremost. So when it comes to the actual infrastructure and the interface with the general public or members of the public, one of the things that we monitor every day is say vehicles traveling under bridges. And often a vehicle might get stuck, or what we might we call it a bridge strike. And the most important thing that a member of the public can do in that instance, is to use the phone number that's on the side of the bridge and contact us immediately. And give the number of the bridge so that we have the location. And straightaway then we will send out a team to remove the vehicle if necessary, and help that member public to do the right thing. And to also stop all trains that that's above that bridge, to make sure that people passengers traveling on that train and that train whether passengers are on or not, is safe to continue on its journey or to stop it until it is safe to continue. So that's something that we monitor every every single day. Another thing level crossing use, we have Level Crossing Awareness Day. And you'll see I be there my high veers along with other members of colleagues of mine throughout the country will be at certain level crossings where we want to set pedestrians to be more aware of vehicle use or to be more aware of how to properly and safely use the level crossing. One of the things that we'll say is for pedestrians in particular, take out your airboats. If you're listening to music, take out the air pods, take off the headphones, be aware of the wind and how sound is traveling. You need to listen for the horn of the train, the movement of the train coming towards you if you to look up and down the track before you cross it and stay at least two meters away from the nearest rail when the train has passed, and if there's barriers, if the barriers are going up, way to the top and waiting, the lights start flashing, some people tend to go when the barriers are up, but the lights are still flashing. So stop, wait for the lights stop flashing for those extra moments. And make sure it's safe to cross before you do. Keep your dogs and lead. Be aware that your prime is in front of you. So make sure the prime is two meters away from the rail and not just you. And yeah, overall just be aware of your surroundings. Why wine down the window of the car, if you're stuck to the car so that you can hear properly what's going on, turn off your radio and just simple things that people might might not necessarily be common sense. I absolutely don't take it for granted there isn't a train just because you can see it the hearing to look a few times up and down before you cross and to not stop in the middle of the crossing either to keep going down to your off the far side of the crossing as well. So yeah, that's something they're things that we are aware of that we have to manage along with our everyday maintenance work is the at that interface with the members of the public. We want me to keep the railway safe for everybody, all users.

Dusty Rhodes  14:58

So a lot of safety then is preventative measures and simple instructions to people. And when you think it through Mary, how about industries outside of rail now that are lacking in safety measures that could could do a little bit more of this thinking? How do you how do they identify potential hazards?

Mary Foley  15:17

Well, hopefully this industry is kind of outside of the ones we've discussed, would, you know, the, the whole safety management system has to be based around risk assessment, and risk assessment, it has to be based on two formats, you've got the possibility of it occurring, whatever the risk might be risk realizing itself. And so and then the severity of the outcome, if it did happen, and generally speaking, it'd be a near miss, that will actually trigger them getting more help bringing in somebody from outside to assist them. Sometimes it's too late, sometimes it's after something has happened when somebody's lost a finger at the top of the finger, or whatever it might be. But generally speaking, from my experience, as a professional, I'm generally been brought in, after the stable door has been left open, and a lot of my work will be first of all, close and stable door making sure no other horses are going to get out. And then you know, setting up the systems and procedures to make sure that there won't be any additional accidents, you know, and always always want to get precise, I find that it's not always the reason they rang me that and therefore, that I will actually find maybe half a dozen different other reasons why I need to be there and things need to be addressed. You know, the, the Prevention is always better than cure. But unfortunately, people have this image, just do the safety is expensive. It's not as expensive as a claim. And I mean, a claim isn't the be all and end all. It's the personal injury, the pain, the loss, the suffering, the everything else in your family. That's really what was meant to prevent. It's not a claim, the claim is the easiest and cheapest part of it. Some people say or don't want to claim, that's not what you should be looking at. You should be looking, you know, looking after your people,

Dusty Rhodes  17:08

very if you're an engineer, and you know, part of your day is going to be thinking about safety, but how can you just change your mindset to kind of up your game? When you're thinking about safety and preventing things from happening in the first place? What advice would you give an engineer,

Mary Foley  17:24

I would always say to look at the two kinds of risks. So look at the foreseeable ones, which are, you know, you would expect in, you know, any business and then you got the unforeseeable ones, the ones that I would call site specific. And I would say to look at that, and always, always, always expect the unexpected, you can never allow for things that people will do, you know, and I haven't been I haven't, you know, investigated so many accidents now, across a number of industries. But one in particular just jumps to mind there. Where when we train somebody to respond in a certain way, and you train them and train them and train them. And then they will respond exactly as you trained them. So sometimes you need to look at the training and say, okay, is this what I want them to do? If this outcome occurs, what springs to mind is strictly a case where I was investigating an accident, I would had a happy ending, the casualty survived. But where we had a lifeguard, jumping into the water swimming across the pool, and then bringing the casualty the whole way back up the pool again, before they took them out of the water stance and solicitation in general, because that's what we trained them to do. So I think we need to maybe look at our training and say, Okay, if this hazard realized, and the risk associated with our hazard, realize is the training that I've given them going to have the desired outcome. You know, so I will be looking at the receivables, the unforeseeable and then looking at the training and saying, Okay, if this happens, will that training, cover every eventualities?

Dusty Rhodes  19:10

What can I ask them? How should an engineer to think about these things? Because the environments that you're both working in, I mean, everything is constantly changing and evolving around us. I mean, how I'll start with Regina, how do you stay on top of new hazards and changing regulation?

Regina Clery  19:25

Well, even just on a daily or a few hours in that day, for you, you've set up your I'm a truck safety coordinator. It's another level of safety that I'm training for. I'm looking after a group of people who are working trackside, like Mary mentioned earlier. And so one of the things you're looking out for as part of your training, if you've set up a safe method statement, say, method statement for carrying out your work safely. And one of the things you're looking out for is if that changes, if the weather changes for instance, if the it underfoot conditions have changed, maybe there's more water all of a sudden than there had been when you first started. So I would have given my safety briefing before we came on to the site. So if that safety briefing briefing would have been based on what I see, on the morning of or before work starts, and safe access and egress from the site that might change. And so if we're doing our work or coming out of work, any of those conditions change, then I would have to stop the works, take people aside and to re brief according to the new conditions. So you're constantly as an engineer, not just carrying out the work. But you're also looking at your environment around you, and you're monitoring those changes, you're looking at the people who are working in your group as well, you're looking for any signs of fatigue, or dehydration, things like that, that you might think as part of an engineering role. But you're all you're keeping an eye on everything as best that you can, along with other colleagues that you have in safety roles alongside you, there's levels of safety within that safe system of work is the term I was looking for earlier. So there's levels of safety when I say system work, and there's more than just me as a track safety auditor, we've other engineers in positions of safety as well. And everybody acknowledges that they're responsible for their own safety as well, they all have their PTS, and they all have their they all sign off for that before they've come two sides. So yeah, it's constant monitoring, and you have to maintain your currency by their engineer or chartered engineer, you have to maintain your currency, and make sure that you're up to date is not enough to take a once off safety training course, you have to do that repetitively. And you it's, it's unlike that you've trained somebody to do something once, but to train them over and over again. So they automatically do what you they're trained to do. I was in the reserve defense forces for 11 years. And one of the things that I took away from that was that repetitive training, training again, and again and again, so that when something happens, straight away, you just switch on and you do the right thing. The right thing being the thing that you were trained to do.

Mary Foley  22:15

If I could jump in there, actually, if you don't mind, Regina, because you raised a very interesting point there. And that's, you know, the needs, people sometimes say, oh, safety, that's, that's our job. It's not safety is absolutely everybody's role. Absolutely everybody. And we don't have to train them realistically, in safety, because we all do it automatically. We all get into the car in the morning, and we risk assess the driveway onto the main road to see you know, whether or not I can pull out here, it's safe to pull over on us. So we're always risk assessing in our lives all the time. So most people that come second nature to them, what's the point of work, the dynamic point of work, risk assessment is really, really, really important skill, the ability to be able to recognize the conditions have changed, and to be able to do this dynamic risk assessment or be it in your head and say, Okay, no, it's unsafe, we need to stop what we're doing. You know, so

Regina Clery  23:13

offset,

Mary Foley  23:14

I think it's, I think safety, it needs to be kind of across the board. And just going back to your question there. Dusty, I suppose I should have been incredible engineers, Ireland, incredible, in terms of providing us with kind of a continuing professional development, new stuff coming down the track new information. And yet, we absolutely have to stay on top of it all time, because it's ever moving, ever changing and thankfully ever improving.

Regina Clery  23:40

There's a huge drive at the moment, particularly with the sustainable development goals. And I'm on the committee for the for setting up the forums with the Department of my environment for this sustainable, Sustainable Development Goals, which there are 17 of, and God three is in good health and well being and future work and health and safety in the workplace comes down to that goal. And working towards that. A lot of companies know they should work towards becoming an SDG champion, which is rarely nowadays. But all of that maintaining safety in the workplace, and the well being of employees having wellbeing programs, and even gender equality, all those things make your workplace safer. So all like Mary said engineers, Ireland, all those governing bodies, Department of Environmental communications, are have that information there and guidance there to help workplaces get this going or to be more focused on reporting it and how they're progressing along the way. So the information is there. And I suppose to make time to acknowledge these initiatives there is important as well as your day to day work as an engineer. I do so a lot of that work. I do it as part of being a chartered engineer outside of my day to day work. I do it as voluntary work, and to, I suppose share the knowledge of the SDGs and how At the well being and code of ethics and yeah, any regulations that have changed? Yeah.

Dusty Rhodes  25:05

The things you brought it up Regina, about sustainability, what changes would you like to see in the engineering sector specifically to ensure sustainability and longevity.

