Michelle Henderson
Interview Posted By: Ashley Smith
1. Can you tell us a little about your background? i.e. Where you grew up, what education do you have, a summary of your resume, did you always want to do what you are doing now, when did you start to become interested in STEM, what internships/ volunteering.
I grew up in a very small, rural town called Pelham, NC with a population of about 3,400 people. We had no stop lights or grocery stores and our only commercial building was a gas station right at the state line of VA. I went to a local elementary school which covered grades K-7 and then middle school (for the entire county) which was only 8th grade. Similarly, we had a single high school for the entire county (9-12). Many of the families in the county were farmers or worked in the textile mill or at Goodyear just across the state line in VA. I always exceled in school from K-12 and graduated valedictorian in 1994 in a class of about 200. Math, Science and English were my strongest and favorite subjects. To this day, I am terrible at remembering names and dates, so history was definitely not in my wheelhouse. (It’s also the reason I am terrible at trivia or remembering the date any song or movie was released.) To be honest, I was never a person who knew what they wanted to be when they grew up. I envy people who know early on. All I knew for sure was that I wanted to get a good job that paid well so I could have a higher standard of living than my parents did. College was also contingent on me getting a scholarship and fortunately that worked out. I got a full scholarship to NC State from the Aubrey Lee Brooks Foundation. Now, I knew where I was going, but had no idea what I was going to do when I got there. I talked to my favorite teacher, Mr. Slaten, and given my strengths were math and science and NC State has an exceptional engineering program, engineering seemed like a perfect fit, so that’s how I started down the road to engineering. I originally planned to go into Environmental Engineering, but when it was time to matriculate, I changed my mind and chose Mechanical Engineering. Initially, I had dreams of designing cars until I realized that would probably require a move to Detroit which I had no desire to do. It should be noted back then I was one of about three girls in the ME classes, so it was an interesting dynamic. In my 4th year of college I started to Co-op with a company called Sumitomo. I was working as a lab technician testing fiber optic cable. I graduated in 1999 with a BS in Mechanical Engineering (cum laude).
2. What exactly IS your job? What do you do on a day to day basis?
I currently manage the Consumer Technology department at UL LLC. I’ve been working for UL for the past 16 years. As you may know, UL is a product safety organization that began over 121 years ago with a mission to make the world a safer place. We test nearly every product under the sun to make sure it’s not a fire or safety hazard. Over the past several years, UL has expanded its service portfolio to include performance testing, environmental testing, energy efficiency, benchmark, etc. My department does testing for high tech products primarily, but we also test smartmeters, lighting and medical products to ensure they meet not only safety standards, but also federal and industry requirements. My department consists of three laboratories, laboratory staff and an engineering staff. We work with manufacturers to verify through testing that their products meet requirements for radiated emissions, earthquake, lightning, temperature/humidity, electrostatic discharge, etc. I started as a project handler actually running testing, writing reports, etc. Currently I am managing a team that does that. My job includes everything from working to build new labs and test beds, hiring/training staff, working with sales and our clients, and managing budgets. It’s a lot of project management and business development.
3. How does STEM relate to your job?How do you use the information you learned from your degree in your job?
Everything our team does is rooted in Engineering. We work with high tech products that haven’t hit the market yet, and if a product is failing a test due to a structural or thermal failure, we help mitigate that. If it has electrical or electromagnetic compatibility issues, we help mitigate that as well. Most of what I use from my degree is the ability to dissect a problem and find the root cause. There’s also a lot of electrical skills I need to know to not only test safely, but also to help understand why products respond the way they do when subjected to transients and radiated emissions. For vibration testing, it’s important to understand resonances, nodes, and sine waves. The list goes on and on.
4. Have you faced any discrimination/ challenges being a woman in a stem field? If so, how did you deal with it? Do you have any advice for up and coming women in STEM?
I think in 16 years I’ve only heard one sexist remark from a client and frankly he was a bit “old school” and that was over a decade ago. These days I’m not sure that really exists the way it may have 20 years ago. In 1999, when I was interviewing for a job as a maintenance supervisor, the interviewer asked me if he thought I could manage a group of men that may find it difficult to work for a woman, but that may be the only other time when my being a woman was mentioned. There are so many more women in engineering now that I don’t think anyone thinks twice about it. Currently, I am leading my team and I had to beat out a few men for this job so I can’t personally say I’ve ever been discriminated against. From my experience, if you work hard and have the skillsets needed for the job, then sex is not an issue. As far as advice, I think actions speak loudly. If someone is questioning your skills because you are female, then you just get the job done. That usually will shut that down pretty quickly.
5. What is the best and worst part of your job? What do you look forward to in your job on a day to day basis? What do you wish you could change?
