FieldCore focus on diversity- Continuing the evolution of our Field Teams

A legacy that began with Thomas Edison in 1894 is changing by the day … how globalization and the empowerment of women is impacting Field Engineering and why that’s a very good thing for the industry

From humble beginnings

It all began in 1894 in Schenectady, NY, as Thomas Edison quickly realized the need to service and maintain the multitude of “electrical apparatuses” including motors, turbines and the like he was manufacturing and selling.

This first effort started as GE’s Construction Department. The mission of the department was to, “service contracts, place orders on the factories, track shipments and provide Field Engineers to troubleshoot and correct equipment problems at customer sites.”

The group quickly gained a reputation for innovation and ingenuity. One particular story captures this spirit well. In 1912, Jake Ruppert, owner of Ruppert’s Brewery in New York City purchased a state-of-the-art GE steam turbine-generator to replace an aging steam engine. Ruppert was promised the job would be done in two weeks. The dismantling of the old unit was uneventful and on schedule. When the time came to install the new unit, the Field Engineer in charge encountered a problem … the hole where the engine-generator was being installed was only a few inches larger than the new unit itself. There was no room to install timber to roll the unit into place and the ceiling was not strong enough to support the weight of the new unit with chain hoists.

Using his ingenuity, the Field Engineer came up with the incredible idea to use two, 200-pound cakes of ice to slide the unit into position. As the ice melted, the unit was moved into position uneventfully, and the melting ice was pumped out of the brewery. The installation was completed ahead of schedule and the Engineer was awarded a $25 bonus, which was more than three weeks’ salary.

Field Engineering goes international

As GE continued to grow over the decades, the importance and influence of Field Engineers naturally increased. The company’s focus expanded to new and different parts of the world as economies and power needs emerged.

In 1956, GE decided that the Construction Department’s successor, the Installation & Service Engineering Department, would be responsible for technical services needed by GE businesses around the world. This meant that wherever GE equipment went, so did its Field Engineers. In the 1960s, the strategy was to deploy Engineers from the U.S. to the far corners of the globe.

Rapid expansion in the 1970s and ‘80s necessitated the need to train and hire Field Engineers that spoke the local language and understood local cultural norms. Below are two class pictures from international Field Engineering classes from the late 1970s.

(Learn more about some of the fascinating history of Field Engineering with our 360 interactive Hall of Fame.)

I was recruited to GE myself as a Field Engineer in 1989 as part of an effort to increase our international flavor as were several members of the FieldCore leadership team, including Amir Hafzalla, our Asia, India & Middle East region leader, Luis Leal, our Latin America region leader and many others.

During this time, women began to enter the Field Engineering ranks. Here’s a picture of GE’s first female Field Engineer, Kaye Nordstrom (front row, center), when she graduated in 1977 and again in action in the field.

Kaye and others like her blazed the trail, opening doors and shattering stereotypes. While these pioneering women started the process, we are far from done.

In 2018 alone, FieldCore doubled its number of female Field Engineers, including in our two most recent graduating classes.

How does this changing face make us better and how does it benefit our customers?

I was recently in Asia where I had the opportunity to sit down with five newly hired female Indonesian Field Engineers and talk about their career, their experiences and what they hoped to gain from their careers with FieldCore. I was very impressed not only with their technical knowledge and passion for what we do, but also in their commitment to pass on the advantages and experiences they have to the next generation of Field Engineers, both female and male.

Data has shown, and experience has taught me, that the more diverse the team, the more diverse the set of solutions we can develop for our customers and ultimately, the better we are as a company. When I say diversity, I don’t mean strictly male/female or national diversity … I mean true diversity of thought, experience, background and the like.

It’s this goal of true diversity of experience that has driven us to develop our U&I inclusion program at FieldCore. U&I is a double entendre, it stands for You & I and also unique and inclusive.

We value every single FieldCore employee’s experiences and background seeking to get the best out of them and their unique journeys. This could be their education, upbringing, gender, military service, sexual orientation, whatever. The variability of our employees is endless and the goal is to value and include all of them, making them feel welcome and comfortable bringing their best selves to work.

This diversity pays dividends every day, across the world and leads to unique solutions, employees that can better relate to our customers and a workforce that is truly valued for what they bring to the table.

While we are making strides, we’re clearly not where we want to be. Today, our leadership ranks don’t reflect the diversity of the world around us. There are not enough senior leaders in our company with diverse backgrounds.

I, along with the entire company, am focused on continuing to increase this diversity of experience, gender and other factors throughout our company. In FieldCore, it all starts in the field and increasing diversity among our Field Engineering ranks is the start of something great. Who knows, we very well may have a future CEO in one of those class pictures above.

Tell me what you think and how we can continue to grow together, increasing our diversity of thought and experience as an industry.