Regina Clery  25:15

Specifically, I'd bring it back to basics. When we're talking about longevity, longevity, and I've already mentioned gender, and we started the conversation very early on with them mentioning the gender gap, and particularly with PPE, professional protective equipment, changes need to be made and acknowledged that women the female body needs particular sizing to comfortably wear the PPE that's there available. There's no such thing really as unisex PPE, especially when it comes to protective equipment. In my role, I'm crouching down, I'm climbing ladders, I'm up and down embankments and bridges. My PPE needs to be safe for me to wear uncomfortable for me to wear to carry out my job safely. So I think a lot of workplaces are starting to acknowledge this, that there is a difference, especially in footwear as well between male and female footwear. So for even to retain the women who are working in engineering roles, we need to see those changes made sooner, the better. So that we feel comfortable and welcome in the jobs that we're in. And simple things, bring it back to the basics, that PPE access to toileting facilities that are suitable for the female body, simple things like that will promote more women in the industry in the engineering dose, and also for the longevity of the industry. And to get more women involved in engineering. It doesn't it's not going to take a lot of thinking on a technology, what's already there that we need to change

Dusty Rhodes  26:44

other small things on sustainability marry and away from safety. They talk to me about cultured meat, that the you know where it's meat has grown in a in a lab, that's of a particular interest to you, isn't it?

Mary Foley  26:56

It is it is. And that was one that I came across while working with a tobacco company, an American company there, they're based off and for my it was there that I came across it but it's actually quite, you know, advanced in terms of the research in the meat can be grown in a bioreactor from literally only a few cells. And to me, the hobbyists dilute the obvious use of that would be to provide food and nutrition and a high protein dense product to the starving millions in the worlds and I suppose breaks my heart to a certain extent that where that research and where all that effort is going is more providing for you know, multinational companies, so they can offer a meat free burger. No, it was fascinating to me for eating from the outset, it's you can roughly kind of generate about 500 pounds of protein meat in the bioreactor in a day. But body evac we're trying to do in tandem with a company called good meats, and the US was to size it up to actually build bioreactors big enough to be able to scale us to the point where it was possible to literally feed the world, you know, where we would have, you know, the capacity to generate huge amounts of this product. But to me, you know, guys sorry, if we're if we're if we're developing products like this, which will be absolutely life changing for people, we really need to be drilling down and focusing it down to the areas which needs most not kind of offering new products to already are referred Europeans and Americans.

Dusty Rhodes  28:40

It sounds like an enormous job to be kind of growing these things in a in a lab compared to you know, kind of doing it the natural way, if you like, what's the difference in cost is a huge cost saving doing it that way,

Mary Foley  28:54

there is a huge time saving element to it. There's the fact that, you know, you're not having to slaughter you know, 1000s of animals and millions of animals. And I suppose you've got, you know, those animals while they're still you know, being you know, fed and watered and everything there's you got your greenhouse gases and so forth that is being you know, as a result of the Capitol. So, I mean, the knock on effect is huge. But it the main thing is that, if they can scale it up to the level that they were trying to scale it to, and get it as automated as they were Yes, as they were making it to be that we would have the capacity as a world to be able to generate foods to feed the whole world. You know, in terms of kind of proteins, high dense protein.

Regina Clery  29:43

It's an interesting it's an interesting concept. I wasn't aware of Marian, I suppose. I'm not an all or nothing kind of person. I like to mix different systems into one and not just rely on a particular system. So be I suppose It'll be interesting to see that implemented. And when I hear you scale up straightaway, and going back to our masters and sustainable energy and going right scaling up and looking at lifecycle analysis, and you mentioned carbon emissions and things like that, as a civil engineer, I'm thinking of the amount of energy that you'd put into something like that, versus is it going to reach a net zero, kind of at the end? Today, we're talking about electricity, how its generated? What are the materials we're using to create, build these plants? And then yes, we're not slaughtering the animals, but there is going to be some kind of emission coming from the plant itself, in helping that material to grow the non meat or meat to grow. And I suppose I'm then I'm thinking of yet there's some we're talking about biodiversity, some systems rely on animals on the land as well for the sake of biodiversity. So it's a huge system, the lifecycle of that system, where it does end killed, cradle to gate the call it? How sure, are we that it's a good thing and doesn't have bad side effects? But surely, we can certainly improve the systems that we already have. But I don't think there's any quick fix. But for certainly, like you said, they continue to feed the people who already have the food doesn't work. And as it is, you know, a lot of the staple foods that are grown in South America are be shipped over to the Europeans and creased the cost of the staples that the South Americans might have otherwise, for the sake of veganism, there are the very interesting conversations, but increase emissions at the same time. So, you know, environment versus feeding, the fewer, I don't know, it's hard to be sure of the outcome, whether it's positive or negative.

Dusty Rhodes  31:46

Well, you see, these are the big questions that engineers typically tackle stuff. Yeah, Mary, any last point you'd like to make?

Mary Foley  31:56

One thing that we've we've kind of touched on but not kind of hit hit the nail on the head with is that very few employees and regime unifying this as well, very few employees realize that under the 2005 Act, they actually have an obligation to look after their own safety, and the safety of others. And I know trackside safety course focuses very heavily on that. But very few employees realize that they have a legal obligation to look after the safety and safety of others. So I suppose if I was if I was sending any message out anywhere, that would be one of them, you know, to do look out for yourself and safety for yourself and your colleagues. That's really, really important.

Dusty Rhodes  32:36

It's been absolutely fascinating talking to both of you today, and we've gone down avenues that I never expected. And you've brought things into my mind that I never expected to know really, really good stuff. So I just want to say Mary Foley and Regina cherry, thank you so much for joining us on the engineers Ireland podcast. Thank you, Dustin. Thanks for having if you'd like to find out more about Mary and Regina and some of the topics which we spoke about today, you will find notes and link details in the show notes area on your player right now. And of course you'll find more information and exclusive advanced episodes of the engineers Ireland amplified podcast on our website at engineers ireland.ie. Our podcast today was produced by just pod.io for engineers Ireland if you would like more episodes to click the Follow button on your podcast player to get access to all of our past and our future shows automatically. Until next time for myself, Dusty Rhodes. Thank you for listening.

How Sport Can Amplify Your Career

Is mixing the intellectual world of engineering and the physical world of sport, some kind of Venn diagram gone wrong?

Professionals in both need to combine strategy, foresight and expertise with skill and instinct.  If you mix all these qualities into one person, do you get a super-human engineer?

Our guests on the show today share how sport and teamwork helped them excel at engineering. They are engineer and former Mayo GAA star Tom Parsons, and athletic legend Jenna Bromell who is currently a Senior Process Engineer with J&J Vision Care.

Listen below or on your podcast player!

Topics we discussed include

02:09 Tom’s & Jenna’s engineering backgrounds
09:09 Tom and GAA at All Ireland level
12:37 Jenna running for Ireland
13:58 How engineering and sport are similar
15:28 How their own engineering careers were helped by sport
20:10 Focus on performance not just for sport
22:45 How to think better at work
24:10 How to kill work stress
27:15 Commonality between sport and work teams
32:16 Where they get time to do so much
34:40 Getting through tough times at work
36:41 The impact of AI and tech on engineering

Guest details

Jenna Bromell works as a senior process engineer for Johnson & Johnson Vision. During her time at UL, Jenna was a dual student-athlete, a recipient of a UL BEO sports scholarship and was awarded the UL President’s Special Distinction Award for finishing top in engineering in 2019. She has competed for Ireland at the European Junior championships, World Junior championships, European U23 championships, European Team championships and European senior championships. Jenna is currently a committee member of the Engineers Ireland Thomond Region.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenna-bromell-819833192/

Tom Parsons was an engineer with Jacobs, a fortune 500 professional and technical solutions company while also playing at All Ireland Level for Mayo GAA. Outside of Croke Park finals, a career highlight for him was being awarded an honorary Fellow with Engineers Ireland in 2021. Today he serves as CEO of Gaelic Players Association.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-parsons-540/
https://www.gaelicplayers.com/about-us/

More information

Looking for ways to explore or advance a career in the field of engineering? Visit Engineers Ireland to learn more about the many programs and resources on offer. https://www.engineersireland.ie/

Quotes

“Don't underestimate the power of 10 minutes. If you want to exercise for 10 minutes, you can get a valuable session in whether it's in front of your television or out in the garden.”

“The great thing about having sports outside of your work life, is that you are not solely defined by one thing. If work is going great, then I'm an engineer. If not, then I’m a runner! You always have something to be positive about.”

“Businesses are learning from high performance sport and high-performance teams around the world. They're all incorporating those skill sets into the workplace.”

Transcription

For your convenience, here is a 90% accurate AI transcription of the episode.

Dusty Rhodes  0:42 

Hello there, my name is Dusty Rhodes and you’re welcome to Ampliflied, the Engineers Journal podcast. You might think that mixing the intellectual world of engineering with the physical world of sport is some kind of a Venn diagram gone wrong, but actually, they have a lot in common. Professionals in both need to combine strategy, foresight and expertise with skill and instinct. But what happens if you mix all of these qualities into one person? And can that person give us some tips on how we can improve our own day-to-day lives, making work a little easier and a little more creative? To find out more, we have two guests on the podcast today who have excelled at both engineering and sport. Tom Parsons, while working as an engineer was hugely successful with Mayo GAA for over a decade. Today he is CEO of the Gaelic Players Association and a fellow of Engineers Ireland, Tom, you're very welcome.

Tom Parsons  1:41 

Thanks, Dusty. It's great to be on the show, really looking forward to the conversation.

Dusty Rhodes  1:45 

Also joining us is Jenna Bromell, who is a Senior Process Engineer with J&J Vision Care, and also an athlete who's represented Ireland at European and world level. You're very welcome, Jenna.

Jenna Bromell  1:58 

Thank you looking forward to discussion as well. Well, listen,

Dusty Rhodes  2:01 

Let's talk about engineering. First. Tom, you are an engineer with like, massive global firm. Give us a little bit about your background.

