Champion of Engineering
D a r r y l M c C a l l ’s COE Roots Run Deep
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Photograph by Daniel Quat
arryl McCall graduated from UCSB with a BS in Chemical Engineering in 1978 and spent the next thirty years at Procter and Gamble, eventually leading a global business and several global supply chains. He was hired by Coty in 2008, where he served as Executive Vice President until retiring in 2014. McCall currently resides and owns his own consulting company in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He co-chaired the committee for the endowment to renovate and maintain the Robert J. Rinker Teaching Lab, where undergraduate ChemE students receive critical hands-on training. He served on the department’s External Advisory Board from 2005-’15 and has donated generously to the COE, with a focus on increasing access to STEM education and careers for first-generation, minority, and otherwise underrepresented or disadvantaged students. He spoke with Convergence in March.
CONVERGENCE: You have taken on considerable responsibility in your career. What advice do you have for young engineers aspiring to achieve similar levels of leadership and responsibility? DARRYL MCCALL: Master your craft first, and early in your career; you likely won’t have time later. Solve for x when necessary, and for the fun of it. Honing and challenging a curious mind, in your chosen discipline or not, will pay untold dividends. You must also establish a reputation; it is what gives you the standing to be considered for new opportunities. You build a reputation through integrity, experience, and the results you achieve. Your ability to make a distinctive contribution, beyond the norm or expectations, will contribute to your reputation, and give you greater satisfaction in whatever you do. Toward that end, mobility can also be important, as learning from new relationships and in different cultures accelerates development. C: As a UCSB ChemE alumnus, what motivated you to support the renovation of the Rinker Undergraduate Teaching Lab?
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Spring 2022
