Sherrie Gross
December 1997
UW-Whitewater, Master of Business Administration
Job Title: Substation Design Standards EngineerEmployer: American Transmission Company
Job Description:
I am currently a Substation Design Standards Engineer at the American Transmission Company (a transmission only utility). I am responsible for writing and updating material specifications, engineering design guides, and engineering design criteria for the use in designing and ordering equipment for substations. In conjunction with understanding industry codes and standards, I am responsible for developing new standards and "best practices" for our designs. I also participate in the development and implementation of new tools used by our design staff.
UWP Experience:
I would describe my educational experience at UWP as challenging and rewarding. Given the low student to professor ratio, I believe UWP students are afforded more opportunities to apply what is learned in the classroom to hands-on projects. These experiences are invaluable as new graduates enter into their careers. The laboratory projects not only give students the chance to apply what they learn in the classroom, but they also teach students how to work as teams, present their work, and communicate what they have done in terms of scopes and results of a project.
TYPICAL WORK DAY:
Conduct research to learn about the latest technologies available to see if these can be incorporated into our designs to reduce cost or make them more effective and efficient.
Meet with design, maintenance, system protection and control, and project management staffs to understand the pros and cons to different design practices. Write and review design standards and facilitate getting consensus on design practices and standards within the company.
Meet with suppliers to see what products they have to offer and determine if they meet our material specifications. Decide if they are acceptable suppliers.
Oversee a small staff that is working on an effort of identifying the types and quantities of retirement units that were added to plant in-service and pricing each unit of property so that they can be accounted for in our books.
Sample Project Description:
At a previous employer I was responsible for designing transformers. One of my customer's specifications did not meet our standard transformer designs. This was an international company that had unique voltage, frequency, impedance, and dimensional requirements. I had to design their transformers by mixing and matching and making modifications to our standard cores and coils, as we did not want to introduce new materials to our manufacturing floor. The project was a success and the designs I developed were actually less in Total Owning Cost than our standard designs. It's always a pleasure to present to management the cost savings that will be reflected as a result of something I did!