Tom Parsons  2:09 

Yeah, dusty. Look, first and foremost, I'm really passionate about engineering. There's so many synergies between engineering and sports between being innovative, creative, teamwork, people projects is great. So I started off my career. Yeah, working with Jacobs engineer and carried off. I had picked up actually an injury in sport at the time, and I had an opportunity to take 12 months off. So I went over to Cardiff and they started working on really improved interest in energy projects. And so we're working on high voltage substations working with a diverse group of engineers from pros from where control engineers, electrical engineers, Civil and Structural Engineer, so it was a real eye opener. And then, you know, throughout my, my, my career, and in sport and engineering, they collided, I moved back to Ireland, then to work with Jacobs, again, in highways and infrastructure and started to work on some Irish projects and some projects in the UK, in Essex, for example, and then I just merged, you know, I found engineering, you know, that over a 12 year period to be fascinating, you know, nearly like candy sharp dosti, the the opportunity to work on different infrastructure projects, which was fantastic. And then I suppose aligned with that was different moves in my sporting career plane were male, living in Dublin, the challenges of getting up and down to me or to represent my county, I, you know, I also represented my country as well, and my club and colleges, and at high levels. So it was just fantastic. And I just always found through the years to so many links between sport and business, particularly when you look at the future of work. So when I started engineering, you know, I started with a Graduate Development Program, predominantly structural engineering, it was all hand calculations. You know, within a few years, it was, it was on an Excel sheet, and it was all software that was sent out to design centers and in other parts of the world. So those skills of being able to work with people, leadership, manage projects, be creative, was so important. And they're all the skills that we learned in sports. So I had a fantastic engineering career, and it's not over by any means of the matter. I was voluntary on the board of the Game Players Association, while I was an engineer with with Jacobs, and in that role revert, we represent 4000 Intercounty athletes in Ireland, men and female athletes, many of whom are engineers, and in two years now in the role as CEO, so it just goes to show the, you know, the skills that you build in engineering are so transferable and I found no run and run and what is essentially a business where you're running A p&l or balance sheet, if you're on a team of 12, you're negotiating with the state you're negotiating with the GA, your design and program. So players have transferable skills that I've learned an engineer. And so I've had a crazy career really enjoyable. Sport has played a huge part in elevating the skills that I've brought to my career and my professional career. And vice versa. You know, I think skills and engineering has supported my sporting career as well.

Dusty Rhodes  5:31 

And Lala synergies which we discover as we go through the podcast, Jenna, he has engineering been in your blood for a long time.

Jenna Bromell  5:38 

Yeah. So what I'd say is that when I was in secondary school, I didn't really know what I wanted to do with the time. And I think that's okay, as well, like, you can't be expected to know what you want to do with the rest of your life when you're only 1718 years of age. So what I did at the time was, I just ask yourself, Do I actually enjoy doing and then I allowed that to dictate my path. So in school, I enjoy doing Applied Maths, Physics, Chemistry, maths, so I'll kind of logic be subjects. And I wanted to go to University of Limerick because it was my, my local university. And that's where it was training as well, so as to suit athletics. And chemical engineering just stood out as a good choice for me because it combined all of those subjects that I enjoyed. So I decided to just go with that. And things worked out because I got an entrance scholarship at the time. Because when even search results and the Noxon Foundation Scholarship, which was hugely helpful. And that also gave me extra opportunities. Like for example, I got to do a business diploma with Harvard Business School, a credential of readiness through that scholarship. So that kind of gave me exposure to the business side. And then I was on Atlantic scholarship as well when I was in UL. So all of these things really helped to support me in trying to achieve my goals, both in engineering and on the rotting track when I was in college, then things get a little bit complicated is when you decide to finish off college go to working, whereas that adds a lot of complications and complexities into creation. So I just decided at the time to just go with the first opportunity that I came across. Again, it was something that was convenient location wise, because I was still training in UL at the time. So I entered the graduate program at Johnson and Johnson vision care, which is just around the corner from us just around the corner where I'm from, so I haven't gone far. Yes, Limerick my whole life. But I love Limerick and I love the opportunities it has brought me. So I'm a big advocate for Limerick long way. So

Dusty Rhodes  7:56 

you're a senior Process Engineer at the moment with j&j. What does the senior process engineer do?

Jenna Bromell  8:03 

So I would say that they're all it's it's very mixed, thrown like No day is the same. You can be constantly given new diverse problems day to day. And I think that's the beauty of the role as well as that you never get bored with us, you know, you always encounter new problems. So I'd say overall, if I'm to describe what I can get off to in that role, it's, you know, it's project management. It's providing process input for new designs, its characteristic characterizing new processes. It's troubleshoot, troubleshooting any yield issues. So if we encounter that there is a particular defects operating at a high level on a production line, we might be called in to try and work with team to identify what the root cause is and put a solution in place. So the job description is quite varied for us. That's the beauty of us as well.

Dusty Rhodes  9:01 

So you both have excelled at a sport as well that time you briefly alluded to what you were doing. Just tell me about your sports career.

Tom Parsons  9:09 

Yeah, incredible career really, I suppose in the west of Ireland. There's very little distraction in other sports except for Gaelic football. So growing up as a kid, it was if you are playing Gaelic football and male, you're in trouble so look from very young age, I was always playing sport and found myself putting on the male jersey, you know, at at minor grade into under 21 and senior grade at a very young age. So broke into the senior team at 19 which was an incredible experience really when they're so young because it means so much to the people in me or to represent your club in your county particularly direct represent your your county so something you're very proud of and you know, your your dreams and your hopes, your aspirations kind of come through true when you're when you're lying in there. out in front of, you know, 35,000 people in McCarren Park. So that's what I that's what I did. I started at 19 Playing with my university as well. Players, the international rules of Ireland that year, really had, you know, a fantastic Bang to the scene, they have added Intercounty level, and had a lot of success at 1920 21. Clear, burnout played a huge role in all 36 months, it was a month off, picked up a chronic groin issue and worked with every sort of rehab coach to try and get it right. Performance dipped, and I was released 2122. So that was a period that was really difficult for me, because I was trying to find my identity away from the game. And a big part of that then was kickstart my engineering career. So I had just completed a master's in energy management. At the time, you know, we're talking always online there was with with the lack of jobs and engineer and nobody was getting work, you know. So I did that master's in energy and then moved to carrodus. And that break my sporting career of two years, where I needed to get the body right and get away from the game. I really leaned on engineering on my career and found a lot of purpose and joy away from the game. I came back then to play with mail two years later. So I had that break between the ages of 22 and 24. And then I got a call up to come back and play with me also came back and played on me on 2014. And then from 2014, right up until 2020, you know, played in for an hour and finals, you're playing the biggest games in the sporting calendar in Ireland, in Croke Park in front of 80,000 people. And that break actually stood me well, so those years were incredible years, we forged a really competitive team in May or unfortunately, we came up against an awesome Dublin side. And every time we'd meet in all Ireland finals, that would either go to a replay or we'd lose by a point sport in 2020. Then my glass time I kicked the ball was in core power UK and all Ireland final in court. And that's the last time I've I've played so looking fantastic career, you know, probably over 100 caps with with male representing your county and representing my club. And you're then since since 2020, I suppose the transition has been great, because I've moved into you know, see you as a guitar player association. So I'm still working with athletes all the time, which is which is great.

Dusty Rhodes  12:37 

And Jana, you've done fantastically well. Your field is running. Yes.

Jenna Bromell  12:43 

Yes. So I was historically a 400 meter athletes. So when I was in university, I was competing in 400 meters and the four by four relays well. And then when I graduated from university and started at Johnson and Johnson, that's when I started to transition to the 800 meters. So it's a hard transition, it takes time, because you're using clearly different energy systems as well. There's a lot of endurance to build up over time. Force, I did make a good breakthrough in 2021, our two year of injury. So hopefully this year, we might see some good results again, but it's just it's never a linear process. And I think that's something that, you know, people need to understand as well as that, you know, no matter what you're what you're in a life no matter what sport, there's always ups and downs, absent highs, you know, ebbs and flows. So I think that that's just important to take into account as well as that. You know, there's always complications along the way. But you know, what to find see was how you bounce back. Yeah, condors complications,

Tom Parsons  13:58 

I think I have to come in there. I think it's, it's so true. I think when you look at a sporting career, being able to deal with setbacks and obstacles is absolute paramount, and nobody's career is linear. And that's what it's so true life as well, and engineering and projects. And so, the one thing I would say is you learn those lessons very, very quick and high performance sport. That's all transferable. And I think at some point along the line, everybody learns those lessons, right? That in your professional career in engineering in projects, it's not linear, there's ups and downs as obstacles. The big the big behavioral skill set has been able to deal with obstacles and comeback so absolutely agree with each other.

Dusty Rhodes  14:41 

So generally, speaking in high performance, give us an idea of the level that you performed in in the world.

Jenna Bromell  14:48 

So I have convinced that European Junior Championships World Junior Championships ERP and senior championships the past two years I haven't had adds any international action bus in order that I trust, that's part of the process as well, you know, I'm trying to adapt to the eight entourage, or I'm trying to bring down my time. So it's your take that one step at a time for the moment. I'm trying to get into the right races and trying to get getting myself the best opportunities to try and ultimately get where I want to get. So yeah, it's just taking it one day to toy with the moment.

Dusty Rhodes  15:28 

Let's see how this kind of career in sport affected your careers in engineering or helped your careers in engineering. Jenna, how would you say that being an athlete shaped you as an engineer,

Jenna Bromell  15:41 

you know, it's always coming back to what we were just speaking about, it's the mindset that you have to develop as an athlete really translates into making you a better leader in the workplace. So for me, as an athlete, first of all, I think, you always need to learn to trust in yourself, because when you go on the start line, and the gun goes off, it can actually be the loneliest face ever. But you have to actually trust in yourself that you can perform. And it's the same in the workplace, when you're given a challenge. When there's a setback, you need to actually have confidence in what you can do to deliver on the issue. No. And I think another thing is that it's resilience, it's the ability to bounce back. It's not letting failures bring you down, but actually learning from your failures. So you know, no matter, boss, you know, the job that we go into in the workplace, there's always going to be setbacks, there's always going to be challenges. But what defines you as a leader is how you enable those challenges, to give you momentum, to push forward to learn from them, and to ultimately become better and to bring the people with you along the way, you know. So I think it's the mentality that being an athlete teaches you, that really converts into making you a better leader in the workplace. And I think it just kind of dictates your leadership style in the workplace. As

Dusty Rhodes  17:14 

Tom, Jenna said, it can be the loneliest place in the world from from a team point of view, do you get what you're saying?

