Welcome, everybody, I’m so happy you are here with me. I really excited because some of you who have been connected to me for a while, who have been part of the positive heart community for a while, always like, Michelle, where do you meet these people? Like how do you find people, and literally, if you’re on social just posting at least a little of I’m going to find you. And it make you part of my network. So today with me, I’m going to be introducing one of our virtual summit speakers. We’re gonna see Martin, the people engineer, if you have not seen that, if you’re not following her on Instagram, you gotta go over and follow her on Instagram, connect with her on LinkedIn, but mechanical engineer, fantastic story on how she ended up becoming a consultant. Right? And so, Brianna, can you let everybody know a bit about yourself? And why? And they will, they will dig in deeper into why they should not be missing your session for this. Absolutely. Thank
you so much for the wonderful warm introduction. Hello, everyone. As mentioned, my name is Brianne. I always take tell us a little bit about yourself. It’s kind of like the person I am. You know, it takes a while to just kind of get to know ourselves and who we want to be. And I love jumping in puddles. I love the rain. I’m a very energetic person. And my spent my whole life really thinking I was an extrovert that I love being around people, but it was more so like I was really looking for intimacy and friendship and just kind of that really genuine connection. I’m a huge impact. I feel people’s pains. I’m like, you know, I feel every ounce of joy, but every ounce of despair and frustration. And so I’m a big time feeler. And I was always something I was really confused by is like, Why is everything so high? And so lows? I spent a lot of work really just diving into that and curious about, you know, how is it that I explained the thoughts in the mind and the world around me, as well as kind of me with being within my own skin? So that general pure curiosity just my entire life really blossoms as I was learning about science and math in school, you know, why is it that you know, the sky is blue, and that the you know, plants are green or that if the sun hits a certain way that plant will grow that way. So the fact that I learned about photosynthesis, and I learned about the way that the systems of the world worked around us, I just couldn’t get enough I was so just, I was hungry for it. So as I continued to be more curious, found out about engineering fell in love through a hand instrument drafting class. And I feel like the rest is history. I’m obsessed with continuous improvement. I’m obsessed with learning more growing, expanding, sometimes being uncomfortable, but kind of doing the most living to the utmost of our abilities, and finding more things, asking more questions and having fun with the rest of the humankind and our human race. And while we’re going at it. I love
that. I love how you started out talking about us getting to know ourselves. And I think that’s going to be a pivotal part of your talk. But we’re not going to get to the talk yet. So how did you start your mechanical engineering career?
Yeah, so again, very inquisitive. But I’ve just noticed the systems in place, especially in the education system really didn’t jive well with the type of learner in person I am. So I was very grateful. My mom had learned and kind of did, I guess a little bit of research about different schools. And so I had the opportunity to go to a Montessori school and elementary. And I’ll say why that’s important is because having to sit at a desk and then just like have my face down and work on the same worksheet as everyone else when I got to middle school was very detrimental to like my learning. And I felt like I had a hint hint at learning growth or a stunt. If you have stunted my learning growth, there you go. And it was really frustrating for me, because I still love learning, but I kind of had to find ways to do it in my own terms. And so then that actually, whenever I had a chance to go to high school, it was the first time that actually moved away from Texas, I’m a fourth generation for HANA. And we went to Nevada for a year. Again, crazy situations life happened and grant me this opportunity. Whereas in Texas, we usually have like art choir, you know, band, maybe like one or two other elective. They literally handed us like a book of electives. And we could do wood and shop and auto and I was just like, This is so cool. Like I want to do it on. So I told my mom, I have to do shop or auto like I’m hands on person, like this would be so amazing. And my mom actually said, you know, again, like, I hear you, right? Like I was the same way mom’s very mechanically inclined, she’s like, but I think you should take and drafting class because if you can learn how to design things in the way that that works. Then rather than you just be the person under the car, you’re the person designing this stuff that goes inside of it. And I thought, okay, yeah, I’m like, Oh, like that sounds so cool too, because but honestly, you’re like, I can draw stick figures and shape my life. That’s fact that Like I did hand instrument drawing, and this was only honestly in 2004. So you know, AutoCAD was a thing then. But I literally had my T square and we taped on the paper and you know, different size pencils. And