Dallas SWE is an all-volunteer organization: we need your help to plan the best professional development events, reach out to our local communities, and be engaged with collegiate members in our geographic area. One of the ways you can get involved and improve your leadership skills is by becoming a Dallas SWE Committee Chair! We have all the resources you need to succeed in these positions.
Tonight was our annual Corporate Spotlight Event sponsored by Capital One! We met at Jasper’s in Plano for an evening of networking, tasty refreshments, and insights from our special guest speaker, Celie Niehaus. She shared with the 30 attendees her experiences in Capital One’s Compliance department, how she’s become a strong female leader in that organization, and how important it is to her that Capital One values her individual contributions towards their goal of making baking better.
Great group at our 2014 Capital One Corporate Spotlight Event! Guest Speaker: Celie Niehaus
Celie focused especially on how important individual performance is, whether you’re a man or woman, no matter what role you find yourself filling in an organization. She emphasized how crucial it is for recruitment teams to speak openly about the benefits of diversity programs and invest time and resources into encouraging engineers to make the most of their unique thought processes even if they are not currently in “traditional” engineering roles. She was also adamant that women bring the same skills and abilities to the table as men do, if we will only resist hesitation, take on new opportunities as they present themselves, and excel in the face of those challenges.
Her experience at Capital One has been one of inclusion, personal connections, and opportunities for achievement. There were several representatives from her team in attendance, and guests were invited to sign up to Capital One’s job notification system for positions in their fields of interest. Capital One has been a strong supporter of Dallas SWE the past two years and has contributed financially to our outreach series, Design Your World: STEM Conference for Girls. If you are interested in the career opportunities available at Capital One, visit their job website here.
Dallas SWE President for FY15, Barbara Read
After the Capital One program, Dallas SWE President for FY15 Barbara Read went through the SWE portion of the agenda, announcing upcoming events and important information about Region C and SWE HQ conferences. You can view the agenda here: July 15, 2014 Meeting Agenda.
Of special note is our call for interest to Committee Chair positions. You can view a list of committee descriptions here. If you are interested in any position, please email us or fill out our Call for Interest Survey to let us know. Dallas SWE is an all-volunteer-run organization and we need your help to make FY15 a success!
Recently, Dallas SWE helped Collin College charter a new SWE section on their campus. This summer, the Engineering Department at Collin has enabled the Collin College SWE section to sponsor a robotics camp this summer for girls. This camp will provide a unique opportunity to spend three fun filled days on our college campus experiencing an event that will stimulate the girls’ minds and unleash their creativity! They will also have female engineers from across the Metroplex as our lunch time guest speakers during the camp.
To close out FY14, here is a review of our March 2014 Design Your World event, written by Dallas SWE Vice President of Outreach Dr. Nandika D’Souza!
Design Your World-STEM Conference for 6-12th grade girls at the University of North Texas Discovery Park was an outstanding success. Supported completely by volunteers, the second DYW event in FY14 continued the partnership between professional organizations and student sections to form a single leadership framework. Ninety girls from 6-8th grade and 30 girls from 9-12th grade from around the Dallas/Fort Worth area participated in the conference.
Design Your World: STEM Conference for Girls attendees
The event started with a keynote address by Nancy Shugart, author of Prove Them Wrong, who inspired parents, volunteers and girls to never let the challenges of life affect their personal goals. The girls were sent off by an enthusiastic group of SWE members who donned a range of working clothes to exemplify the range of careers and environments that engineers get to choose to work in. 100 volunteers supported the efforts representative of companies such as AT&T, Raytheon, Halliburton and students from UNT chapters of ASME, SHPE, NSBE, IEEE, Construction Technology, Association of Computer Machinery (Women) –ACM-W.
Photo Credit: @bianca_avila26 (Twitter)
The girls then participated in their choice of 3 of 7 activities offered. The engineering and career activity choices that girls could choose from were:
Renewable Energy Activity (Solar Car)
Mechanical Engineering (Rube-Goldberg team design)
Electrical Engineering (Robots)
Computer Science (Alice Debugging)
Materials Science (strength to weight considerations for fuel efficient cars)
Construction Engineering Technology (house construction)
Forensic Science (technologies and tools for solving crimes)
A parallel parent and educator session was attended by 39 adults. The Parent Panel featured tools for parents and teachers to encourage their daughters and female students to consider engineering as a potential career option. First, Dave Whitmire (Raytheon), Cherrie Fisher (AT&T), and Edna Patino (Lockheed) spoke about how their parents had inspired them to be all that they could be and shared advice they had received during times when they faced academic or personal challenges. A second panel comprised of Amber Scheurer (Texas Instruments), Neha Dobhal (Abbott Laboratories), Jennifer Vilbig (Vilbig & Associates Engineering), and Britney Caldwell (The Brandt Companies) gave anecdotes as recent graduates about their experiences as engineers in the workplace. Parents toured the University of North Texas engineering campus and remarked that after the panel, they had a real world idea on what they needed to do to encourage their daughters.
