The conversation between RTM Principal Jessica Iverson and her mentee Corey Kucey, an Electrical Project Engineer at the firm, continues as the pair discusses how their collaborative mentor-mentee relationship reflects RTM’s CORE values and has influenced both of their careers.
Mentorship can take many forms. At RTM Engineering Consultants, mentorship plays an important role on both the technical and professional sides of the business. In this episode of Beyond Engineering, a podcast by RTM Engineering Consultants, Principal Jessica Iverson and Corey Kucey, an Electrical Project Engineer at the firm, discuss how their collaborative mentor-mentee relationship reflects RTM’s CORE values and has influenced both of their careers.
Here is an edited transcript of the discussion:
Jessica Iversen: Let’s talk about our mentoring and working relationship and how it’s impacted both of our careers. I can definitely say that on the technical side I’ve found there is no better way to solidify your understanding of something than to have to explain it to someone else – multiple times in different ways. Going through that as a mentor, I have come out on the other side a better engineer.
Corey Kucey: You’re the third direct mentor that I’ve had here at RTM. I remember a conversation that I had back in the first semester of my senior year in college with an extremely smart person in my reinforced concrete design class. He said that in the first four years of your career you’re going to work 60 hours a week stuck in a corner. And I thought, I can’t do that. I don’t think I can be an engineer.
And now, here I am as a three-year engineer, and I genuinely think that the conversations I’m having with clients, the problems I’m able to solve and the confidence that I have is directly a result of the mentorship that I’ve received. It’s the soft skills of engineering and learning, how to deal with a difficult client, that are important. It’s made me a better engineer, and it makes me wonder what my future with RTM will look like in 10 years.
Jessica: Mentoring gives me energy. It’s not just technical, it’s so much more than that. You talked about the soft skills, and I agree with that. I don’t know how many calls we’ve had where we haven’t talked about engineering at all. Instead, we talk about how to communicate and how to handle career path discussions. It’s so much more than how do you size this wire? That’s the easy part. It’s the other parts that I find myself pulling a lot of energy from because I get to see everyone else making improvements in their careers. I love knowing that I’ve played a little bit of a part in that, and it brings me career satisfaction.
Corey: You’ve been at RTM for 10 years, right? You’ve been able to see huge progression within those 10 years, and I think that’s pretty cool.
Jessica: 10 years says a lot. Mentoring never stops. I myself still have a mentor. This industry is so amazing because you never stop learning, and you never stop growing. I expect to have a mentor for the rest of my career, and I know RTM is somewhere where I can get that. Regardless of where you are in your career, you never stop pushing yourself and RTM supports that.
Listen to this entire conversation and find future podcasts here.
Beyond Engineering is a podcast from RTM Engineering Consultants, a MEP and Civil engineering firm that goes beyond a typical consulting role. Listen as RTM technologists share stories about innovative design, collaborative development and exacting execution that help buildings, businesses and the people working inside them, work better.
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