On March 16th, the Paustenbach lecture took place in Rose-Hulman’s Hatfield hall. The lecture was named for and funded by Rose-Hulman alumnus Dennis Paustenbach, a toxicologist and industrial hygienist who is president of ChemRisk Inc. The lecture, entitled “Thriving In Today’s World- 5 Tips for Career Success”, was delivered by Michael R. Gambrell of the Dow chemical company, another Rose-Hulman alumnus. Since joining Dow in 1976, Gambrell has served on the executive leadership, business operations, management, and sustainability committees, and currently serves as Dow’s Executive Vice President.

As the name suggests, the speech was divided into five sections, with an opportunity for questions after the lecture was completed. As Gambrell became older, he said, he realized that his role had become that of a coach, mentor and teacher to train and prepare the next generation of engineers. In his lecture, he said, he would attempt to condense thirty-three years of experience into twenty minutes.

Gambrell’s first recommendation for career success was to “expand your worldview.” Today, “the world is truly global;” business is no longer centered on U.S. interests. Gambrell first realized this in 1994, when he moved to São Paulo for Dow. The experience gave him a sense of diversity, which, he said, is important for a leader to grasp. As you expand, he said, “you have to get out of your engineering box;” that is, take an integrated approach and try to see the big picture of any situation. Gambrell remarked that this is especially the case with sustainability: engineers are going to be the ones that have to “connect the dots,” and this generation of engineers will be the first that have to do so.

Building on the theme of expansion, Gambrell’s second tip for success is to “expand your abilities”. Although it is an engineer’s job to “understand the details,” this is only a small part of the skill needed for a successful career. The engineer’s role transforms as a career matures: from understanding details to becoming a visionary, to being an innovator. In order to successfully expand one’s abilities, one must understand what is happening in a global context, so one can determine which skills to foster. These skills become more important the higher a worker is in a company. “Everyone grapples with the same questions; but some of them have a lot more zeroes behind them than others.” At some point, said Gambrell, “you’re going to have to pull on everything you’ve learned in order to make elevated decisions… and you’re just beginning to learn.”

Gambrell’s third tip for success was learning to adapt to change. In fact, he said, Dow’s need to respond to corporate meltdowns and the global financial crisis was a real-world example of the importance of this principle. This is why it is especially important for new hires to be adaptable. Companies are looking for people who always have a ‘Plan B,’ and know how to make tough calls. The more plans there are, the lower the chance of failure. However, in order to make these decisions, workers also have to learn to compartmentalize: to mentally separate the things one can and cannot control. The current economic climate is going to be very complex, and decisions will be difficult for even the most experienced engineers.

Fourth, Gambrell said that engineers need to have a passion. “Passion drives motivation [and] passion drives commitment”; being passionate and motivated often makes a big difference in the quality of work. In order to improve on what you are passionate about, you need to “think about what you did well” and focus on improving that. Focusing on the negative is often a extremely frusutrating and fruitless endeavor. By keeping life simple and following your passions, said Gambrell, you will be on your way to career success.

Life is not just about you.

—Mike Gambrell

Gambrell’s final tip for success was to think about other people. “Life is not just about you,” commented Gamrbell; teamwork is also an essential part of life. In the business world, “your job is to make your boss look good.” If you do well and bring others along for your success, they will take care of you. Also important to this final tip is cultivating relationships. Gambrell said that talking to people and cultivating relationships are always underestimated, and that once you need help from someone, it is too late to begin a relationship. However, the most important relationship of all is family. Gambrell stated that although the business world is a busy place, “family has to be a priority, because you don’t know what’s going to happen the next day.”

On completion of the speech,the lecture turned into an open question-and-answer format. Gambrell was asked many questions about his personal keys to success, and he continually emphasized the ability to adapt and a background in business as key factors in his career. The most important thing to learn in college, he said, was to learn to foresee change—because quite often, success hinges on our willingness to adapt and look at things from a different perspective.

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