Parent and Educator tour of UNT engineering facilities.
The evaluations by the girls and the parents after the conference underscored the importance of the event with very positive comments and acknowledgements on the impact the experience had on their career choices. Student attendees valued learning what engineers do, increasing their confidence in building and designing things, learning how to use the design process to solve problems, and that the event was just for girls. According to parents, the most important goals that were met by attending the conference were introducing their daughter to an engineer and educating themselves on what it takes to become an engineer.
Thank you to our sponsors for this Design Your World event, Capital One and Raytheon!
Below you will find links to photos and videos from the event. Enjoy, and stay tuned to the Design Your World website for updates on future DYW events!
Although FY14 is coming to a close, you don’t have to take a summer vacation from SWE! Here are some upcoming events for you to look forward to in FY15. Mark your calendars, we can’t wait to see you!
July 19: Moon Day at the Frontiers of Flight Museum – Celebrate the 46th anniversary of the Moon Landing by reaching out to thousands of attendees about what it means to you to be an engineer. Dallas SWE will have tables set up to interact with students. We need volunteers from 10am to 5pm! Email Dr. Nandika D’Souza to sign up, even if you can’t stay all day.
July 26:SWE Region C has tentative plans for a Leadership Retreat in North Austin. Stay tuned for more details.
August 9: Dallas SWE FY15 Kickoff Planning Meeting – Save the date for your chance to meet your FY15 leadership team and weigh in on what you want to see from Dallas SWE in the upcoming year. We look forward to hearing your suggestions! More information to come on this event.
October 23-25:We14 Annual SWE Conference – If you haven’t already, make plans to join us in Los Angeles, CA for the Annual SWE conference!
February 6-8, 2015: SWE Region C Conference – The University of Texas at Austin SWE section has announced the 2015 Region C Conference will be held at the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center. A block of rooms has been held with a discounted guest rate of $174/night for Standard King and Standard Double Queen beds. There are two ways you can make room reservations: online (click here) or call toll free: 877-744-8822. The Texas State Legislature will be in session that weekend so reserve your room ASAP!
Come join Dallas SWE for our second annual Capital One Corporate Spotlight Event, thanks to our sponsor Capital One. The meeting will focus on highlights from the book “Leadership Presence” by Belle Halpern and Kathy Lubar, presented by guest speaker Celie Niehaus, Managing Vice President, Retail Bank Chief Compliance Officer.
Guest Speaker Celie Niehaus
Celie Niehaus joined Capital One in March 2013 and oversees legal and regulatory compliance of Capital One’s Retail and Direct Bank businesses. Ms. Niehaus is a member of the National History Day Board of Trustees and in 2012, she was appointed as special advisor to the Chairman of the Subcommittee on the Underserved and Community Empowerment of the US President’s Advisory Council on Financial Capability. She serves as Chair of Operation HOPE, Inc.’s Mid-Atlantic Board and is a Director on the National Board, as well as Vice Chair of Habitat for Humanity of Northern Virginia’s Board of Directors. Ms. Niehaus also serves on the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE) Washington, DC Advisory Board, and the Arlington (VA) Free Clinic Finance Committee. She served on the Financial Inclusion – Working Girls and Women Strategy Groups for the Clinton Global Initiatives of America and the Initiative on Financial Security and Youth Entrepreneurship Strategy Groups for the Aspen Institute. She is active in teaching financial literacy to youth, coaching young entrepreneurs, and enjoys being an icouldbe.org mentor to teenagers in lower income communities.
She has a Business Administration degree from Eastern Kentucky University, and is a graduate of the ABA’s National and Graduate Compliance Schools. She has also earned the Certified Regulatory Compliance Manger designation from the Institute for Certified Bankers.
Members of the Capital One diversity recruiting team, local recruiters, and lines of business to include the Women’s Associate Network will also be in attendance. It will be an open forum for SWE members to ask questions regarding Capital One open roles, culture, business, etc. Have you wondered how engineers fit into the corporate world at Capital One? Here is your opportunity to ask your questions in an informal setting.