Tom Parsons  17:21 

Yeah, I completely agree with Jenna, like, what stress transferable is all those character skills, you know, and, you know, as an engineer, and of equations, right, but if I could define performance, in any walk of life, right, not just professional, your career or engineering or sport, but even in your family life, or any hobbies and passions, you know, performance equals our capabilities, right? Multiplied by or messed around with by our behaviors. And like, that's ultimately it. So if you have somebody or a person who has is a very capable person, and they're an eight, or nine out of 10, but their behaviors is on the floor, and there are two or three other trends to performance is on the floor, in sport, in engineering, in any walk of life. But the magic that you learn from high performance sport, is that the bigger piece is behaviors. So your capability as a sports person, or as an engineer, or as a project manager, or as any professional, your capability, even if it's five or six out of 10 in that skill set that you know that logical process driven skill set, if that's a five or six out of 10, but you have the right behaviors. If your behaviors are an eight or nine out of 10, your performance goes through the roof. And that's jewelry sport and what is behaviors behaviors is exactly what Jenna said. It's about our character. It's about how you deal with failures. It's about your self discipline, your communication, how you engage with people, it's about growth, that mental mindset. And it's so important. And I think now more than ever, when you look at, you know, AI, the future of work, how we're streamline and processes, and I'm sure Jana can, you know, attest to this, you know, in j&j, like processes are becoming, you know, their problems are never solving themselves with artificial technology and improvements. Now, more than ever, we need engineers to focus on really good behaviors, and managing people and be able to be able to collaborate. So I really think that, you know, people don't have to be a high performance board, but engage in you know, team activity away from your professional career is hugely beneficial because you get to understand the dynamics of work and routines. And, you know, most engineers, most projects, you know, actually I'll say every project can't be delivered alone. You need the group. You need to set a vision you need to work together, you need to collaborate with other people. So To be a good engineer, you need, yes, that logical piece. But you also need that, you know that ability to have the right behaviors and the right character to work with people.

Dusty Rhodes  20:10 

Again, what both of you are saying, and then I'm also in the back of my mind thinking, both of you have been to the very pinnacle of your sporting careers. And a lot of people who are listening to the podcast, we're just regular Joe's Jermaine, we get the boss of Chuck iron to work or whatever. How do you think it's a really interesting point that you both make about, you know, kind of being focused on performance? And if you focus on your performance, well, then you get the success. And you can kind of see how that has driven you in the sporting field. How does that mentality translate for regular people?

Tom Parsons  20:44 

Well, I'll come in, first of all, why Jetta? I think I am a dad or two kids, I have a three year old and a one year old. And let me tell her, you know, I need to have a high performance lifestyle to just navigate life at the moment Never mind being an athlete, right? So I'm just a firm believer that you know, do what is hard and life will be easy, right? But who was at what is easy, and life will be hard. And when you think about that, life is hard to navigate, you know, a family, kids relationships, hobbies, pairings, along with balancing a career. And in engineering, you know, anybody that is in a professional career, particularly engineering, you need to be on top of your game. So you do need to have a high performance lifestyle. And I actually think that people want to be the best their best selves. And we even see that now in in sport and technology. You know, so many people I see wearing, you know, a Garmin device or a whoop device, want to know, their metrics, want to know how they're performing, even if they're just casually running or casually training. So I actually believe that, you know, we all need to learn the skills of being a high performer and just navigate the challenges of life. And let me tell you, my my wife, she's a physiotherapist. And she's fantastic. When I think of high performance, I think of her because how she manages to get you know, the kids up and to bed at certain times, set out different develop habits and children and maintain a job and manage the house. Manage me, she's she's amazing. But again, it goes back to all those behavioral skill sets that Jenna total.

Dusty Rhodes  22:29 

I had a work application from somebody who a woman returning to the workplace. And she put for the last five years of her life and her CV, she said onboarding a human being.

Speaker 4  22:39 

I thought it was absolutely brilliant. Absolutely. Brill,

Dusty Rhodes  22:45 

back to sport and thinking about being physically active agenda. Do you think that just being physically active in any way can help people think better at work?

Jenna Bromell  22:55 

Yeah, absolutely. So I actually think that I probably wouldn't have done as well, in my career, if I didn't have athletics, there's just that release, outside of work and outside of studies in the evening. Like, I find that if I'm just working all day, without taking breaks without getting there without getting exercise. I just can't think in the same way. Often, if I'm struggling with an issue, if I have a challenge that I just need to get in like and sway third, I need some inspiration. I take the time away from the laptop, I go exercise, I come back to it. And I find when I come back to us, I'm so refreshed and I think in a different way. So you know, it's just come back to the the high performance question. It doesn't matter if you're a high performance athlete or not. It's just taking that time outside of work, to to do something outside of that day to day to get the fresh air to exercise the body. It just makes you think in a better way clears the head and it definitely results in a better more productive person at the end of the day.

Dusty Rhodes  24:10 

Jenna so physical activity to helps you think a little bit better at work.

Unknown Speaker  24:14 

Does it help with stress?

Jenna Bromell  24:17 

Yes, definitely. I think it all comes back to just relax yourself giving yourself a break outside of the stress. Yeah, you know, okay, high performance competitions like that is stressed to be fair, right? So athletics can be stressful as well. Boss, you know, just an easy jog or just going to the gym. You know, not even thinking about those hard sessions. That break outside of a stressful situation. Definitely helps to just break down the stress levels to ground you rebalance you so that you could talk a lot stress a bit better and you go back to it. So I think it's definitely impact I want to take that time away from the stressful situation. But the other thing that I'd say, and it kind of comes back to what Tom was saying earlier, where, you know, he got injuries, but he had something else to fall back on. I think the great thing about having sports or something outside of your work life as well is that you're not solely defined by one thing. So, you know, if, if work is gone, man, okay. I'm an engineer. If Ronnie is gone, well, I would at least be nothing at all. You all is. You have

Dusty Rhodes  25:34 

something to feel positive about? Yeah, you

Jenna Bromell  25:35 

always have something that's going to be going well, exactly. So I think it's good to have something as a backup for the days when you're not feeling so good in, let's say your your main thing in your day to day. So I think it's good to not tie your identity shot one thing, but to have lots of different pockets, not too many pockets for different pockets going on in your life.

Tom Parsons  25:58 

Yeah, yeah, I agree. Just the buzzword in industry, at the moment is resilience if we need to be more resilient, and to Jennifer's point, like you can't be resilient, if you decide to put all your energy on your professional career, and you're gonna allow your relationship to break down, you're not going to engage in your physical health, you're not going to have hobbies away from the game, you're not going to invest in friendships and relationships. Because what happens then is, at some point along that journey, you know, if you're so career driven, you're going to encounter an obstacle or a setback. And then you don't have that broad live engagement that helps you overcome that resilience. So absolutely agree with Jana, you know, in 2018, I had a very significant knee injury, my knees essentially rotated in the wrong direction at 90 degrees, risk of losing my leg, three surgeries, seven months off work. And, you know, I came back and played but during that process, I did a lot of talks and podcasts. And people kept asking me how we saw resilient to come back? And the answer is exactly what Jenna said, is, I won, I lost my sport and my professional career for seven months, because I couldn't physically work with the motor surgeries that I needed. I fell back on my relationship on my family are my friends on personal growth. So we talked about personal growth? What does that look like? Just listening to podcasts like this, that's reading books that's grown, that might be taking a course. So find a resilience in your life to be a better professional to be a better partner to be a better appearance? Whatever it is, you have to you have to have diversity in your life. You have to it's really important.

Dusty Rhodes  27:51 

Can I ask you as well? Both of you because Tom, I know you were playing it was a team sport. But Jenna, take it out with athletics, you are part of an athletics team. It's not like you're you're just out there solo on your own? And what does that kind of being part of a team, whether at your level, or whether it just an amateur level kicking ball at the at the weekend? How does that experience with teams help you with work teams? Jenna?

Jenna Bromell  28:17 

Yeah, so I think that you have to be part of a team, no matter what area of your life that you're talking else, you know, like, being part of a team is actually central to progression in every part of your life. So in athletics, okay. And also tie with individual when a running race and running it on my own. When the gun goes off, I need to trust myself. But you have those foundations in the backgrounds that are made up of teams. So I train with the team, I have a court, I've an SSE court over Physiol I have that support neck network there. That way, you know, when the going gets tough, or when I have a setback, they're there to reassure me, they're there to go into me. So it's having that support network that can guide you when the going gets tough and set you up for success. It's the same in the workplace. The team are, I suppose, the leader of the team as well, they have to try and set up the team for success. They need to support them when the going gets tough. The need to reassure them the need to upskill them. So it's the same sort of aims of the team in both situations, you know, what is common to the softer side of things, it's not just focusing on the delivery of a task, but it's focusing on how you deliver and how you can enable a person to deliver

Dusty Rhodes  29:46 

and from your point of view, then Tom, how does what Jana is saying then apply going from team into workplace

Tom Parsons  29:53 

it's so relevant again, it's just you can't achieve and then are on you you just really can't although you the different skill sets and different types of people. The best analogy, I think of teamwork. And I was only reading this actually, last week, I thought it was fascinating. There was an engineering piece to it. But there was a study done on a flock of geese. They're all hooked up with heart rate monitors. And geese migrate three or 4000 miles every year. And they fly in this vector formation. And I was reading this this study, and it was outlined and the reasons why they fly in that formation. What happens is the first bird flies and takes a lead in position. And they fly for as long as they can, and they fatigue and then they rotate to the back of the V. And what was interesting was the heart rate monitor showed that the bird at the front that they hit, their heart rate was nearly doubled after the bird at the back. Right. So if abroad try to take undertake that 3000 mile journey alone that only get a third of the way there. But when they fly collectively and together, and they they work together as a team, they migrate to three or 4000 miles. And what's interesting there is the key lessons there is everybody in the team is a leader. So you know, I don't believe in, you know, having a manager or a boss, it's creating that environment where everybody takes the initiative walks together, there's, you know, that flat line structure, and you're providing guidance, because when you look at leadership and teamwork, what you want to do was create more leaders within your team that are motivated and there is bought into the project. And as you are. So you learn these skills are all, you know, transferable. And I suppose that's why we see, you know, a lot of sports people transition into leadership roles and businesses and, you know, it's very simple concepts that they, they incorporate into the team. So I think anybody that is worth our salt that is in a management position, does leading the team really needs to invest in learning about leadership, learning about team dynamics, learn learning about the behaviors of teams, because it's just does genocide is so important.

