Now that it is no longer unusual for women to "consider" technical careers, the next step is to help women better match their unique interests and talents to the wide range of career possibilities. This panel will focus on our pre-career audience, i.e. those still in post-secondary education programs. Mindful that the pathways women take to technical careers vary, the panelists will discuss the ways in which each found their own career matches and cover how initial career interests lead to new careers in unanticipated areas.

• Leslie Grattan - President, Leslie Grattan & Associates - Marine biologist finds valuable role in the oil and gas sector
• Sherrie Myers - Co-operative Education Coordinator, Memorial University - Mechanical engineer embraces psychology to better career counsel engineers
• Carol Ann Thomas - Technical Consultant, Freedman - Electrical engineer leaves designer role to protect intellectual property
• Dawn Marshall - Assistant Professor, Memorial University - Wildlife genetics researcher and educator extends interest to forensic and ecological applications of DNA technology
• Moderator - Susan Hollett, President, Hollett & Sons, Inc.

Leslie Grattan decided to be a marine biologist at age 13. Academic training was accomplished at the University of Guelph, the University of Waterloo, Memorial University, and the Université de Paris.

She has applied her interest and training in marine biology to the field of environmental management for over 30 years in industry, in government (both federal and provincial), and in participation in a variety of associations. Leslie has incorporated this love of the ocean into where she lives, here in Newfoundland!, and into free time activities, with lots of hiking and kayaking along the coast.

Leslie's career started as the first environmental professional in the federal agency regulating the offshore oil and gas industry. Based in Ottawa, this was an opportunity to establish environmental requirements for offshore petroleum exploration and production, both regulations and programs such as the Environmental Studies Research Fund and cooperative work between government and industry to understand the environmental implications of oil and gas on the offshore of eastern Canada. Hibernia was discovered and the operator began the first environmental assessment of offshore oil production. Eager for hands-on work and to get back to Newfoundland, Leslie joined the oil and gas industry in 1980 and stayed for almost 20 years!

Offered an opportunity to take on environmental management issues at the provincial government level, in late 1997, Leslie was named Deputy Minister, Department of Environment and Labour in the NL government. She advanced several issues in both fields - e.g. amendments to the Human Rights Code, establishing the Workplace Health Safety and Compensation Commission, a provincial Waste Management Strategy, and cooperative work with the federal government on integrated coastal management. In early 2004, Leslie established her own consulting company and has focused on environmental assessment and management of marine development projects. She is presently an environment and regulatory advisor and socioeconomic lead for the Hebron (offshore oil) Project.

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Sherrie Myers is from St. John's, Newfoundland where she is currently a Co-operative Education Co-ordinator in the Faculty of Engineering at Memorial University. She graduated from Memorial with a B.Eng. in Mechanical Engineering, after which she worked in Process Controls for a number of years before seeking a happy medium in a career that combined her love of technology with her desire to help others with their personal development and career. Wanting to work specifically with engineering students, Sherrie became involved in Engineering Co-op Education at UBC and then augmented her academic background and strengthened her ability to work with students by completing a Masters degree in Counselling Psychology that included a focus in career counselling. She now continues her work in Engineering Co-op at Memorial, where she assists engineering students before, during, and after their work terms and connects with industry partners to development engineering related jobs for students in the program.

Outside of her work, she considers herself a "tri geek" and travels the continent racing in half ironman and ironman distances triathlons. She attributes her love of this sport to her interest in gadgets and mechanical objects (like fancy and well-engineered carbon framed triathlon bikes!). With this in mind, she always takes the opportunity to encourage young women to not shy away from technology, but rather embrace it, and to believe that they are capable of achieving what they set their minds to do in any area of work (or play).

Sherrie's past work experience includes Manager, UBC Career Mentoring Program, The University of British Columbia; Engineering Co-operative Education Coordinator, The University of British Columbia; Process Controls System Specialist, Greater Vancouver Regional District; and Instrumentation and Process Controls Engineer, Reid Crowther and Associates Ltd.

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Born and raised in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Carol Ann completed her high school education at Gonzaga in 1992 and it was at Gozaga that her interest in the sciences was first sparked. By 1993 she had obtained a private pilot's license and considered entering the aviation field; however, her desire to work in a more technical role led her to pursue a career in engineering and she entered a program in fall of that year.

Accepted into the Memorial University of Newfoundland Co-op program, electrical engineering, Carol Ann completed work terms in the contracting, utility, software, oil and gas, and telecommunications industries. She apprenticed locally, in Ottawa, and to broaden her experience internationally, the United Kingdom. After graduating in 1999, Carol Ann moved to Ottawa during the high-tech boom and started a career at Nortel Networks in a hardware design role. There is where she developed her skills in printed circuit board (PCB), and Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) design.

The decline in the telecommunications industry brought changes to the city of Ottawa so in 2002 Carol Ann joined as employee 35 of the telecommunications startup BTI Systems as a PCB and FPGA designer. Working in a startup provided both new challenges and opportunities to have a direct impact on the success of the company as a whole. Several years later, she diversified her role and moved into Product Management.

Recognizing that her technical background and hands on client experience would provide other opportunities, Carol Ann explored career options that could make use of her education and skill set but would allow a new career path. She decided to move into the Intellectual Property industry where her past knowledge would be utilized and she would continue to diversity her skills. Carol Ann began working with the Ottawa based Intellectual Property firm Freedman in the fall of 2010. Her recognition of the recent economic growth of her home province and her desire to move back to Newfoundland and Labrador provided the catalyst to open a Freedman office in St. John's in the fall of 2012. She continues to build the practice and specializes in patent portfolio design and intellectual property matters relating to drafting and prosecuting patents.

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Dawn Marshall obtained a Bachelor of Science Honours from Memorial University, majoring in Biochemistry and Biology, and a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Toronto, Department of Zoology, where she studied molecular evolution.

She undertook Postdoctoral Fellow positions at the Department of Forest Sciences at University of British Columbia and at the Department of Biology, Memorial University, then accepted a contractual and eventually tenure-track assistant professorship in Biology, where she has taught courses at all levels of the curriculum, in topics including introductory biology, genetics, evolution, and human biology.

She currently teaches a practical course entitled Research Methods in Genetic Biotechnology, and conducts research and supervises graduate students in the area of molecular evolution and genetics of wildlife, primarily in Newfoundland and Labrador, with foci on conservation, management, and wildlife disease.

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