Honeywell Process Solutions - Alicia Kempf

2021 Women in Engineering

Alicia Kempf

Engineering Manager Honeywell Process Solutions

BA in Computer Science from the University of Delaware

What fi rst drew you to engineering? / When did you fi rst 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 fi x it so I took it apart, looked at the insides, fi gured out how it was supposed to work and what was wrong, and fi xed it pretty quickly. I found it hugely gratifying fi guring out for myself how something worked, or how it was supposed to work, and fi nding a way to fi x it.

Were there any infl uential 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 infl uenced my decision to become one, but I do have someone who infl uenced my decision to stay in engineering, which is equally important as we see a disproportionate number of women leave the fi eld. 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.