Orth Stresses Mentoring, Positivity at Tiberti Lecture

by Joel Mathis

Being a successful engineer isn’t all that different from being a starting college quarterback, says one KU Engineering alumnus.

“Some of those life lessons I learned—11 players on the team all run the same play,” Mike Orth told School of Engineering students in October 2019 at the annual J.A. Tiberti Family Lecture. “We all have roles and responsibilities—as you’re a young engineer, understand what your role and responsibility is on your team.”

Orth, an executive vice president and executive managing director for Black & Veatch, played quarterback for KU while he earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil engineering from KU in 1988 and 1989, respectively. He was the ninth speaker in the annual Tiberti series. During his speech, “Leaning In: Owning Your Career,” Orth encouraged students to accept future challenges and opportunities.

“You’re all great students,” Orth said. “You all have a great opportunity in front of you. Continue to work extremely hard in everything you do and great things will happen to you, individually and personally—but not all things go as planned.”

He offered several pieces of advice to students planning their careers, including:

Learn to communicate: “You’ve got to be comfortable with getting in front of a crowd and speaking,” he said. “We’re all technologists, we’re very technical communicators. We have to break down conversations so the general public can understand what we’re talking about. And that’s one of the biggest skill sets that will elevate you through your career as fast as you can.”

Mike Orth, KU engineering alumnus and executive vice president and executive managing director for Black & Veatch, addresses students in Spahr Classroom during the 2019 J.A. Tiberti Family Lecture.

Find a mentor: “Find a mentor within your organization—whether it’s within your employment or whether it’s in your community, your church, or whatever organization you donate your time to—find a mentor that has about five years worth of experience on top of your experience, wherever you are in your life,” Orth said. That person “is to help you through the short-term pitfalls of where your career could go, where it might go and what development opportunities do you need.”

Approach work with an even keel: “As a leader, it’s so important to cast a very positive and upbeat shadow, because you never know who’s looking at you,” he said. “If I have a really tough day and I have a project that is struggling ... I can be very disappointed with the team’s outcome of that, but I can’t let my attitude at that point in time impact the rest of the organization, because no matter where you’re at somebody is looking at you.”

Orth oversees the Americas region of Black & Veatch’s water business, which includes approximately 50 offices. Through its water business, the company helps public and private entities successfully develop, enhance, manage, design and build their water, wastewater and stormwater facilities and infrastructure.

The Tiberti lecture series was begun in 2011 through a generous contribution from members of the Tiberti family to the KU Department of Civil, Environmental & Architectural Engineering. Topics focus on ethics, ingenuity, entrepreneurship and issues for the education, personal growth and professional development benefit of students.