Tag: Green

A Day in the Life: Environmental, Health, and Safety Software

Last year’s Year of Water theme demonstrated the variety of green career paths out there.  We are excited to continue to explore these paths during our week focused on Green Careers, leading up to the All Ivy Environmental Career Fair on Friday, February 24th.  We welcome alum, Clare Epstein, to @PennCareerDay on Wednesday, February 22nd.  Clare will post about her role with TRA, an environmental, health and safety software company.  To learn more about Clare, read below and remember to follow her on the 22nd!

Clare Epstein graduated from Penn in 1994 with a Bachelor in Urban Studies and has ended up 18 years later as Vice President of TRA, Inc in charge of the IndustrySafe Safety Management Software.  How did her time at Penn help her prepare for her current position? How did she end up 1) working from a home office in the suburbs 2) starting in environmental, health and safety software and 3) managing programmers and developers (among others)-  all things she did not anticipate upon graduation and some of which she swore she would never do?  Learn what “A Day in the Life” is like for Ms. Epstein as she conducts virtual meetings, participates in webinars and sales demos, utilizes social media and technology for sales and marketing efforts and makes time for “real” non virtual activity in the work day too, like exercising and eating.

A Day in the Life: Environmental Engineer

We had another successful year at our annual Engineering Career Day on September 15th.  As a follow-up to the career fair, we’re excited to have our next alumni contributor on Twitter’s @PennCareerDay highlight one of many possible paths for our students and alumni with engineering backgrounds.  Rakesh Shah will post on Wednesday, September 21st on his career as an environmental engineer in India, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Afghanistan, which began in 1978. Read about Rakesh’s background below, and remember to follow him on @PennCareerDay on the 21st!  *Please note, he will be posting from India, so please consider the time difference.

Rakesh started in the field of environmental engineering in 1975 while he was  earning  his Master’s degree at the University of Pennsylvania.  His interest  in this area began thanks to a research study trying to establish a method for removal of Sulphur Di Oxide from flue gases.   Fortunately, after completing his degree, he had an opportunity to work with a US based company dealing with removal of “Hexavalent Chromium” from their wastewater stream.

Rakesh’s experiences helped him recognize the importance of environment related issues and happenings that were likely to surface in the future.   Subsequently, when he returned to India  he decided to gain and develop expertise in the field.   This in turn led to establishing a company to provide environmental engineering and related services to organizations, industries and institutes in India.  Developing the company in a new field of activity (which was not generally even heard of then) required a lot of convincing and presentation to industry as well as regulatory authorities.  At the same time, developing staff / personnel to an adequate level of expertise and delegation of work required immense managerial input.  His training and experiences in the USA and specifically at the University of Pennsylvania allowed him to have a successful career.