Q&A: On Leadership with an Engineering Grad

I recently was asked by ILEAD to reflect upon my engineering leadership experience and share some of my lessons and growth along the way. Below are the answers to the Q&A. Enjoy! —–  1. Tell me a little about yourself (program, year, your hometown).  Program: Industrial Engineering, Operations Research Year: 1T3+PEY Hometown: Panama City, Panama Hobbies: Rugby,…

First day of the rest of my life

It’s currently 1:05 am. I can’t sleep. I’ve been back in Panama for 1 week, enjoying time off with friends and family. But now, vacation time is done. As I sit and write this, it’s my last night of vacation life. Tomorrow morning, I start my first day of work at Ubiqua. It’s not my…

First Week Back In Pty

On June 28, 2014, I officially moved back to Panama.  * FlightFun The flight’s a funny story. I was travelling with way too much baggage, but I found a loophole in the baggage self check-in counter which ended up saving me about $400. I slept both flights, except for the snack and meal times. Funniest…

Expanding My Comfort Zone as Emcee of the NBTC 2014

This past weekend I had the opportunity to Emcee the National Business and Technology Conference 2014. It was an incredibly challenging, but rewarding experience. In the spirit of growth, I’d like to share 3 lessons I learned about myself this past weekend. 1. Control = Comfort I consider myself an Ops guy, an executor and…

Leadership Lessons from ILEAD

I’ve had the opportunity to be a part of ILEAD, a series of Leadership Working Groups and Certificate Programs in the past and I’d like to share the 3 most important lessons that have helped me evolve into the person I am today.   #1 Leadership Is a Privilege, not a Right We often think that because…

Aspirational Limits

“Because the ones that are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.” – Steve Jobs (1955-2011) It’s interesting that our first most human response is to recognize limitations. We’re taught physics and chemistry and learn how things work, but we’re  never asked to imagine how things can one…

Dealing with Failure: Second Mile Engineering Award

So this past week I heard back from an Award Application I had submitted. Needless to say my application was not successful. HUGE Bummer. Low-blow. I worked my butt off, polished the essays, filled in the forms, reviewed, edited, reviewed, edited x2; everything I could to make sure it was PERFECT. Essentially, I played by…

How do you know if you did a good job?

I recently had a conversation with a mentee of mine. She had now completed a huge extra-curricular role and I asked her how she felt about it. I felt she did an incredible job. To my surprise, she didn’t feel the same. When assessing ourselves, we are often too critical about ourselves and our performance.…

Want to Run a Kick-Ass Panel?

This past week I was a panelist on a Organizational Leadership Session. The topic was “Getting Involved” and all of the panelists were student leaders from a variety of different clubs. Overall, the panel was fun and engaging, but it got me thinking on the differences between “good” panels and “kick-ass” panels. Below are a…