2021 Women in Engineering
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Alicia Kempf Engineering Manager
Honeywell Process Solutions BA in Computer Science from the University of Delaware
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What first drew you to engineering? / When did you first know you wanted to be an engineer? I always excelled in subjects like Math and Science when I was younger and dreamed of becoming an inventor or an architect. I loved the idea of creating something brand new, that no one had done before that could help solve people’s day-to-day problems in a way they couldn’t envision themselves. I used to work in a T-Shirt store in the summers and we had an old timecard punch machine that was broken. It was old so the store owners wanted to throw it away and replace it. I asked if I could try to fix it so I took it apart, looked at the insides, figured out how it was supposed to work and what was wrong, and fixed it pretty quickly. I found it hugely gratifying figuring out for myself how something worked, or how it was supposed to work, and finding a way to fix it. Were there any influential engineers (women or men) who helped shaped your decision to become an engineer? If so, who and why? I don’t think I had any engineers who influenced my decision to become one, but I do have someone who influenced my decision to stay in engineering, which is equally important as we see a disproportionate number of women leave the field. I was fortunate enough to be mentored by an incredibly talented female Senior Software Architect at Honeywell who not only mentored me but also acted as my advocate. She really helped me excel in my career and introduced me to new opportunities. She inspired me to become a mentor myself and it is something I always recommend to aspiring engineers - Identify a mentor who can help them grow and meet their career goals. Describe your biggest engineering challenge. How did you conquer it or resolve it, or what was the outcome? One of my greatest challenges is working on products that have been developed and continue to evolve over time in different technologies, and maintain and continue to expand them as the original designers move to new roles. We modernize some of our solutions in newer technologies, which allows us to deliver a superior user experience and valuable new features to our customers. In the process of modernizing, we are able to facilitate valuable knowledge transfer and training between our experienced engineers and our new team members. However, we can’t modernize solutions just to rewrite existing code in a newer technology, we have to bring our customers new value in the process and that is the challenge. We have done this successfully many times in the past. For the rest of Alicia Kempf’s insights, visit www.designworldonline.com/WiE.
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October 2021
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10/16/21 11:14 AM
