Speech Day Guest Speaker – Rachael Stone

I would like you all to close your eyes and picture an engineer. Everyone got a picture in their head? Okay, open your eyes. Raise your hand if you pictured a nerdy man sitting behind a computer. Raise your hand if you pictured a man in high vis with a hard hat. Raise your hand if you pictured a man in a lab coat. Raise your hand if you pictured a female, someone who looks like me.

Esteemed guests, Ms Danvers, staff, families and friends and most of all, the graduating class of 2020. Congratulations on finishing Year 12, what an achievement. You should all be proud of yourselves. Thank you for inviting me to speak, it is an honour. Firstly, I’d like to acknowledge and pay my respects to the Kaurna people, the traditional custodians of the land on which we gather. When people ask what I do and I say I’m an engineer, they generally look and say ‘huh, really, that’s unusual’. It wasn’t too long ago that I was sitting right where you were wondering what life had in store for me, what did I want to pursue and study. When I told my teachers that I wanted to study engineering some of them laughed and thought I was crazy. I wasn’t the smartest in Maths and English. I was okay at Science but I loved classes like Technology where I got to use tools, design things and make them myself. I had a drive for wanting to understand how and why things work, and that is why I chose engineering. To me it didn’t seem so crazy, I had passions and determination and I wanted to prove it to those who thought it was crazy for women to do engineering and to be honest I had little idea what an engineer really was, but I thought I would give it a try. I applied for a double degree in Mechanical and Petroleum Engineering as it sounded cool and people told me I could travel with it. I remember in my first year, I walked into my first lecture. I looked around and could count on one hand the number of women in the room. Honestly, I was a bit intimidated.

In Australia only 12% of the engineering workforce is made up by women. To put it into perspective, in 2017 my graduating class, there were 13 females out of 150. Historically and statistically, we are underrepresented in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). So what does an engineer actually do? It varies, but I learnt that you get to create, invent and design things. Some of the projects I have worked on include designing playgrounds for orangutans, implementing a sustainable alternative practice for water hyacinth, installing and monitoring gas and fuel stations, creating automated robots and automating heavy machinery. I had the opportunity to travel with my degree. I undertook a renewable short course in Indonesia, I volunteered with Engineers without Borders in Cambodia, I did work experience in rural Queensland, and I was part of a team that built and raced the University of Adelaide’s first solar car from Darwin to Adelaide against universities from around the world.

My path to becoming an engineer wasn’t always easy. In my third year I had a class called heat transfer and thermodynamics where I really struggled all semester to understand the subject. It was draining constantly having to review lectures and spend much of my spare time studying. For me this was the point where I really had to decide if this was what I wanted for my future career as not passing this course felt like a real probability. For all of you there will be a point in your lives where the same decision will need to be made whether it be in tertiary studies, professional or personal. There will always be a situation where you will have to decide. Do I take the easy option which may feel good in the short term or do I put

Go all out. Go for it. You have the power to do and be anything you want to be.

in the hard yards potentially having to make some small sacrifices but reap the rewards in the long term? Fortunately, as Wilderness women, resilience and hard work are the cornerstone of our education. So of course, when that final thermodynamics exam rolled around, I walked in terrified but also quietly confident knowing that I hadn’t chosen to take the easy option of giving up. That being said, I may have still cried in the car afterwards. The hard work paid off, I passed the class and got my degrees. After graduating university, I was accepted into the BHP Coal Graduate Program. My first role was FIFO (fly in, fly out) from Brisbane to the mines in the Bowen basin, an area that ranges from Bowen to Rockhampton. I worked in the analysis and improvement team in the Maintenance Department, where I was responsible for the reliability of water carts, graders and loaders, this meant keeping them running and in good condition without failure. My second role was at a different mine and had me DIDO (Drive in, drive out) of Mackay, North Queensland. I was a project manager in the Engineering Department. This was quite different to my previous role as I was now responsible for designing and delivering capital projects of up to $20 million!

I love working in the mines, it’s a big black sand pit. On a daily basis I am meeting new people, having new experiences and constantly learning new things. It is the exposure to these experiences that I found my passion for enabling transformational change and people development. For the last two and a half years I have worked in a role that isn’t your standard engineering mould but for me it is. I work with leaders across the business world to challenge the norm and understand if and why things aren’t working, how we can problem solve and improve it. To me this is engineering - understand what someone wants, design it for them, and build something to meet their needs.

At times it may have felt hard and difficult but looking back, it is these lessons and experiences that developed me into the person I am becoming.

I encourage you to follow your passion, find what motivates you, trust your values, take the risk and seize the opportunities. This will drive you to be successful at whatever life presents you.

Go all out. Go for it. You have the power to do and be anything you want to be.

Thank you.