Introduction

Going into college, I followed my strengths when deciding on a major. I knew I would excel in subjects related to logical thinking like maths and sciences. Engineering seemed like an easy choice for me.

Freshman year, I had an introduction to engineering course which was designed to help students decide which specific field they most enjoyed within engineering. Each week, representatives from each engineering discipline came to pimp their department. After several weeks of presentations, there was nothing that jumped out at me as being the perfect choice for me. In the middle of the semester the industrial engineering group gave their presentation and I was hooked from that point forward.

Industrial engineering was described as the study of work. Industrial engineers have to learn and implement best practices when it comes to the manufacture of goods or services. There are countless areas that benefit from the services of an industrial engineer. Manufacturing is the most obvious application for industrial engineering. These engineers in this setting deal with production flow and efficiency, ergonomics of workers, statistical quality models, production planning, forecasting, product design, economic budgeting and the list goes on and on. In a service sector such as health care or transportation, an industrial engineer looks at process efficiencies and complex logistics to help optimize the process.

For me, this seemed like a perfect fit. I love the process of 'how things are made', and this allows me to design those processes. It also helped that during the presentation, it was stated that industrial engineers end up in an upper management positions or owning their own companies more than 50% of the time. I love being the boss and telling people what to do and running the show. Perfect.

Upon completion of my degree I was offered a job as a manufacturing engineer at a small assembly shop making office chairs and distributing ladders and step stools. The only other engineer in the company was my boss who was also in control of the assembly plant and all other operations in the building. In my mind, I was perfectly poised to do great things with this growing company. I felt like I got in on the ground floor and was going to run the place in a few short years.

To my delight, my boss moved to another company 9 months after I started working there. I was ready to take over the place and run things my way. Management thought I was still a bit too green for that sort of responsibility and in retrospect, they were probably right. The position was eliminated and resources were moved around. A long time employee was left in charge of managing the plant.

3 years down the road, the company went through a significant restructuring process which was in large part led by me. Equipment investments were made, our physical footprint was cut in half, and our operations were streamlined which was a much needed makeover.

Finally, over 3 years of hard work left me in the position of plant manager. This is where my story begins.