it just took my breath away the fact that I could draw an isometric view of something. And so in my mind thinking, Oh, my God, I have to do this first in my life, how do I become a design engineer. So for anyone else who was in their stem, and they kind of absolutely fell in love with something that maybe wasn’t exactly for them. That’s the tail of the story. I knew I wanted to be a design engineer. And so I thought, Okay, well, how do I start learning about this. So then I ended up going to college, had a really great starWind to an amazing private university at Marquette University, struggled a bit, as many of us do got put on academic probation ended up transferring to a state school a&m Corpus Christi. And thankfully, with that, through all of my kind of career, and knowing that classes were a little hard, the conceptualization of the things was really frustrating. But like to ask me to turn a wrench asked me to make something on a lathe, like, that’s my jam. So I like thrived and continue till I feel like torture myself with these conceptual classes. Because once I was in the lab, or once I was actually working as an engineer in internships, like I was amazing. And I was good at it. And people loved it. And I loved working in the entire environment, like I love the job. But the school part was really rough. And so again, I’m very, very grateful to all my employers, again, as an intern, that really took a chance on me as well as you know, just really being willing to invest in developing me. And so in doing so, when I started my engineering career, I was very hands on technical I actually, thanks to my internships, you know, all five years of them, actually made the shift from a design engineer to go into tooling. And so at my super senior year internship was a tooling engineer, intern. And then I was the first tooling engineer that they had had, I want to say, at least in a decade, if not ever, and so working for their tooling shop, again, like many engineers, right, they don’t really pay attention to the operators or the tool makers, they kind of think they know better. And to me, I’m like, Man, I get to learn from these people who’ve been doing it for 3040 years. And again, my curiosity, my attention to detail, but also like my pure joy in working with people and learning about people and what I can learn from them, you know, really just took it to a new level. And so because I was working for an international aerospace company that did commercial airlines, the whole company did interiors, but our specific business unit did seats. It was kind of like I had a playground, you know, of all kinds of different things. Because I was the only person in tooling, I would go to sub assembly and say, like, hey, what can we do to do better, you know, we know that there’s frustrations here, I would literally take my mylar and take it to the design engineer and be like, Stop doing this, like, this is not good for us, we’re having to remake tools, or it’s not needed for maintenance, or like, you know, whatever that looks like. And so I was kind of this bridge between so many different opportunities to where then I went into liaison engineering, and I was kind of a firefighter, and anything and everything that stopped the assembly line, like I was, you know, running to different people’s offices or sitting down with planners and the quality team. And it was just such a rush of, again, everyday felt like a playground, I was at a carnival, and like just so many things going on. So then, I essentially kind of pitched myself after moving into the aftermarket sales design support. Again, I was kind of like I don’t like design, but this gives me an another opportunity. And I essentially pitched myself to become on the marketing and sales team. So they created a position called the customer account manager. And I oversaw 109 Customers internationally, specifically in Africa, Middle East, Southwest Asia and India. So like Ethiopian Airlines, Emirates, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan airlines, like so many of my amazing customers. So getting able to support as well as travel to go walk aircraft to help them you know, ideate, what aftermarket sales, different types of ideas, what can we do to retrofit our planes what we currently do, and that was, they know the love of my life job. That was my dream job. And I was here at 26 years old, like, there is nothing else for me to do like, This is it? I had that job for literally 10 months, Michelle got laid off, and then thought, Okay, well, I don’t ever want anyone to be able to take that from me again. So I kind of made the decision at 27 years old, I was gonna start my consulting firm.
I love it. I love it. It’s so many ups and downs and waves. And oftentimes, especially if you’re younger, that’s only gonna go like this. But those peaks and valleys are really the points, pivotal points in your life, at least I think, where you truly start to define yourself and identify who you are, and really start growing at at inodes valleys and climbing up and it’s really that journey. So I love this. So you didn’t want anybody else to take that away from you. So you became an independent consultant. I want to go go to go back to your name. The people engineer what’s up with that? What does that be? Like it people like robots so we have three like what is what is the people? Engineer?
