Her Story
About Jennifer
Jennifer Bauer is a Process Safety Management Director with 30 years of experience in the petrochemical industry. She earned a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Texas A&M University and started her career as a mechanical engineer at a petrochemical plant in Pasadena. Over the course of her career she has worked at multiple sites, including one majorly impacted by Hurricane Harvey where the facility was rebuilt from the ground up after extended downtime. She advanced into process safety after experiencing major incidents at her site and now works at the corporate level supporting a worldwide enterprise in maintaining strong process safety performance.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Jennifer
01What do you attribute your success to?
Probably my tenacity and drive. No matter whatever came up in my life, I've heard a lot of times, hey, you can't do that because you're a woman, or you can't do this or that, and that drives me to, okay, I'm gonna prove you wrong, and I'm going to show you that I can.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
It's kind of two-fold. Grow where you're planted. It's great to have ambitions to be that next leader, or the next CEO, or everything else, but if you focus on doing your job and doing it well, success will come. And then for women also, it's you don't have to be the superhero, and it's okay to have imperfections. And you can balance home and work.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Be bold. And be authentic. You don't have to be one of the guys. You can be authentic and still work in there. It is a balance. You do have to find your way there, but you can be successful and still be your authentic self.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
It's still a male-dominated industry, so as you get up into higher and higher leadership, there's challenges of being heard. You're in the room, and sometimes you speak and you're not heard, and then a male colleague in the same room will say the exact same thing and hear it. So we're still working through that in industry history, but I think we're getting better and better.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
In personal life, it's faith and family. You keep your focus on God and family, and then everything else kind of falls in line. At work, it's being trustworthy. And having a good team that you can depend on. And being a good leader, that they can depend on you, too.
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