Her Story
About Lila
Lila Careaga is an intern in traffic engineering at Chen Ryan Associates in San Diego, California. She has been in her role for one year while continuing her studies at Berkeley. Her daily work involves preparing memos, conducting traffic analysis, traffic impact studies, and vehicle miles traveled (VMT) analysis using the a variety of tools for public and private developers and cities. Lila is passionate about improving public transportation and reducing vehicle dependency to lower carbon footprints, drawing from her experiences growing up near the border and using public transit in San Diego. She serves as a student leader with the Institute of Transportation Engineers, where she is directing the planning of the Student Leadership Summit for the ITE Western District Conference. In her work, Lila values a definition of leadership centered on willingness to perform difficult tasks without recognition and putting in extra hours to support team success.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Lila
01What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
If when you're going to sleep at night, when you're waking up in the morning, if during lunch and dinner, all you can think about is your passion, then nothing else can stop you. Every single roadblock, every single time someone or something gets in your way, every time there's an obstacle in the road, it just kind of seems like a pebble in what is a long journey to what you're passionate about.
02What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Leadership is the person who's willing to do the dirty work, the person who's willing to put in the hours late at night, to be the one who is not in the spotlight. When at the end of the day, I have to choose something that's tough, I'm not going to get any credit for it, but I know that it's what I should do.
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