Dusty Rhodes  32:16 

I love what you guys are saying, I there's one thing that comes into my mind for somebody who's not doing sport, but is working in in, in an engineering team. All right, where do you get time to do all this because life is just so full of so many things.

Tom Parsons  32:33 

Exactly. Look, I think, and I have two kids, and they understand the time constraints is, is is crazy, a few times, don't underestimate the power of 10 minutes. So you know, if you want to exercise for 10 minutes, you can get a valuable session in whether it's in front of your television or out in the garden and a couple of high knees burpees be creative, be innovative. Don't underestimate the power of an hour, you know, to forge a relationship with your partner. And, and and it's that, you know, it's that task setting, you know, it's understanding the know what's important, what's urgent, what's not important and not urgent. And there's so much of actually what we do that's inefficient throughout our day. And, you know, to be in today's words, you know, I don't care who you are, you know, to survive easy to have high performance skills. Because, you know, it is tough, it is tough being working for the likes of j&j was a fantastic company. But like, everybody that works for these, for businesses that are worth their salt, you need to be efficient, you need to develop these skills. We talked about goal setting, we talked about teamwork, we talked about self discipline, you need to understand these skills. And it's back to the very opening of American or what, you know what synergies transport and business we talked about capability and behaviors. You know, 10 years ago, an engineer and and I remember sitting in interviewing people, we focus so much on the capability, what was their degree? What was their masters? What did they what did they achieve? What was the, you know, what was the work experience? Were they a chartered engineer, and we've completely forgot about our behaviors. Whereas now you can see in companies, they spend so much to learn about what what, what's this kind of person, how to deal with setbacks, how do they deal with failures? How do they work with people? So, you know, we're learning all the time. And then our that's all common from that, you know, like it or not, businesses learning from high performance, sport, and high performance teams around the world. And they're all corporate and those skill sets.

Jenna Bromell  34:40 

So I'm not going to lie, there's times I struggle. Like it can get difficult at times when you're trying to do everything together, especially when things come together. So fee like a lot of time when it rains it pours. So you can go through a period where it's very manageable, but you can go through periods where everything comes at once And I think when it comes to those heavy periods, the key first of all is to remember why you did you do it. So think about your purpose, think about what you're all used to. And normally, when you remind yourself of what drives you what your values are, that can help you to push through your limits are on. So I think it's important to, you know, start thinking about the self care side of things as well. I'm pretty bad for that myself. And it's something that I'm trying to improve on. Both, I think when the going gets tough, it's important to think about, okay, how can I actually take the time to try and care for myself in this difficult situation as well? Like, is there things I could do like meditation or going for a walk or meeting my friends, just me just taking that time, even if it's just a small amount of time, just taking their time away, to try and refuel yourself? In that difficult scenario, I think it's really important to help you to better enable your two managers

Dusty Rhodes  36:07 

kind of wrap up by asking you guys a question about shocker engineering. We speak with a lot of CEOs on the podcast, you guys are both more at the the actual, say, of engineering. And I think you can't I get the impression you both kind of grew up where the internet was just there, you never knew a world without the Internet. So I'm interested in your point of view as to where you think online working, and collaborative working, and AI is going to take engineering in, say 10 years time.

Jenna Bromell  36:41 

I think with machine learning, it's it's definitely becoming a really predominant thing in the workplace. Like, we're constantly looking for new applications of machine learning, and how can we make everything automated, like where I work? There's so much automation, and we're continuously looking at trying to further automate and further finds the latest technologies, and how can we do things hands off and actually try and breathe algorithms into things as well. I think that it's actually kind of hard to predict, it's hard to see because it's not there right now. Like we would see what like chatty tea there at the mall, like it's absolutely mental, what it can come up with. And I think that we can never fail to be surprised by what further developments can take place. And so I think it's a little bit unpredictable. But at the same time, I think that's really exciting as well is that I feel like there's so much development to come in the next few years. I feel like the rate of development has been, let's say, relatively slow or relative for the last 50 years. But with the cheer that's coming along now, I think it's actually becoming exponentially greater. So I think I think there's some very exciting years ahead, and I say the next five to 10 years.

Dusty Rhodes  38:02 

And Tom, you were saying that about change earlier, you were saying it was firstly calculate pen and paper, then calculators and then Excel, and then software programs. And now it's all being farmed out. Where do you think it's gonna go in the next 10 years,

Tom Parsons  38:14 

similar to chatter, like the rate of change will ever be a slow, and that's a fact. And how important is engineers? They are right up there. Because you look at the global challenges that we have with climate change, movement of people increase in population, age and infrastructure, huge challenges. We need engineers to solve these problems. And I think, you know, I started off as a structural engineer, and then I was settled. And I was team lead. And I went to energy highways. And there was a point in my career where I thought I need to specialize in something. And it really bugged me as a senior engineer, that I was specialized in in any one space. But now I actually think that's a strength because we need to be adaptable. And as Jenna said, we don't know what the careers will be AI will absolutely automate a lot of the design process, design engineer and will change absolutely in the next and it has changed it has changed already. So being a professional that is able to, you know, on a Saturday or on, on learn and relearn is just is so important. And I think that's what CEOs are looking at, you know, even in Jacobs Engineering when I started, you know, everybody was an engineer. And when I when I left the business, there were we were hiring people coming from different perspectives, you know, coming from sciences coming from social sciences, so that you had diversity of thought in the realm. And you look at a lot of core values of organizations or businesses and they put down diversity and inclusion. And it's not just for us, you know, the social side of things. It's also for performance, because we need people in the room with different thoughts. And we need to create space to solve the problems staff or organizations are faced in that mode. And you know, the global challenges that we face.

Dusty Rhodes  40:13 

Tom Parsons and Jenna Bromell, it has been not only fascinating, but absolutely inspiring chatting with you both today. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

If you'd like to find out more about Tom and Jenna, you'll find notes and link details in the show notes area of your player right now. And of course, you'll find more information and exclusive advance episodes of the show on our website at engineersireland.ie

Our podcast today was produced by dustpod.io for Engineers Ireland. If you'd like more episodes, just click the Follow button on your podcast player to get access to all of our past and our future shows automatically. Until next time for myself, Dusty Rhodes. Thank you for listening.

The Future of Engineering Education

Our working world is rapidly changing and graduate programmes are changing also. We discover how new recruits are learning in a new way and what we as qualified professionals must do to keep up.

Giving us an insight into today’s university programs are Una Beagon, Head of Civil Engineering at the Technological University in Dublin and Maria Kyne Dean of the Faculty of Engineering in the Technical University of the Shannon.

Listen below or on your podcast player!

Topics we discussed include

02:07 How teaching engineering has changed 06:36 How engineering courses are assessed internationally and kept up-to-date
11:47 Why working closer with industry is developing critical thinking skills
16:21 Keeping up to date with technological advances.
19:09 Lifetime learning and problem-based learning.
29:44 The importance of lifelong learning.
35:03 What is the general attitude of employers to lifelong learning?
37:31 What to be afraid of in engineering.

Guest details

Dr Una Beagon is Head of Civil Engineering at TU Dublin and a Fellow of the Institution of Structural Engineers. Her research centres around using pedagogical initiatives to improve professional skills in engineering students. Her work has won several awards including a Teaching Fellowship, The Engineers Ireland Excellence Award, The SEFI Francesco Maffioli Award, the Le Chéile Gradam and A Teaching Hero Award from the National Forum.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-una-beagon-95566b18/

Dr Maria Kyne has 30 years of experience including being a Sydney Accord and Dublin Accord review member for the International Engineering Alliance for reviews of Engineering Professional Body organisations in the UK, Canada and Pakistan. Today she is Dean of the Faculty of Engineering in TUS.

Her research interests are in the area of Engineering Education Quality Assurance. Her publications investigate the possibilities of combining or aligning the current programmatic review and accreditation processes for engineering education.

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0053-1050

More information

Links Una mentioned include:

Profess 12 - https://www.tudublin.ie/research/discover-our-research/profess12/about/
TrainEng-PDP - https://iiw.kuleuven.be/english/trainengpdp
A-Step 2030 - https://www.astep2030.eu/en
Engineer SDG - https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03043797.2022.2033955

Looking for ways to explore or advance a career in the field of engineering? Visit Engineers Ireland to learn more about the many programs and resources on offer. https://www.engineersireland.ie/

Quotes

"Teaching engineering has changed considerably in the last 20 years. There was a time when the lecturer went up on the podium, gave the lecture and the students took what they could from it. Today, the lecturer becomes more of a facilitator of knowledge, skills and competencies. They have gone from being lecture-driven to more lab lectures, where a lot of the lectures are part of laboratory experiments and classes, especially in mechanical or electrical engineering areas. " Maria Kyne - TUS

“There's a lot of talk about AI generated papers being handed in and some lecturers have seen it. Their view is that it looks wrong as they know the students' work from being with them in class or elsewhere. But there have been dramatic changes to assessment methodologies in the last year or so. So, there will be either more ORS or more individually assigned projects where each student would have a slightly different problem to analyze.” Maria Kyne – TUS

“Programs are accredited by relevant professional bodies, including engineering and construction programs. These programs are assessed by the International Engineering Alliance, where we have international accords, such as the Washington Accord for Level 8 engineering programs, the Sydney Accord for Level 7 engineering programs, and the Dublin Accord for Level 6 engineering programs. Each country that is part of these signatory agreements is assessed, and their Level 8 degrees are compared to ours. Our Level 8 degrees, which are honours degrees, are on par with what is taught in Australia, America, Canada, and throughout the world for anyone who is part of these international engineering agreements. Most countries in the world have signed up to the Sydney Accord and the Washington Accord over the last 20-25 years, providing to some extent a harmonisation of engineering degrees and the standards of graduate attributes." Maria Kyne – TUS

TRANSCRIPTION

For your convenience, here is a 90% accurate AI transcription of the episode.

Dusty Rhodes  0:01 

Right now on Amplified, the Engineers Journal podcast, we're about to get into the challenges and opportunities in educating engineers for a rapidly changing world.

Una Beagon  0:11 

Any type of person can make a good engineer, that's the first thing I would say.

