GEM-SET

Brenda J. Wolfe
Chemical Engineer
Manager, Process Equipment-USA
Metso Minerals Inc.
and
Pikes Peak Section of Society of Women Engineers

My daily work includes developing and executing plans and procedures for testing networking equipment such as routers and Switches. Products are tested for standards compliance, performance and interoperability with other Marconi and 3rd party products. Test results are communicated in formal written reports and by means of a database for tracking bug reports. I take a great deal of satisfaction in the part that I play in preventing the shipment of equipment that could cause service interruptions or data loss.

My educational background has little to do with engineering, although my current position places me within Marconi's Engineering organization. I have a BA in Philosophy from Yale University and an MBA from lehigh University where I was also employed. People often ask me how I ended up as a Test Engineer given my lack of fcm1al training in engineering. While there is undoubtedly an element of chance in anyone's career, a lot can be accomplished through hard work and the desire to succeed in a given area. I gained a lot of work experience through various positions in the computer industry including sales, technical support, training, consulting and network administration. When I graduated in 1981 the personal computing and local area networking industries were just starting to take root, as was my career. I believe jt would be much more difficult today to obtain an engineering position without the requisite education, but probably not impossible.

While I would recommend that anyone wishing to work in an engineering or technology-related field obtain the necessary training, I would also advise them to take advantage of mentoring programs or work opportunities which will allow them a close-up view of the job that they plan to perform probably a minimum of 8 hours a day, 5 days a week.