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Biosystems
engineers can perform many different jobs-consider my personal example.
I enrolled in the Natural Resources concentration intending to work
in the environmental engineering field after graduation. However, I
was encouraged to interview for a position outside the environmental
arena. I am currently employed by Carolina Power and Light Company (CP&L)
as an associate engineer performing electrical engineering duties and
project management in the distribution engineering and operations section.
I am proof that the Biosystems Engineering degree at Clemson University
can take you any place that you want to go within its field of study
and even to areas outside of the natural resources and environment arena. CP&L (www.cplc.com) is a Fortune 500 company based in Raleigh, North Carolina, providing power to over half of North Carolina and approximately one-third of South Carolina serving over 1.3 million customers. CP&L recently purchased Florida Progress utility, which doubles our service area and customers to 2.6 million in three states. CP&L is now the 9th largest power utility in the nation. CP&L has a large engineering division as well as an environmental/natural resources department, which has established a strong company-wide environmental policy. Carolina Power and Light also owns communications (Interpath), computer, and natural gas companies (North Carolina Natural Gas) as well as the newly acquired Florida Progress utility. I work with the Southern Region portion of CP&L in Pinehurst, NC. The Southern Region covers the southern part of NC and the entire service area of SC. I work in the regional engineering department of the Southern Region. This office is responsible for all electrical distribution in this region. Note that CP&L has two energy delivery/engineering sections, which are transmission and distribution. The transmission department handles all energy delivery from the generating plants (fossil fuels, hydro and nuclear plants) along large transmission lines to the substations. My group, the distribution portion, is responsible for everything from the electrical substation to the customer's house, commercial business or industry. My responsibilities include the learning and proficient use of many engineering software analysis tools, basic electrical engineering training, electrical engineering design and multiple project management as well as other tasks including storm emergency work (hurricanes and ice storms). Since I began employment at CP&L, I have been on two hurricane storm calls and one major ice storm. CP&L, along with contractors from across America, worked to restore power to our customers as quickly as possible. With up to 98% of our customers out during one of these storms, we worked through rain, wind, floods and darkness to restore power. Our employees pride themselves and work hard to restore power after a major storm working the worst conditions possible. CP&L has won national awards for restoration efforts after these devastating natural disasters. Currently, I am managing six programs with a budget of over $700,000. These six programs are part of a Southern Region reliability effort to ensure that we have a world-class energy distribution system and can provide the highest energy reliability (keeping the lights on as much as possible) to our customers. The Biosystems Engineering degree gave me the background and fundamentals I need to manage this workload and budget. Thus far, the actual environmental portion of my studies has had little influence in my job. However, I remain interested in the environmental area and someday may join CP&L's environment group. Other skills I learned through the Biosystems Engineering program have made a huge difference in the way I work and have made me a valuable part of my engineering group. I was not trained to be an electrical engineer, but due to my BE curriculum and the professors in my major department, I have many skills and abilities to offer the group of engineers with whom I work.The Biosystems Engineering program gave me the skills to work well in many fields and the adaptability I need to work in an area other than natural resources and environment. I was given the current opportunity because I had learned specific skills such as team work, communication skills, adaptability, flexibility, project and time management and the general engineering background that is essential for all fields of engineering. The wide range of computer skills and programming that I learned in the BE curriculum have also added immense value to my ability to do my work from day to day.
I
hope this gives a small insight into |
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