Maria Kyne  0:17 

There's something for everybody. Even if you end up in the wrong discipline of engineering, it's so easy to switch to another discipline. If somebody is interested in a particular area of engineering, they're more likely to succeed. Motivation beats knowledge any day,

Una Beagon  0:32 

I think that idea of just being a problem solver, then you can fix everything else, we will give you the skills to deal with the rest of it.

Dusty Rhodes  0:48 

Hi, there, my name is Dusty Rhodes, and you're welcome to Amplify, the Engineers Journal podcast. One of the amazing things about engineering is that things are constantly changing. And for many engineers, it's a part of their psyche, to keep up with the changing times. But how are things changing? And what is it that fresh graduates coming into the business have been learning? Or indeed, how have they been learning? And how can we as qualified and experienced professionals, keep up? To chat about this today, we have two hands on leaders in the field. Firstly, we have Una Beagon Head of Civil Engineering at the Technological University in Dublin. Una has a lot of career experience working as a consulting engineer in Ireland and abroad. Today to you she's focused on how teaching techniques can improve professional skills. Una, you're very welcome. Thanks very much. Also with us is Maria Kyne, who after working as a civil engineer for over 30 years, is currently Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment in the Technical University of the Shannon. Maria, thanks for joining us.

Maria Kyne  1:54 

Thank you dusty.

Dusty Rhodes  1:55 

Just before we get into the academic side of things, you both have a huge amount of real world engineering experience. And perhaps you can give us a quick synopsis of your career before you ended up into you Dublin.

Una Beagon  2:07 

Sure, yeah. I guess I was quite lucky. I knew from when I was around 14 years old, I think that I wanted to be an engineer. So in that sense, I was very committed. And I did my degree in civil engineering and worked as a consultant for 20 years in Belfast and then London and then back in Dublin. So I've had a great range of experience worked on some fabulous projects with great teams over the last 20 years or so.

Dusty Rhodes  2:34 

And tell me the story of why you were dragged back into university life.

Una Beagon  2:40 

Yeah, that's a funny one. I'm not sure if Maria's story is the same but I loved being a consultant. I never saw academia in my life plan and then the recession hit and of course everyone gets nervous in the recession. And I had been doing some part time lecturing in the evenings while I was working and I just really enjoyed it I got a great sense of job satisfaction from it. So when a job came up, I applied for it and was very happy to come in as a as an assistant lecturer originally entity Dublin. So that was the crux I was about 10 years ago.

Dusty Rhodes  3:15 

And Maria, yourself before to you have the shovel.

Maria Kyne  3:19 

And I was my professional experience began as a civil engineering consists in a civil engineering consultancy in the UK before joining NUI G as a civil engineering lecturer. So I then moved on to Limerick and became a lecturer in project management and then back to to where I started as a lecturer, and then became head of department and finally dean of faculty.

Dusty Rhodes  3:45 

Well, listen, tell me in universities today, would you say that the process of teaching has changed a lot in the last 20 years?

Maria Kyne  3:53 

Yes, I think the teaching has changed considerably in the last 20 years. And in many ways, I suppose the more significant is that there was a time when the lecturer went up on the podium and gave the lecture and the students took what they could from it. Nowadays, the lecturers see themselves as facilitators of learning, where they're helping students to absorb the knowledge and this and so a lot of the information that used to be transmitted by lecturers previously, is sent out before the lectures and they have that available to them up in virtual learning environments, and such as Moodle, or Blackboard. And the students have the information it's absorbing and understanding and doing the engineering that we focus on. So the practical skills and getting the students to understand and comprehend and do calculations so that they can understand what they're learning. And so the lecturer becomes more a facilitator of the knowledge, skills and competencies. So he has gone from being lecture driven lectures to more lab lectures, where a lot of the lectures now are part of laboratory experiments and laboratory classes where students have, as part of the lecture, they might work on a piece of equipment if it's in the mechanical engineer or electrical engineering areas. So it's that sort of a change.

Dusty Rhodes  5:23 

So it's kind of upside down. So it's back in the day when I when I was in a learning environment where you kind of do all the paperwork and the books at home. And then you go into the class and you and you're able to ask questions and everything with the professor's pardon me? How do you see things have changed in the last 1015 years?

Una Beagon  5:42 

Yeah, I would agree with Maria. It used to be very teacher centered, it was all about what the teacher did. And that was that idea of the sage on the stage. And it's very much changed to a student centered concept now where it's all about what the student does. And, and the terminology is was is the guide on the side that that's the role of the lecture. And I. And one of the things I think that's interesting about that is, back when I was at college, the professor had all of the information. And I sat in class trying to write down all of the notes to get that information. And with the Internet, now, information is available at our fingertips. And so we're trying to expose our students to ways to develop what we might call critical thinking skills, being able to discern what's important or what's not important, or what's accurate, and what's inaccurate on the Internet, because that's freely available information is both a challenge and something to be careful about.

Dusty Rhodes  6:36 

Have either of you noticed an influx of AI generated papers being handed in?

Maria Kyne  6:43 

There's a lot of talk about this, and some lecturers have seen it. And their view basically is that it looks wrong, you know, that they either know the students work from either being with them in class or elsewhere. And when it comes to something like that, like the the chat GBT or other assessment tools come in, then the it looks wrong to the lecture, the lecture can recognise for the most part, but they have to, I mean, there will be dramatic changes to assessment methodologies in the last year or so. So that you either have more ORS or more individually assigned projects, where the each leg, each student would have a slightly different problem to analyse.

Dusty Rhodes  7:32 

So AI and digital tools and Internet is is one thing, how have things changed in the last 1015 years with collaborating, collaborating between yourself and students or students collaborating with each other?

Una Beagon  7:45 

Yeah, I think there's been a much more recognition in recent years about the importance of collaborative working, and multidisciplinary, working and working in teams. And certainly, there's an awful lot of our modules now which have group projects in them. And we provide scaffolding to the students to help them learn how to work in a team. I have a few of examples of that, that we could maybe talk about later. But one of the aspects that we might talk about is the focus, I guess, between the balance of what we might call technical engineering skills, and other skills, which we might call professional skills or non technical skills. And they are quite important as well. So it's important that we expose our students to opportunities to practice those skills. In addition to the technical skills, collaborative working multidisciplinary working are two good examples of those.

Maria Kyne  8:33 

Yeah, the engineers Ireland accreditation process highlights the need for both the professional and the technical skills. So when they they accredit engineering programs, they're looking for both, and they're looking for a student's exposure to both the technical and professional skills.

Dusty Rhodes  8:52 

Now one thing I always hear about Ireland, I think it's been beaten into me as a child is that we are the land of saints and scholars and that we do doctors and engineering and universities better than any other country in the entire world. What is the reality? I know we do have a good reputation. But how are our courses here actually assessed internationally.

Maria Kyne  9:15 

We are part of engineers, Ireland and our programs are accredited by the relevant professional bodies, the engineering and construction programs. They in turn, are assessed by the International Engineering Alliance where we have international Accords, such as the Washington record for level eight engineering programs, the Sydney accord for level seven engineering programs or the Dublin record for level six engineering programs, and each country who are part of these signatory agreements. They are assessed that their level eights are similar to ours. So we're our level eight, our level eight which would be the honours degrees, they are on par With what is taught and how it's taught in, in Australia, America, Canada, throughout the world, anyone who's part of these international engineering agreements, and most countries in the world over the last 2025 years have signed up to the Sydney accord and the dot Washington accord. And that has provided to some extent a harmonisation of engineering degrees and the standards, the graduate standards, which we call the graduate attributes,

Dusty Rhodes  10:33 

it sounds very high level politics, when you talk about how these big cities records and stuff like that, how do they actually kind of agree that the level of course in one country is equivalent to one in Ireland? 

Maria Kyne  10:45 

I am an international reviewer. So what happens is that three international reviewers from different countries go to for instance, I was on one in the in the UK there recently for the Sydney accord. And we visit three colleges for trade Sydney accord was level seven soldiers, they incorporate engineer in the UK. And we look at three programs that would be fighting students with qualifications which they could use towards becoming a cooperation's engineer. And we looked at all their learning outcomes, we looked at how these programs were accredited, and we looked at the way our the way the programs are being examined, accredited, similar to the way we do it in Ireland, and the standards, are they similar? And we write a report then that goes to the IEA. And they decide whether the UK EC, the Engineering Council UK, gets the accreditation for, gets to be a member of the Sydney accord?

Dusty Rhodes  11:47 

And does this mean that you have to travel to Sydney?

Maria Kyne  11:50 

No, it's all online. Now in the in the pre COVID days, there was a time where you travelled internationally. But nowadays it's it's so much more convenient to do something like that online.

Dusty Rhodes  12:03 

Yeah, sometimes. Trip to Sydney, I don't care how inconvenient it is. But I mean, that's it's good, though, that there is kind of a committee and its people from different countries and regions. And and there is a consensus there. And that's how you're seeing how the causes are recognised internationally. However, things are changing so fast in the in the world, how are the courses kept up to date?

Maria Kyne  12:29 

Well, we it's all about accreditation criteria, and the accreditation criteria change regularly, in relation to the needs and changes in the in the wider world out there. For instance, the accreditation criteria of engineers Ireland has sought have embraced sustainability in a new way they've project embraced engineering management in a new way, in the latest revision, which was only a year ago, two years ago now.

Dusty Rhodes  12:57 

And again, an example of how they did that.

Maria Kyne  13:00 

They put in another program outcome and each engineering program must have must have examples of how they teach that program outcome to students.

Dusty Rhodes  13:10 

Owner, let me catch up with yourself because I'm thinking now kind of the future and what's going to happen next. What kind of skills do you think that engineers are going to need, and to learn and to have another under their belt in the future?

Una Beagon  13:26 

And I was recently involved in an Erasmus Plus a European project called a step 2030. And we asked that very question. So we held focus groups, with academics, with students and with industrial employers in four different European countries, to really look into the future, at what skills engineers would need to help solve the SDGs the sustainable development goals in particular. And what we find is that skills come out in sort of three funnels, let's say. The first was technical skills, which absolutely engineers need. The second was non technical skills. And what we mean by that are skills like outward facing skills, people orientated skills, things like intercultural skills, collaboration, leadership, negotiation, an inward facing skills, things of things like critical thinking, lifecycle thinking, systems thinking, ways of thinking. And the final funnel was about attitudes or their attitudes towards their world view, global awareness, social responsibility, sustainability, awareness, and also their character and ethical orientation. So things like are they agile and adaptable, open minded? We ended up I think, with 54 different skills that engineers need to so you might ask this later, but the challenges of academia I think that's one of them.