The best parts of my job are the people I work with and the opportunity to see technology before everyone else. To get to see the latest in cell phones and wearable technology before it hits the market never gets old. Day to day, I look forward to coming in and helping people I work with. I look forward to contributing to the safety of people’s families and I look forward to meeting new clients and developing relationships. The worst part of my job is probably having too much to do every day and never feeling caught up. Our business is fast paced and clients have to get their products to market on time. Sometimes this can make things stressful and challenging.
6. How do you balance your work and personal life? Any secrets or advice you’d like to share?
I won’t say I’m always good at this, but I do try to keep things in check. Sometimes when the workload is high, work will take more time than it should. But when things slow down, I take a little extra time off to spend with my family. I try not to overschedule my kids with extracurricular so we have family dinners together every night (not that I’m always cooking them! J) My husband also works at UL and we have flexible schedules so we stagger our work days. A few days a week, I go into the office early and he takes the kids to school and then I pick them up. The other days, we do the opposite. This keeps the kids from having to do any afterschool care. As far as secrets or advice, I recommend taking a day off once a month and spending the day with your husband while the kids are in school. It’s great fun!
7. What do you define success as?
I don’t define success based on work. Sometimes the more you advance in a company, the more the important things in your life begin to suffer. For me, success is being a good Christian who is a blessing to the people around me. Success is having a strong marriage and growing children who are kind and contribute to society in a positive way. Success is having good friends (real friends) that will support you in tough times. Success is being honest, transparent, generous and compassionate.
8. What is one personality trait that you think is universally important for a successful career?
I think you have to be a hard worker that makes the right decisions for the right reasons.
9. Who was a mentor to you throughout your career? (can be more than one!) What did they teach you? How did they impact your life?
Honestly I’ve learned the most from bad managers. They have taught me how important it is be a servant to your team rather than trying to manage based on title or authority. They have taught me how important it is to grow and develop the people around you and not be threatened that they’ll take your job. They’ve taught me that you shouldn’t be too good to do even the most menial task. Being humble, supportive and willing to get down in the trenches goes a long was in garnering respect and loyalty from your team.
10. What do you think is the best advice you've ever received ? What advice would you give your younger self if you had the chance? What’s one piece of advice you can pass on to us?
The best advice I’ve ever gotten was when you are making a decision ask yourself, “Why am I doing this REALLY?”. It’s important to really understand what’s motivating your choices. My advice to my younger self would definitely be, “Don’t worry about what other people think of you. If you are making decisions that align with your faith and your values, then things will work out and the right people will come into your life.” As far as advice, I always tell my team when things get messed up, “Everyone makes mistakes, it’s how you respond to them that really demonstrates your character. So always acknowledge your mistakes and be accountable for them. People will respect you for it.”
I grew up in a very small, rural town called Pelham, NC with a population of about 3,400 people. We had no stop lights or grocery stores and our only commercial building was a gas station right at the state line of VA. I went to a local elementary school which covered grades K-7 and then middle school (for the entire county) which was only 8th grade. Similarly, we had a single high school for the entire county (9-12). Many of the families in the county were farmers or worked in the textile mill or at Goodyear just across the state line in VA. I always exceled in school from K-12 and graduated valedictorian in 1994 in a class of about 200. Math, Science and English were my strongest and favorite subjects. To this day, I am terrible at remembering names and dates, so history was definitely not in my wheelhouse. (It’s also the reason I am terrible at trivia or remembering the date any song or movie was released.) To be honest, I was never a person who knew what they wanted to be when they grew up. I envy people who know early on. All I knew for sure was that I wanted to get a good job that paid well so I could have a higher standard of living than my parents did. College was also contingent on me getting a scholarship and fortunately that worked out. I got a full scholarship to NC State from the Aubrey Lee Brooks Foundation. Now, I knew where I was going, but had no idea what I was going to do when I got there. I talked to my favorite teacher, Mr. Slaten, and given my strengths were math and science and NC State has an exceptional engineering program, engineering seemed like a perfect fit, so that’s how I started down the road to engineering. I originally planned to go into Environmental Engineering, but when it was time to matriculate, I changed my mind and chose Mechanical Engineering. Initially, I had dreams of designing cars until I realized that would probably require a move to Detroit which I had no desire to do. It should be noted back then I was one of about three girls in the ME classes, so it was an interesting dynamic. In my 4th year of college I started to Co-op with a company called Sumitomo. I was working as a lab technician testing fiber optic cable. I graduated in 1999 with a BS in Mechanical Engineering (cum laude).
2. What exactly IS your job? What do you do on a day to day basis?
I currently manage the Consumer Technology department at UL LLC. I’ve been working for UL for the past 16 years. As you may know, UL is a product safety organization that began over 121 years ago with a mission to make the world a safer place. We test nearly every product under the sun to make sure it’s not a fire or safety hazard. Over the past several years, UL has expanded its service portfolio to include performance testing, environmental testing, energy efficiency, benchmark, etc. My department does testing for high tech products primarily, but we also test smartmeters, lighting and medical products to ensure they meet not only safety standards, but also federal and industry requirements. My department consists of three laboratories, laboratory staff and an engineering staff. We work with manufacturers to verify through testing that their products meet requirements for radiated emissions, earthquake, lightning, temperature/humidity, electrostatic discharge, etc. I started as a project handler actually running testing, writing reports, etc. Currently I am managing a team that does that. My job includes everything from working to build new labs and test beds, hiring/training staff, working with sales and our clients, and managing budgets. It’s a lot of project management and business development.