Yeah, Ah, well, thank you. Like I was, like I said, kind of in my story. I was, you know, like sing on on stage since I was little, that’s what I’m saying, like, I thought I was an extrovert because I’m like, let me perform for you let me put on some type of, you know, performance that, you know, either makes you laugh makes you smile makes you feel seen makes you cry, like I just really genuinely wanted to connect with people. And that’s, I feel like both my superpower and my weakness, like, I just genuinely love people so much like, it hurts, and it’s the best thing in the world. And so because I’ve learned so much about myself, and really kind of, okay, Brianne, like you can love people, but not everyone’s willing to like be hugged and kissed 100 times a day. And so really kind of learning like that in moderation and how people respond and different people and how do I communicate better? That was something again, that because I had such a passion and curiosity for engineering, like a lot of that is missed. And again, it’s not on purpose, but because we’re very technical, right in I want to say in theory, right? The conceptual side of us, it’s very easy to miss, like the humane side, right? The humanities, right, the socialists, or I want to say, like, socialism, not like socialist political, but you mean like, a lot of that philosophy, that psychology, like how we all interact with each other, and in the human interaction. And that was something like I said, I’ve just always been so curious and almost like solving my own problems, right? How do I become a better listener? How is it that I can either influence people to see the positive side of my idea? Or if there’s, you know, how do I be be criticized? How do I take feedback, if you know, I think it’s the best thing in the world, I want people to poke holes in it, but I don’t want them to hurt my feelings either. So really, just trying to learn that type of investment in those communication skills really made the world of a difference. And then I noticed from the very beginning that in any type of technical role, regardless if it was designed engineer, intern, or engineering technician, or like said tooling, engineer, liaison engineer, regardless of whatever my title was, as an engineer, like, I was genuinely trying to help people solve problems. And then it was a, you know, I’m very much involved in ship, you know, dedicated for leading Hispanics in STEM. And I was at a local professional kind of development series. Funny enough with Lauren, who she has also skyrocketed with, like I said, the online network. And she was asking, like, if you had to just describe yourself in a few words, like, what would you say, and then you go, you can’t use your title, like, just give us a little short, you know, three or five words description of like, who you are. And immediately I felt like from the inner being of my heart came out, like the people engineer, and she wrote it on the whiteboard. And I was like, like that, that embodies me. You know, like, it’s the weirdest thing to finally see, like, that’s me. And so for them to be able for her to kind of help get that out of me. It was just to ask him that simple question. I was like, you know, no matter what I do, I’m building this brand. I’m making it aware of the importance of who we are so that we can better serve people, especially in the engineering field, in the industry, like, that’s who I am. That’s what I’m doing.
I love it. I want to go back to two things real quick, very quickly. You had said a&m Corpus Christi. So Texas a&m at Corpus Christi? Correct. Texas a&m University. Long story short, I worked for a guy who graduated from and Texas a&m, I think main campus, I’m pretty sure College Station. Yeah. So and then on the other side, we worked for the same employer on the other side, it was a University of Texas bridge. So they will yell at each other all the time.
There’s definitely a healthy rivalry there
to Texas. Like, I was like, Hey, don’t go to LA he approves I invoices. I want to get paid. Okay. So yeah, so I just want people to know, and I want to go back to one thing, and this is because this conference is specifically for women of color. You taught you you said you went back you transferred to Texas and in Corpus Christi, culturally, what was it like between? And did? Did you find that culturally, Corpus Christi offered something different that maybe Marquette didn’t?
Yeah, I’ll honestly tell you Marquette is the reason I am the person the engineer that I am today. Their literal slogan for the school is be the difference. I get emotional just thinking about it. Because the same way that I said like seeing like the people engineer like wow, that’s me like out in the open externally is exactly how I felt going to market. So first, I’ll say because it was a private school like they have been again since I started school there in fall. 2008 very dedicated to the whole person. So they’re very much like we’re not here just to get you your degree, but we’re here to teach you how to learn how to be in the world and how to literally be the difference. In Marquette. Like I said, even their engineering program was so dedicated to like, you know, from the first day I stepped into engineering class was like, think about the impact you’re making. You know, always think about the other people you’re serving how like what are the tools, what are the resources and Really think about the implications of that, because there’s always going to be consequences on either end. So like really be conscious of that. And that was something again, you really don’t hear in engineering classroom or you wouldn’t have thought. But they did things very almost like reverse engineer, so like, you know, entry level, it was like engineering 101. And they brought kind of the world renowned innovator at the time where he was tying together electronics and mechanical engineering, which was mechatronics, again, brand new in 2008. And so he actually led like innovation challenges for us. So we essentially had small mini Design Pro projects. And like I said, it was something where Marquette had these