 Anthoney Deanes
Environmental Specialist
Brown & Root Environmental
Houston, TX
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 A.S. - Chemical
Technology, Mary Holmes College
B.S. - Chemical
Engineering, Tuskegee University |
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Environmental Specialist |
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"One of the most
important things that you can do is get a summer internship or a
cooperative education assignment. Unless you're there, you can't
really get a feel for what industry is like." |
Q: What are some of the
behind-the-scenes stuff that you have to deal with, as a professor, that
students may not know about?
Collins:
A very large part of the responsibilities of any university professor is
conducting research. Students don't see very much of this because most of
it is done away from the classroom-in my office, in the library.
Professors in the physical sciences, like chemical engineering, are
required to have supportive research, submit proposals to acquire their
support, and direct the research of graduate students. This is a very
large part of my responsibilities as a professor. Also, there are various
services. For instance, I'm an adviser to the AIChE Student Chapter here
at Howard. I serve on other university-wide, school-wide committees.
Q: How did you first get
interested in the thought of becoming a chemical engineer?
Deanes:
Well, when I was at Mary
Holmes College, I always thought about what am I going to do with this
degree? And, having a chemical technology degree, that kind of limited me
in a lot of things that I thought I might want to do. So in talking with
professors, and getting exposure to different careers, it seemed like all
the arrows pointed to chemical engineering.
Q: What do you think a
person in school today needs to make the transition to being
self-dependent in the working world?
Deanes:
I think the biggest factor is being able to interact with people and
communicate with people. When you get out of school and you get a degree,
that says that you are capable of learning. But being able to work with
project teams makes the biggest difference. It takes time to become
competent in doing chemical engineering, or environmental engineering, or
whatever. I think that people are the biggest factor, being able to work
with people and communicate with people. You need to be able to
communicate to your customer what you expect from them and what you need
from them. But at the same time, you've got to be able to understand what
your business unit expects from you, and what your manager expects from
you.
Q: Is the work you are
doing now what you thought it would be like when you were in college?
Deanes:
I don't think it's totally
what I expected because, for one thing, I love process engineering, and
thought that's what I would be doing. I did my senior project in the
polymers areas and I thought probably I'd be doing something with
polymers. But I never really thought about being in environmental
engineering at all. So that's kind of a surprise. Since I've been in the
environmental group, I've done probably more consulting than I have done
engineering. And I think it's critically important for me to gain more
engineering experience or equate more of my engineering experience with my
consulting experience because my background is engineering. Also, I need
to keep abreast of what's going on in engineering as well as getting
experience in engineering.
Q: What do you do on a
day-to-day basis?
Deanes:
I'm an environmental
specialist. Basically, we have four different area in our field services
and consultant group. We have people who do air work, technical work,
water and wastewater work, and regulatory type work. I've worked in all
those areas except air and, hopefully, that will be something I will be
working on in the future. I've done some wastewater design. I've designed
oil/water separators for a pipeline and oil/water separation systems. And
I've done a lot of underground tank work. I've done some risk assessment
type work, and data validation work.
Q: What do you like most
about your work?
Deanes:
I like being able to travel and go to different sites, getting hands-on
experience. When I was in process design, I didn't get a chance to get
hands-on experience, but, being in field services and consulting, I do
everything from budgeting to writing the work plans. I might do some of
the site evaluations, some of the water and air sampling, and some of the
soil sampling. I can do a very wide variety of things, from writing the
closure plan for that site, to doing an ERISA assessment for that site.
Q: What advice would you
offer to someone considering a career in chemical engineering?
Deanes:
One of the most important
things that you can do is get a summer internship or a cooperative
education assignment. Unless you're there, you can't really get a feel for
what industry is like. You need to have something that you can be happy
with because, unless you can have some pride in what you're doing and are
happy with what you're doing, you will not want to go there every day. Try
to get some experience, if at all possible. It helps you get a feel for
what chemical engineers do because, otherwise, you're just seeing it on
paper. The second thing would be, whatever you think that you like to do,
make sure you like it and make sure the money is not the biggest factor
because, over the long haul, if you don't really enjoy what you're doing,
the money won't really make a difference.
Q: You mentioned that you
previously worked as a process design engineer. What did that entail?
Deanes:
Well basically I was doing the
normal plant design-type things where I was designing pieces of equipment
and doing energy balances and material balances. I prepared data sheets
that I passed on to a mechanical engineer, and he passed along to an
electrical engineer, and so forth. You take temperatures, pressures, and
flow rates and try to control them, and make some type of product for the
consumer. In the environmental group, I do environmental site assessments,
wastewater design, data validation, risk assessment, and underground tank
work, those types of things.
Q: How does teamwork play
out in your current job?
Deanes:
We have different teams, whether it be in environmental or in engineering.
I guess the best example of a team is when I'm doing engineering because,
if I'm doing process, I'm the front-end guy. So when I develop a materials
balance and set the process specifications for equipment, you still have
civil engineers who you have to give data sheets to, you have mechanical
engineers who have data sheets, and, down the road, you have
instrumentation and electrical people getting those data sheets. You have
people with the pipeline group also contributing to the work. So you have
to be able to give them the things that they need and you're often going
to them to get what you need, as well as working with the client.
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