subject: Working For An Environmental Engineer Company [print this page] 22 Years, 6 Months And 10 Days Later 22 Years, 6 Months And 10 Days Later
On March 13, 1989, I agreed to take a job at an environmental engineering company as a combination office manager, accounting manager and executive assistant. Prior to this I'd worked in a management consulting firm as a management recruiter, a data processing company as a reports administrator and two chemical companies as an executive assistant to two general managers. Life was pretty uncomplicated in those positions. Everything made sense. I learned the fine art of using computers, how to sell, market and do marketing research with the international community. I was even given an opportunity to dabble in public relations and executive search where I interviewed candidates for executive positions as well as highly technical positions, including engineering.
The Amazing World Of Environmental Engineering
For some odd reason, I was absolutely floored by the components related of environmental engineering and duties of the environmental engineering staff. The staff was multifaceted. Some on the staff were design engineers. Others were regulatory compliance consultants. Others on the staff served as environmental equipment estimators. Obviously, I discovered all too soon I had my work cut out for me. Accounting is accounting, right? Wrong. Not in environmental engineering where accounting is four-phase and based on the duration of each environmental design or compliance consulting project. It felt at times, wading through the mysterious world of couplers, valves, static pressure through inlets and outlets and concepts of odor control equipment, as if my brain was disintegrating.
How Connected Am I?
If I had any hopes that I'd be handed a regular accounting management routine, I should have realized I was in for a big surprise. This was a moderately small but highly recognized mover and shaker in the environmental engineering industry at a time when the EPA was still in diapers and the state environmental agencies were a gleam in someone's eyes.
Assuredly, the industrial polluters knew their days of dumping all manner of toxins into rivers, lakes, oceans, underground pits and the air streams were coming to an end. Our little company chugged along happily designing state-of-the-art scrubbers, baghouses, rotoclones and precipitators for the USA's largest industries. We were challenged, with each new environmental regulation that made it to legislation stage, to offer our clients the very best in regulatory reporting to help them remain in compliance.
Undiscovered Talent
At some point, the General Manager discovered I possessed an untapped talent. I could not only write technical information, but knew how to graphically embed them into technical manuals. Some things are better left to secrecy. Learning curves are great. Too many make my brain overload. So, I learned how to create graphic schematics and add them to an operations and maintenance manual for our clients.
Expediency is the point at which my creative juices manage to boil over. Without any training or experience, I readapted all of those antiquated state agency forms into graphically interfaced forms that would cut down the time it took to process the data they required. I hoped and prayed that our state agency would look kindly upon my use of the state logo. To err on the side of justice, I asked them for permission to use their logo and they acquiesced. One month later after they received the first computerized compliance permit I created, they asked if they could have the template I used so they could use it on their computer. Whew! Was I relieved.
Enter The World Of Biofiltration
Our General Manager was a jewel among GMs. He knew the value of treating his employees well and rewarding them. He was quite proud of my accomplishments on the computer. At that point, my morbid fear of all things mechanical seemed to be a thing of the past. Now, I could take sales calls and discuss the fine points of a dust collector and the need for their regular maintenance with ease. I could write purchase orders by linking them to the parts lists and even detect an error in ductwork sizes.
I patted myself on the back when I wrote technical manuals and learned how to embed AutoCad drawings into them with ease. Then, our company began investigating a new relatively untested technology, biofiltration. We became one of only two companies in the USA to possess the first licenses to use this Dutch technology.
As proud as I was of our company's advancement, I knew it would have an impact on my job. I understood most of the older technologies well enough to work with the mechanical designers and estimators. Now, I'd have to learn a whole new method of pollution control. I'd have to learn the fundamentals in order to discuss it with prospective clients and to manage the new terminology in the technical manuals I'd be responsible to write. Some technologies may seem to be a bear to understand until the smoke has cleared. That's how it was with our newest addition to our product line.
Now, instead of valves and couplers, there were air streams, moisture percentages and compatibility with industrial pollutants like volatile organic compounds to try and understand. Funny how working at two chemical companies grants a wealth of knowledge about chemicals just when you need it most. Four years after the introduction of the biofilters, I realized how much I'd learned about this new technology. If I learned anything about environmental engineering, I know how immensely important it is to our future.
