IB Woman
Issue No. 28 - April/May 2006
You can’t be a good engineer with nails
Christine Stock, Julie Mills & Danielle Wilson
by Penelope Herbert
Please describe what you do.
Danielle Wilson: The scope of my job is incredibly large and I am expected to manage long-term projects without supervision.
I follow the engineering process from initial quotation and contract settlement, through design, manufacture and implementation of the product into the customer’s facilities.
Julie Mills: At the University of South Australia my role includes teaching, research and community service. I am the Director of the Civil Engineering Programs at the University, which involves academic leadership of the degrees as well as student liaison.
My immediate work team includes five academic staff, two of whom are women, giving us the highest percentage of female academic staff in a civil engineering group in the country.
Christine Stock: I am now an applications engineer for ImaginIT Technologies providing client training and support for CAD design software. I also teach courses in CAD software part-time at TAFE SA.
As a first-year apprentice toolmaker, I worked at Diemold Tooling, machining and assembling special-purpose tooling for industry. Within a year, I moved into metrology running a coordinate measuring machine, a precise measuring tool used to gauge dimensions.
I wrote an area responsibility manual and a step-by-step guide explaining each machine program. A promotion into the engineering department required me to design and draft all tooling to exact engineering requirements to enable manufacture.
For the final year of my apprenticeship, I was offered a project-engineering role at Electrolux. I’m very proud that all three promotions in my apprenticeship have never previously been employed by apprentices.
Why were you attracted to the industry?
DW: Although my original intention was to go straight to university, I chose to enter a trade because I aspire to higher managerial roles.
A trade is an excell...
