Her Story
About Lorena
Lorena Charbonneau worked in engineering, primarily manufacturing engineering, for 30 years before transitioning to education. She earned a bachelor's degree from Georgia Tech in 1978 and a master's degree from the University of Arizona in 2010, after which she taught at the middle school and high school levels for 12 years. Now retired, she remains active with the Georgia Tech Alumni Association and the Georgia Tech Women's Area Network Group, where she coaches and presents to young women on topics such as career decisions and financial planning for a successful future. Lorena attributes her professional success to her ability to communicate effectively with diverse team members and share their expertise for collective benefit. She values helping others reach their potential to make the world a better place and advises aspiring professionals to persist, engage with others, and recognize the enduring importance of human insight over emerging technologies like AI.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Lorena
01What do you attribute your success to?
I think what distinguished me from a number of my peers was that I could talk with pretty much anybody and see the value in what they were offering and help share that with other people on the team so that we got the benefit of everybody's knowledge and expertise. There's not many people that can do that or think it's important.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
Keep working at it, don't give up, and keep showing up.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Talk to people, engage with people. You don't know what connection you might make that will change your life or get you into a position or a group of people working with a group of people that you might never have known about that are just the most satisfying thing that you could ever find.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
People are very concerned about AI and what that might do for their starting positions. Those of us in the alumni group understand they have a reason to be concerned, but the human touch and the human imagination and their training and their experience is going to out-compete anything that AI will be able to do long-term. So overall their career's gonna be fine. The starting out is kind of scary right now.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
I always want to make the world a better place. I tried to do that in my engineering career and tried to do that in my teaching career. Help people be able to reach their potential and make the world a better place.
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