Dusty Rhodes  14:48 

I was gonna ask you about that now. Because I mean, yeah, it's one thing talking about, you know, what the engineers need to learn. You guys need to teach us so so I mean, what new teaching methods do you have of our technologies are you using to get these skills across?

Una Beagon  15:03 

Yeah, I think that's an interesting one. Because I don't think that one answer answers everything, I think we've got to go at it with different approaches, I guess. One of the other projects that I'm working on is called profess 12 styles, professional skills for engineering students to solve SDG 12. It's a UTA funded project with Ulster University as part of the North side's program. So we're trying to build connections between engineering students in the north and in the sides. And as part of that summer school, we're looking specifically at opportunities for students to develop two things, one being the engineering skills to solve SDG 12. And also a clear focus on intercultural skills. Because I think one of the things of the future is that engineers can no longer just sit at their desk with their head down and do calculations. It used to be that case, maybe 30 years ago, now engineers have to be much more externally focused, aware of the social impact of their designs, and that requires a different set of skills. So this summer school that we're in the middle of designing at the moment, we're going to run workshops on the circular economy, things like debates on the SDGs, to really to help students develop those skills of speaking and collaborating and getting the message out there. Much more than just engineering technical skills.

Maria Kyne  16:25 

We also work closer with industry than we used to, in in, you know, 2030 years ago, we have greater links with industry, industry, need engineering graduates, so they're happy to work with us to try and give us the knowledge that we need and the equipment that we need, so that the graduates when they graduate have the skills that industry require. So we have lots of new ways of interacting with industry such as the regional skills for that were set up. In recent years such as the we have an explorer engineering, which was formerly known as the limerick for engineering group. And that's where we have the engineering industries in the Midwest region, they come together, and they try our mission is to try and increase the quality and quantity of engineers and technicians in the Midwest, so that they are available for industry. So industry tell us what they want, what skill sets they need. And there is a big focus on the professional skills that engineers the need, because most people who do engineering are quite good on the kind of the maths, the technical skills, they will naturally get that. But they want people to be more aware of the social skills and the professional skills.

Dusty Rhodes  17:45 

So how's this working out for everybody, because it's not just a work placement or work experience kind of thing. It's obviously more advanced than that. In what way,

Una Beagon  17:55 

I think there's a couple of different ways, I might give you one example of what we call problem based learning. So this is a Friday afternoon class with our first year engineers, and they work in a studio, we break them into groups of about five or six people. And the problem is that they have to design a pedestrian bridge to span I think it's six meters in a disaster scenario in a in a country that has just experienced, you know, an earthquake or something full stop. So off the student goes, they have to do research on what materials are available in that country, they have to do research on flood history, so they can calculate the depth of the trust and how far it should be above the water level, and so on. And we give them little mini lectures on how to design a bridge and that type of thing. But at the end of this problem based learning, they get the opportunity to construct a full scale bridge and we tested often pond boat street, so it's fun, you know, and they really engage in the project because they're not sitting in a lecture theatre, listening about stuff. So I think that whole idea of teaching them the skills to learn, look learning to learn, they're, they're only in college for three or four years. That's only the basic foundation of what they're going to do in life. So lifelong learning is really important. And they shouldn't constantly be looking at the lectures for the answers, they have to kind of take control and engage in their own learning. So that idea of learning to learn so that problem based learning idea is one example that we use, Maria may well have more

Maria Kyne  19:25 

it keeping up to date with technological advances to is very important, you know, because there's new and emerging themes from time to time towards renewable energy a few years ago, sustainable development now climate action is growing. precision engineering is a growing area, so it's keeping up to date with all the new technological advances in these areas is very important so that the students have the knowledge and know how to operate these machines or beam forward. Construction and built environment area. So it they're all new software, software comes out, it's in, it's involved for a number of years, then something better comes out, it's involved for a number of years, and so on, so forth. So you're all the time changing, improving, getting better systems that help us do our work. And that makes us more efficient.

Dusty Rhodes  20:26 

And so if the tools are changing all the time, how are you able to keep up with your teaching methods and the technologies that you were using to teach people how to do use these tools,

Maria Kyne  20:37 

it's, again, it's interaction with industry, interaction with professional bodies, interaction with with students going out industries, all the staff have connections with industry, they're doing research with industry, either through research projects, such as level eight, or level nine students are in industry and the staff are working with industries, and solving industry problems with the assistance of the students doing the research.

Dusty Rhodes  21:08 

So we have the example of you have to build a bridge in a war torn country or a disaster area, our industry people like here in Ireland that you're working with actually saying, you know, we have these interesting day to day problems, like there's a bug and we need to put a warehouse on it. And you need to figure that out how they come to you with kind of problems like that. And they're telling you, that's the problem. And we need it to be solved using a, b and c.

Una Beagon  21:33 

Absolutely. And I think as Maria said, that relationship with industry has gotten much closer in the last 15 or 20 years, and particularly not so much at first year for really just getting the engineering students in the door. But on their final year project where they're really going into depth and are some research, we absolutely do joint collaborative projects with industry. And I think as Maria mentioned, that's where that technological advancement and keeping up to date really comes in. Yeah.

Dusty Rhodes  22:00 

Now each of you are tied with this specific university. Is this something just with the universities you're associated with? Or is it something that is across the board with universities across Ireland?

Maria Kyne  22:11 

Yeah, I know, there's a strong alliance with the IU at the end as a strong alliance with the technological universities. We've all known each other for numerous years. And we meet regularly the heads of School of Engineering in the Eye Institute of Technology, as was, they all meet once every two or three months share information share, learning, and that we found to be very helpful. And it's kind of information exchange across the university sector. And the institute of technology sectors was,

Una Beagon  22:48 

and just as Maria mentioned, actually engineers, Ireland organise a coffee morning at the start of every semester, which is just an online coffee morning. And that is just a mind of information. Because we know all of the faces from around the country, we're involved in a lot of, you know, through accreditation through professional bodies. So that's a great place to hear what's going on and to realise that maybe your challenges are, are shared by others. So yeah, it's a great network of people that I've come across.

Dusty Rhodes  23:15 

Let me ask you, because you have such a huge responsibility in your head, both of you a huge responsibility in your hands, but you because you're shaping how engineer is going to be taught in the future. And I love how you're gonna particularly look at teaching, and how people have different ways of learning. We all take things in different ways. Some people are good at listening, some people are good at reading, some people are good with their eyes. Can you give me some examples of new teaching methods and technologies that are being used to teach to take these things into account?

Una Beagon  23:48 

Yeah, it's interesting that you mentioned that actually, I'm reminded of a course I undertook probably last year. There's a concept called universal design for learning that you might have heard of, it's called UDL. It was originally I think, proposed by a guy called David Rose. And it's a set of principles for curriculum development that give all individuals equal opportunities to learn, including students with disabilities. And I did a course by a head who are this independent nonprofit organisation, which have fabulous courses on UDL. And I originally did it because I wanted to be more inclusive and what my connections were with students. But really, I learned an awful lot about myself from having done it. So just as you mentioned dusty, it's all about giving students an opportunity either to assimilate the information in different ways or produce learning outcomes or evidence of learning outcomes in different ways. And I'll give you an example of what I did in a minute. But what I realised about myself is I am a reader. I would much rather read a document, then have to watch a video because I get so impatient watching a video is quicker, go quicker. Whereas with a document I can scan It really quickly I know whether it's relevant or not. So I learned a lot about myself. But the example that I might give you is, in my role, I get a lot of emails from students with questions about different things. And one thing that comes up a lot is how to read their exam results. So it's not just as simple as what the mark is, we have codes on it, we have rules on compensating, and so on. And so as part of the UD Dale UDL experience, I created different ways of explaining how to read your exam results. So we had things like I created a Word document with Arial font, because that's better for students with decks dyslexia, I sent the Word document, not the PDF, because then students can increase the font size, if they find it easier to read. And I created a video, I did a voiceover and I give the students the information in all of these different ways. And it got great feedback, because as I say, I learned myself, I have a way I like to learn. So that was really, you know, a new new information for myself. So just to bring that in to how we assess students, I think things are changing. I think the idea that students can only prove that they've met the learning outcomes from writing an essay and handing it up is is quite old. I think at this stage, I think lots of universities are realising the benefit of giving students different opportunities to prove they've met the learning outcomes. And as part of a summer school that Iran, last year, we had students do a project on what is the future of engineering education look like. But we give them an option to tell us that in whatever way they wanted. And we had some students who created a skit, and it was really entertaining and really engaging. We had others that created a cartoon animation. And it was absolutely fantastic. And I think just getting to that position, where we're saying writing an essay is not the only way that you can prove you have met a learning outcome is really novel. So

Dusty Rhodes  26:59 

I'm quite fascinated with an area of study that you have done or done or whether you did briefly, are you going into it very deeply. And it's a tough one to say, phenomena geography, which measures how different people experience things or phenomena in different ways. And as you were saying, some people will prefer watching a video to reading a text. And my question is, when you're asking people you tried to study how people take it in, how do you measure it? That's, that's a heck of a challenge in my head, how do you actually quantify and measure that?

Una Beagon  27:34 

Yeah, that's, that's a good question. I suppose I would come back to say, you can't measure it. So when I was looking at the phenomenographic study that I undertook was how lecturers consider what are professional skills? And how do we teach them? So you don't really ask them? What do you think professional skills? Are you ask them questions around the subjects, and they answer it in an interview form. And then you analyse that as a kind of a detracted observer to see what are the differing ways that people experienced this. So when you say, measure it against the word I would use as they revealed, whatever their thoughts were through this interview process. And then I took that on board and wrote that up in a kind of a thesis, I guess. And one of the interesting things that I find actually, in that piece of research was I was looking at the different ways that lecturers teach professional skills, without asking them that question. And it varied from things like transmitting knowledge. So far, they're the expert, and they're telling the students so that's the lecture form, we're used to that. And also practising where you're in a workshop, like Maria mentioned, and you're practising, pinning the theory into practice, mirroring the industry environment, those types of projects where we give students a project to do, but the top one really they came out as the overarching way of teaching professional skills was role modelling. So that was quite interesting. The fact that what a lecturer does every day and how they interact with students is a role model on how to act professionally.