resources and the connections and they brought them to all of us. So again, I was Hispanic, very few women in my mechanical engineering program, I think it was one of two Hispanic girls in the in the mechanical engineering program. I don’t think the other one finished. But honestly, again, like markup is the most welcoming warming person, like they invested so much in me, I was kind of pinned as a student, you know, leader from the very beginning. So I felt nothing but love and support, it was very much an international campus, again, like kudos to mark and all the way around. But it is difficult, and it was hard. And I had my own kind of personal turmoil just happening of you know, years of abuse as a child finally kind of coming to fruition and me being out on my own and finally being left alone with my thoughts. And so when I kind of hit a stagnant, if you will, in trying to pass calculus to several times. It was actually like I had already tried, I want to say three times at this point, or four times, and it said, Sandown. I’ll never forget Dr. Krenz, who was the Math Department lead at the time chair, you know, really sat down with me and kind of went through this. And so the fact that he was so dedicated even after I had already, like failed, and kind of that was the last tap out, you know, like, the schools were shut down. And he met with me and went through and was like, grand, like, you get this and I know you’re going to be successful. Like you have to work on your remedial math, it’s your algebra, you get the concepts of calculus too. And so I say all of that because learning and seeing how dedicated the professor’s that staff be administration was like that really gave me faith in like, there can be a whole community wanting what’s best for you, and everyone that sets foot on this campus, then I transferred to Anam Corpus Christi, again, almost like a saving grace I kind of was giving myself Grace thankfully, again, I was working for the army at the time. So they were very, like supportive. And hey, you know, this is a brand new program that will help support you, you can have a part time job if you need it, like we love you, like we got you. Again, very grateful for like these people in my life have been a blessing. So then when I went to a&m, corpus, it’s very much in the state school system is their big, sometimes you tend to be a number, you’ll maybe have some professors that really care and others that not so much. A lot. What I found too, is in state schools, as a lot of the professors are there for their own research, and they have the opportunity research. But unfortunately, the schools make them have to teach classes too. So if you’re not passionate about teaching, wow, it’s a little you know, conflict of interest kind of thing. So that was a real struggle for me, because where I felt like people were nurturing and there for me, I had to kind of do this by myself. And again, it was definitely the lesson I needed to learn. I’d have to pick myself up and really work through that was very hard lesson to learn. It wasn’t HSI, so Hispanic Serving Institute, again, the majority of people were Hispanic, again, look like me came from similar backgrounds. But I also felt like there weren’t that many, like, there were obviously people there to get their education and level up. But it was kind of like this is just expected, we’re supposed to go to college, whereas I feel like Mark had was really trying to push you to go further. You know, so it was great that I got to be surrounded by people that were international, I got to learn about the world. And so it was something I really conflicted with. But I said, Okay, well, at least I’ve had a taste of what exists, like the state school is giving me the accreditation giving me the kind of checkmarks I need to get to move on. And it was really hard, especially because I was a transfer student, so everyone had already had their cliques or their study groups. And so it was this kind of weird I want to fit in, right. And again, that like I needed to connect with people, but yet, like I was having to work and I kind of felt like a failure at this point already. So I was I couldn’t tell you why I like had to finish. But it was just something like the pain is gonna be over it, it’s gonna be so worth it when I when I get to work as a full time engineer. So definitely differences there. But I feel I do feel again, like kind of the same thing. Everything happens for a reason, or you make the most of it. You know, things really worked out in my favor and kind of gave me the life lessons I needed at that exact moment.
I love it. I love it. So everybody now you understand why I had to have free and as not only a speaker for the virtual summit, but she is kicking off this year’s women of color in STEM virtual Summit. We’re talking about raising the power in your career. I think she’s done that a few times. I think she’s she’s raising the power not only in the career, but some other areas too. So be sure you’re registered for the summit. You also and we shared it in the in the chat as well in the comments, but go sign up for her session on Sunday. There February 20, at 7pm Eastern time, I’m excited. I’m really, really excited for this. And I can’t wait to have you. So any. So we just got to say bye because I think you’ll see why you got to be there. So everybody, we will see you on Sunday Be sure to register. Brianne, any final thoughts or words?
No, I mean, like, the last thing I would say is, you know, the time it does take time, it does take effort. But if you’re willing to put that investment in yourself that you know, you’re only going to show up better and stronger and better and just show up as the best version of yourself and something as simple as that you said, logging on and attending this online virtual conference, but you’ve so gracefully offered Michelle is the first step in the right direction. So I look forward to seeing you and having really good discussions.
Alright everybody, I will be back with another speaker tomorrow for you to meet in this meet the speaker series so don’t miss us tomorrow night at 6pm Thanks, Fred.