3. How does STEM relate to your job?How do you use the information you learned from your degree in your job?
Everything our team does is rooted in Engineering. We work with high tech products that haven’t hit the market yet, and if a product is failing a test due to a structural or thermal failure, we help mitigate that. If it has electrical or electromagnetic compatibility issues, we help mitigate that as well. Most of what I use from my degree is the ability to dissect a problem and find the root cause. There’s also a lot of electrical skills I need to know to not only test safely, but also to help understand why products respond the way they do when subjected to transients and radiated emissions. For vibration testing, it’s important to understand resonances, nodes, and sine waves. The list goes on and on.
4. Have you faced any discrimination/ challenges being a woman in a stem field? If so, how did you deal with it? Do you have any advice for up and coming women in STEM?
I think in 16 years I’ve only heard one sexist remark from a client and frankly he was a bit “old school” and that was over a decade ago. These days I’m not sure that really exists the way it may have 20 years ago. In 1999, when I was interviewing for a job as a maintenance supervisor, the interviewer asked me if he thought I could manage a group of men that may find it difficult to work for a woman, but that may be the only other time when my being a woman was mentioned. There are so many more women in engineering now that I don’t think anyone thinks twice about it. Currently, I am leading my team and I had to beat out a few men for this job so I can’t personally say I’ve ever been discriminated against. From my experience, if you work hard and have the skillsets needed for the job, then sex is not an issue. As far as advice, I think actions speak loudly. If someone is questioning your skills because you are female, then you just get the job done. That usually will shut that down pretty quickly.
5. What is the best and worst part of your job? What do you look forward to in your job on a day to day basis? What do you wish you could change?
The best parts of my job are the people I work with and the opportunity to see technology before everyone else. To get to see the latest in cell phones and wearable technology before it hits the market never gets old. Day to day, I look forward to coming in and helping people I work with. I look forward to contributing to the safety of people’s families and I look forward to meeting new clients and developing relationships. The worst part of my job is probably having too much to do every day and never feeling caught up. Our business is fast paced and clients have to get their products to market on time. Sometimes this can make things stressful and challenging.
6. How do you balance your work and personal life? Any secrets or advice you’d like to share?
I won’t say I’m always good at this, but I do try to keep things in check. Sometimes when the workload is high, work will take more time than it should. But when things slow down, I take a little extra time off to spend with my family. I try not to overschedule my kids with extracurricular so we have family dinners together every night (not that I’m always cooking them! J) My husband also works at UL and we have flexible schedules so we stagger our work days. A few days a week, I go into the office early and he takes the kids to school and then I pick them up. The other days, we do the opposite. This keeps the kids from having to do any afterschool care. As far as secrets or advice, I recommend taking a day off once a month and spending the day with your husband while the kids are in school. It’s great fun!
7. What do you define success as?
I don’t define success based on work. Sometimes the more you advance in a company, the more the important things in your life begin to suffer. For me, success is being a good Christian who is a blessing to the people around me. Success is having a strong marriage and growing children who are kind and contribute to society in a positive way. Success is having good friends (real friends) that will support you in tough times. Success is being honest, transparent, generous and compassionate.
8. What is one personality trait that you think is universally important for a successful career?
I think you have to be a hard worker that makes the right decisions for the right reasons.
9. Who was a mentor to you throughout your career? (can be more than one!) What did they teach you? How did they impact your life?
Honestly I’ve learned the most from bad managers. They have taught me how important it is be a servant to your team rather than trying to manage based on title or authority. They have taught me how important it is to grow and develop the people around you and not be threatened that they’ll take your job. They’ve taught me that you shouldn’t be too good to do even the most menial task. Being humble, supportive and willing to get down in the trenches goes a long was in garnering respect and loyalty from your team.
10. What do you think is the best advice you've ever received ? What advice would you give your younger self if you had the chance? What’s one piece of advice you can pass on to us?
The best advice I’ve ever gotten was when you are making a decision ask yourself, “Why am I doing this REALLY?”. It’s important to really understand what’s motivating your choices. My advice to my younger self would definitely be, “Don’t worry about what other people think of you. If you are making decisions that align with your faith and your values, then things will work out and the right people will come into your life.” As far as advice, I always tell my team when things get messed up, “Everyone makes mistakes, it’s how you respond to them that really demonstrates your character. So always acknowledge your mistakes and be accountable for them. People will respect you for it.”