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Component Manufacturing dverti$er
Adverti$er
Don’t Forget! You Saw it in the
The Next Generation of Building Professionals A
t the American Wood Council, our engineers develop state-of-the-art engineering data, technology, and standards for wood products to assure their safe and efficient design. They are also very involved in our work with building and fire codes, providing the technical background and research oversight that supports our efforts to ensure U.S. building codes allow the greatest appropriate use of wood products. May is the International Code Council’s Building Safety Month and AWC is a proud sponsor of week one, with the theme “Mentoring the Next Generation of Building Professionals.” Below, two of AWC’s engineers, Director of Education Michelle Kam-Biron and Project Engineer Lori Koch, and Northeast Regional Manager Matt Hunter explain why they pursued careers in the building industry.
What drew you to the building industry as a career? Michelle: While I wasn’t drawn as much to general “engineering,” I was really excited by the specific specialty of structural engineering because it combined creativity of architecture and the logic and analysis of mathematics. To be able to create, analyze, and see the final results of my efforts in a building that would be constructed and last for many years was great. Additionally, I saw it as an opportunity to make an impact by contributing toward a safe built environment for the general public.
May 2017 #10214 Page #61
Robert Glowinski is the President & CEO of the American Wood Council (AWC).
Lori: My junior year in high school I attended a presentation where some practicing engineers talked to us about what engineering was and what engineers do – my take-away was that engineers get to use a wide skill set to solve unique problems. I liked that it incorporated pretty much every subject I studied in school – math and science obviously are a big part of engineering, but the communication skills you learn in English and other writingoriented courses is invaluable to a successful engineer.
Matt: I got hooked at age 15, when I did my buddy a favor by filling in for him to build a large, two story garage. I ended up working construction the whole summer, finishing the garage. The following year work on the house began and I worked on everything from footings, foundation walls, framing, fire stopping, finish flooring, paneling, and trim. After earning my bachelor’s degree in environmental design, a form of sustainable landscape architecture, I worked in landscape construction as a designer/draftsman for large commercial land development projects and became a building code official and inspector in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania before joining AWC.
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