In this year’s Railway Division Chair’s Address, Noel Travers reviews his career both within and outside of engineering environments, and considers why he made the choices he did.
Noel will discuss diversity within the engineering environment, highlighting the benefits of a diverse workforce, and considers how this may be improved. He will also cover why it is critical to retain talent in engineering.
Throughout his career Noel has described himself, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, as “not a very good engineer”. This is because the roles of the stereotypical engineer are not where his strengths lie. His presentation will highlight that all the success he has had throughout his career is very much because he is an engineer.
In his address, Noel argues that if the industry were to shine a spotlight on the engineers that have succeeded in non-engineering jobs because they are good engineers, then it would open up to more diverse pool of talent. This in turn would retain engineers (such as Noel himself) in the profession, and battle the challenge of many engineers feeling they need to move out of the profession to have career success, because they think they are, in fact, “not a very good engineer”.