Dusty Rhodes  29:09 

Maria, let me come back to you and let's kind of I suppose it's following on from from what owners saying about role models and stuff like that, the whole idea of apprenticeships and working with companies here in Ireland and getting real, you know, kind of hands on and you're surrounded by the kind of people that you want to be like, yeah, it's one of the phrases I've heard growing up hanging out with the people you want to be like, so this whole apprenticeship thing. How, while somebody is doing an apprenticeship, are you able to balance theory and practical experience?

Maria Kyne  29:44 

Yes. All apprenticeships are the traditional apprenticeships have. test phases, there's seven phases in the traditional apprenticeships. Three of them are in an educational environment. So the first phase is you're out of work for a certain period of time, then you come into an EPB for 22 weeks on phase two, then you're out of work again for around six months, then you come back into t you for one semester, it's about a 12 week term, then you go out again to industry for another six months, then you come back in again to to you for phase six. So it's a learning phase again, and then you're back out working in industry for the final phase, phase seven. So those are the traditional ways in which apprenticeship have been taught, be it for carpentry, joinery, electrical, plumbing, anything like that. But there are a whole range of new apprenticeships now. And there are certain criteria, there must be between two and four years in duration. And they must have at least 50% of the time in the work environment. So there's two types really, of apprenticeship that have emerged, either somebody comes on site one to two days a week in an educational environment, and dads the other days at work, or they come on, like you do for the traditional apprenticeship where you have a block of time, and they're in an education environment. But again, it is an in and out process. So there might be five phases or more in an apprenticeship, depending on the duration of the apprenticeship. And where the shoot the apprentice is in and out of an educational environment. They're in a work environment. So it's on the job, or they're off the job, where they're in an educational environment. And they're doing more theory based stuff. So it's a mixture. And it's part of their learning experience, where they're going off the job on the job of the job on the job. So the two are mixing as they gain experience in their apprenticeship. So the standard traditional craft based apprenticeship is four years. Both the new apprenticeships can be anything from two to four years, depending on which level in the Q Qi national framework of qualifications, the apprenticeship is, and also quite experienced, the student or the apprentice had before they joined the apprenticeship.

Dusty Rhodes  32:20 

Here's a strange question for you, Maria, do you think that as we continue on throughout our careers, and we're fully professional engineers, that we should take an apprenticeship every couple of years,

Maria Kyne  32:32 

I think it would be a great idea. And if it could be managed, I think you would be hired for somebody to be at work for two years, then go and do an apprenticeship come back in again, I don't think he could be rigorous. But it probably could be encouraged in the workplace. But I think it would be a great idea, especially for someone like ourselves, which we're out of industry for a while, that every so often. So hence, the sabbatical system that was always there helps and supports that it allows academics, to dip in and out of industry at regular periods to keep up to date.

Dusty Rhodes  33:12 

I know because he often think of apprenticeship when you're in your university years, but you never think of it like you when you've been placed with a firm for 10 years, or you're working professionally for 10 years. And it wouldn't be great to go off. And, you know, kind of, of course, I'd want to do my apprenticeship in Sydney.

Una Beagon  33:29 

I think that idea of lifelong learning No, just stay is an important one. I mean, I don't know about Maria. But after you become a an engineering graduate, then the next step is to become chartered. So you do all of that. And I mean, in my own case, I went back and did a PhD in my 40s. And I thought I was done with education way before that. And even now doing that ahead course last week, or last year, and so on, it's really important to keep up our skills. They talk about everyone having three careers in their lifetime. And that's going to really change quite dramatically. Because there's some statistics out there that people who are at school at this stage, half of the jobs haven't even been created yet. So, you know, it's difficult for them to choose a course. So I think recognising that, that we need to be lifelong learning lifelong learners is really important. And I gotta get a final plug in for a different project that I'm working on. It's an Erasmus Plus funded project with colleagues in KU Leuven in Belgium and l ut in Finland, called train Inge PDP. And it's all about training engineers for lifelong learning skills through a personal development process. And engineers Ireland are actually one of the supporters of this project because we're trying to make that transition from, you know, being a student, getting your degree going out into industry, and then suddenly, you're faced with, you know, continuing professional development, we're trying to make that a little bit more seamless. So we're working on some pilot interventions in the classroom with students to try to help them develop these lifelong learning skills of refection and planning and so on. And And earlier in their career then once they get into industry

Dusty Rhodes  35:03 

x that's a train a p dp for personal development process. Yeah. And while you're while you're here on the podcast is selling your wares una, you must profess 12 You said it was a summer school, I when I think of a summer school, I'm immediately thinking of myself as a little boy in the woods somewhere, whatever for a couple of weeks. Sure, it is not like that. How does the summer school work?

Una Beagon  35:27 

Yeah, it's a five day summer school school for 10 Engineering students from to Dublin and 10 engineering students from Ulster University. And we're spending two and a half days up in Belfast and two and a half days in Dublin. And we're looking at different workshops and things that we can put in place for these five days, it's going to be really intense for the students. And it's an extra curricular activity for them. But I mean, to have something like that on their CV as they go for job interviews would be fantastic. So I really fingers crossed, it's gonna go well, but planning is going well, so far. Anyway,

Dusty Rhodes  35:59 

rad, we'll have links for those in the show notes. So if you're listening on your podcast player, or phone or whatever, at the moment, it's all in there in the description for you. You've kind of touched it, you've both actually touched on a thing there where it's continuous professional development, and we're getting older and kind of learning things. It must mean for you guys that the diversity of students that you're dealing with is just changing all the time, you've got people at different stages of their lives, you've got him or her they, you've got the people who want different things out of their career and stuff like that. How are universities keeping up with different course programs to handle this range of people? Maria,

Maria Kyne  36:41 

yes. And we have a lot of students who do courses by, by flexible learning, we call it where they're taking courses at night courses at the weekends, mostly online courses. And if you're talking about people who are doing lifelong learning, a lot of them have have a degree or a working towards a degree. And if they have a degree, a lot of them are doing online, master's programs. And they find that works well for them in the online programs. And we have been very successful on the online master's programs and a lot of international students. They like to come to Ireland to do our online master's programs. And we find they're very Sikhs, were very successful in recruiting international students for online master's programs.

Dusty Rhodes  37:31 

And what is the general attitude of employers, when you're looking at this additional part time education for yourself as well as doing your job?

Maria Kyne  37:39 

I think the regional skills for have helped because they have strengthened the link between industries and education. And they have helped employers see the benefits of the lifelong learning. And they're working with employers to show them the funding streams that can support them to have their staff being being further developed. So employers are all for staff getting better skills, but they just weren't aware of the funding opportunities to skills, nets and other other mechanisms that were available to them to help them upskill their employees. So I regional skills form have played a huge role in helping that along over in recent years.

Dusty Rhodes  38:25 

So if I'm working in a firm, and there's no real kind of clear further education or personal development program, and I want to suggest it, what do you think I should Google what what should I search on Google just to get more information? What phrase would you use?

Maria Kyne  38:42 

flexible learning flexible learning? Course Yeah, yeah. All right. Okay,

Dusty Rhodes  38:49 

part time courses on flexible learning. All right. Listen, it's absolutely fascinating chatting to the peer review and getting it from the point of view of people who are teaching the next generation of engineers who are coming down the line, and also the engineers who are in the business at the moment. I've got one final question for each of you. And it's, it's a bit of a zinger. Alright. I hate to ask him double barrelled questions, but I'm going to ask you one. Alright. So as you can decide who wants to go first on this? The question is, from what you see that is coming down the line, from an engineering perspective. What do you think we should be afraid of? And what should we look forward to?

Maria Kyne  39:25 

Okay, I'm going to start this one. Okay. I think the what we don't need to be afraid of anything because all the challenges we've had to face as engineers, we've been able to overcome them. So I don't envisage anything to be afraid of climate action may need a lot of work. But I do think we can come to some solution around that keeping up to date with industry advances and technological advances, and also the synergies between what we call a traditional engineer In disciplines, that's an area we'll have to get into. In terms of the good stuff, the benefits, I think we have our collaborations with industry, with other higher education institutions. They're improving all the time. And with the global communication through accreditation and research, I think that's very positive, and I think can only help help us all going forward.

Dusty Rhodes  40:25 

And only for yourself, what do you think we should look forward to? And what should we fear?

Una Beagon  40:30 

Yeah, a bit like Maria, I don't think we have anything to fear. I think our experience during the COVID pandemic has showed us that we are perseverant. And we have grits, and we're agile. So, I mean, the only thing we know is that change is inevitable. And once we accept that, it's like, Okay, what's next? So we'd see these as challenges. I think, the thing that I'm looking forward to most I think, maybe Maria feels the same, I get such joy out of going to graduation, and seeing the students who have been in college for three or four years come through and graduate and turn into engineers. And it's a really bright future. They're just great students. So I think that's what I'm looking forward to. They're going out into the world 30 years after I did with a whole different mindset and a whole different set of attitudes towards the environment and stay in sustainability. So that's what I'm looking forward to see what their impact is on our building stock and on our planet.

Dusty Rhodes  41:24 

Una Beagon, Head of Civil Engineering as the Technological University in Dublin and Maria Kyne, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment at the Technical University of the Shannon, thank you both so much for joining us.

Maria Kyne  41:36 

You're very welcome.

Dusty Rhodes  41:39 

If you'd like to find out more about what we spoke about on the podcast today, you will find notes and link details that we mentioned in the show notes area on your podcast player on your smartphone right now. And of course you'll find more information and advanced episodes of our podcast on the website at EngineersIreland.ie

Our podcast today was produced by dustpod.io for Engineers Ireland. If you'd like more episodes, do click the Follow button on your podcast player to get access to all our past and future shows automatically. Until next time for myself, Dusty Rhodes. Thank you for listening.