Management and Supervisory

John Televantos, partner at Arsenal Capital Partners, sat down after his keynote address to speak with

Change brings a dichotomy of emotions: we are either excited for, or absolutely dread, change. Learn to handle change better and manage positive change as a leader within your organization.

Motivation can be nebulous, appearing and then simply disappearing. In a team environment, it is vital that you ensure it stays put to drive results and reach goals.

Having a PhD does not mean you have to spend your whole career working in research. Experienced attendees discussed how they overcame the stereotype that PhDs are research workers and moved into leadership roles in industry. A Q&A session addressed career planning issues that new PhDs should consider when starting out in industry.

I captured some highlights of this session in the following videos:

This month, CEP features a look at business planning, as well as pump sizing, reducing process safety risks with the bow-tie diagram, and much more.

Adrienne Minerick is the associate dean for research and innovation at Michigan Tech. She also serves as chair of the American Society for Engineering Education's (ASEE's) National Divers

In the last blog post, I talked about how a literature survey in chemical engi

Business Model Innovation: Concepts, Analysis, and Cases by Allan Afuah. Routledge, 2014. 358 + xvi pages.  US$73.95 (soft cover).

Navigating Strategic Decisions: The Power of Sound Analysis and Forecasting by John E.

If you are considering or have been offered a management position, how are things going to change for you? What is that first year going to be like? Dr. Jonathan Worstell outlined some answers to these questions and a framework for the transition of the new manager.

We'd like to share your story with others in CEP magazine.

Loraine Kasprzak, CMC, of CEP magazine talks to senior executive coach Mike Martorella to learn how engineers can become successful leaders.

Loraine Kasprzak, CMC, of CEP magazine interviews senior executive coach Mike Martorella for advice on making the transition from engineer to manager.

If you are like most engineers, you didn’t have much time for electives in college – and when you did, economics may not have been your cup of tea. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if AIChE had some business-related programming at the Annual Meeting for Young Professionals to learn more and add to their skill sets? Your wait is over!

The ChE discipline would benefit by putting just as much focus on developing the next generation of Jack Welchs as well as Linus Paulings. What is the business case for doing so? This series has shed light on how these other skills directly affect our careers and ability to get work accomplished and even the potential impact on the financial viability of our engineering departments.

We are always selling. Vendors sell goods, consultants sell advice, politicians sell themselves, demonstrators who occupy Wall Street sell their cause, entrepreneurs sell new concepts, artists sell designs, and even parents sell their standards. Regardless of the way you describe it, teaching, pitching, proposing, convincing – sales is about getting another person to do something and we all need to know how to do sales well to get things done.

Given that human behavior can mean the difference between project success and failure, it is important to ask why the study of motivation is not part of our core training. Perhaps it’s in how it’s sold.

Attributes we learn through our training as ChEs are: confidence (being able to think on your feet), professionalism, and a commitment to excellence.

ChE training provides the analytical skills that makes ChE's the ideal “get-it-done” corporate mechanics: Need to solve a ambiguous problem using an analytical framework while staying within resource constraints to maximize NPV? No problem.

The strategy behind marketing can be tied to the ChE Material & Energy balance: who do I go after, with what, and how, in order to maximize profit.

An experience all chemical engineers (ChE) share is the variety of reactions they get at parties: “You’re a chemist? You destroy the environment? You have a life outside of crunching numbers? Or perhaps the reaction is the inevitable eye-glazing and quick transition to the weather. Occasionally, one meets a person who knows a ChE and their reaction is something more along the lines of, “So, you’re a smarty pants.”