Women in Engineering Series: Abi

Name: Abi
Job Title: Ezi Quote Support & Marketing Administrator
Industry Type: Agricultural & Industrial Engineering

I was a student at Kingsmead Community School where I achieved all of my GCSE’s to a grade C or above. After finishing school I went to work rather than college because I was unsure of what I wanted to do for a career.

I later attended Exeter College at the age of 19, where my chosen course was Mechanical Engineering, I also took evening classes to get my qualifications in CAD.

Involvement in Engineering

I work for a company who design and manufacture grain handling and drying equipment, my job role is very varied within the company. Some days I am using SOLIDWORKS to produce 3D representations of machines, other days I produce marketing material such as banners or brochures, I also maintain our website and online quoting system.

Because my job role is so varied I get to work closely with our sales team and our design team to ensure that our website, quoting system and marketing material is both accurate and appealing. I am very lucky in that my job allows me to do new things on a regular basis.

Qualifications and Recognition

I achieved my NC & HNC in Mechanical Engineering with Exeter College. I attended one day a week for 4 years which allowed me to continue working full time, in my final year I was awarded the student of the year award for a DriveWorks project that I had developed.

I have completed evening courses in both SOLIDWORKS and AutoCAD and I am a certified DriveWorks and Adobe (Photoshop, Illustrator & InDesign) professional.

“Engineering is one of the most rewarding careers you will ever enter into, but you have to be able to have fun along the way.”

Where did your initial interest in Engineering come from?
When I left school I had a few little jobs, telesales, shop assistant and that kind of thing, until my Dad needed someone to do some filing work at his exhaust manufacturing company. I went along to help him out and ended up staying there for 8 years.

My Dad was looking for someone who was computer savvy to learn how to use SOLIDWORKS so that they could finally move off of the old drawing boards, he had one of his friends show me the basics and it went on from there really. He eventually sent me on some training courses & then put me through my HNC once I had decided that engineering was where I wanted to base my career.

I absolutely loved my time working with my Dad, but felt like I needed to make my own name too so decided to apply for a design engineers job with the company I currently work for, needless to say my application was successful and 5 years on I get to enjoy a varied, challenging and rewarding career.

Honestly I owe most of my success to both of my parents for pushing me and supporting me in my career choice, without both of them encouraging me I’m 100% sure I wouldn’t be where I am today.

What advice would you give to young women interested in Engineering?
Have a sense of humour! Engineering is still a very male dominated world and men’s humour is a bit different from women’s. If you can learn to enjoy the humour and give as good as you get, you will succeed. Engineering is one of the most rewarding careers you will ever enter into, but you have to be able to have fun along the way.

If you weren’t an engineer what would you be?
That’s a tricky one. I can’t really imagine myself doing anything outside of the engineering world now, but I suppose I would probably be in a graphic design career.