Nichole Dunham

I would 100% attribute any success I've ever had in my entire life to God just providing, and me being faithful and obedient. I know this might sound cheesy or taboo to be so open with my faith, but I've always been at all of my companies, though never disrespectful. I think just following God, actually listening to what He's telling me to do, caring for people, genuinely living out the life that He asked for me to - being who I say I am, operating with integrity, listening to others, servant leadership, genuinely caring about other people. I think because of all of that is why I have been so deeply mentored and valued in my teams that I've been on. Without that, I wouldn't be where I am today. I know that. Even when things seem too big to handle on my own, I just have to go, okay, this is too big, what are you doing here? I know you're gonna work all things for good, because I definitely can't on my own.

The best career advice I've ever received is don't be afraid to try something new and learn it. It's okay to not be inside your discipline. I think that's a big thing for engineers - we get stuck siloing ourselves into boxes, saying I'm an electrical engineer, I'm a data engineer, I'm a software engineer, I'm a mechanical engineer. Instead of doing that, it's actually important to understand how the upstream and downstream works, what those other disciplines do, and how we actually incorporate it all together. Don't be afraid to learn something new, and step back and always look at the bigger picture. Understand your role, but understand all of the inputs and outputs of your role as well, so that you can build that team. That was probably one of the hardest things for me when I was younger - thinking I'm only supposed to do this thing, and that fear of being asked to stretch outside of what I'm comfortable with, what I know I'm a subject matter expert in. I learned you don't have to be the subject matter expert, you just have to be teachable and coachable. Don't be a know-it-all, but also don't be so shut off from opportunities that present themselves, even if you're like, I'm never going to use this. You have no idea what future situation that would actually prepare you for.

One of the biggest opportunities in my field right now is AI and AI initiatives - finding those synergies and understanding how to make it work for us, not against us. My company is really big into this. The key is figuring out what repetitive tasks we can take away with AI so that people can innovate and be creative. AI can't make the complex thought processes that we can as humans, and it doesn't have that innovative spirit. It's really helpful as a building block - you can throw ideas at it, and even if it doesn't give you a perfect result back, it's a great starting point. But it just doesn't have that human creativity that we innately have, as long as we have the time to utilize that part of our brain. So the question becomes: is it the replacement of jobs, or is it truly, how do we free up those mundane tasks to get to the area where we're innovating, we're creating? In this industry with cutting-edge technology, we need your brain power to troubleshoot, focused on those tasks, not pushing the same button 16 times. I think it can be an asset, not a replacement.