Hiring and Retaining Engineers
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Engineers' answers
Why did you pursue a career in automotive engineering?
"I always loved cars growing up, and I knew coming right out of college it would be a good starting pay. And, my Dad was an automotive engineer. Engineering is still known as a man's sport and for women to move ahead you really have to kick butt and take names. I'm kind of young, and I'm a manager already," said Karen Washington, Program Manager for Motorola's Telematics Communications Group in Farmington Hills, MI. (She's a mechanical engineering Michigan State Univ. graduate.)
"As a child, I had two interests: one was music, and the other was electronics. When I was 16 years old, I had to decide which profession to pursue. To build a transceiver was so interesting to me, so I decided to learn to develop things as a profession," said Walter Weishaupt, General Manager for Communication Systems and Product Strategy at BMW. (He's an electronic engineering graduate from Technische Hochschule in Germany.)
"I started off as an audiophile buff, so an interest in electronics grew into an interest of wanting to see what makes things tick. I've had a pretty good overlap with industry experience and education for the last three years - that approach has helped me a lot. I've often found that I know more than my instructors in some areas," said Jason Evans, Senior Project Technician with TRW Automotive in Farmington Hills, MI. (He's studying electrical engineering at Wayne State Univ.)
"Before I pursued a career in the automotive industry, I worked in the telecommunications industry as a sales and marketing account manager. The interest in semiconductors led me to Infineon and the job I'm in right now. I'm enjoying the speed of business - the fact that things are always changing," said Eric Fritzsche, Marketing Manager with Infineon Technologies AG in Munich, Germany. (He's an electrical engineering graduate of RWTH in Aachen, Germany.)
"I just entered the auto industry. I was in the telecommunications industry. In this part of the country, automotive is it. It's an industry where I can really combine my telecommunications, engineering, and sales experience - that's why I switched over to the automotive industry because I wanted to combine the totality of my background into one job," said Tiffani Miley, Account Manager with Motorola in Farmington Hills, MI. (She's an electrical engineering graduate of General Motors Institute, now known as Kettering Univ.)
What does it take to keep you interested in your job as an automotive engineer?
"Because the use of CAN is expanding, it's very interesting to me. New devices will be added and the methodology is complex, and that's why I can keep my motivation. New technology makes me happy," said Masayoshi Hayasaka, Director of Engineering Department with Vector Japan Co., Ltd, in Tokyo, Japan. (He's an electrical engineering graduate of Hokkaido Institute of Technology in Sapporo, Japan.)
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