EPLAN with Özlem Biber (Live At Rockwell Automation Fair 2023)

Nikki and Ali G had the opportunity to interview Özlem Biber with EPLAN at Rockwell Automation Fair in Boston last month.

She is an Account Manager in the Chicago area and she called on Ali years ago when she was working at Probat so it was a fun reunion.

We promise we did not mean to talk about EPLAN so much but we can't be too surprised the conversation kept coming back to it considering Özlem has spent almost 23 years with the company and is really passionate about what she does!

Massive shout out to EPLAN for sponsoring our show and being fantastic to work with, the more people we meet and the more we learn about them the more we want to do together. 

P.S. Their booth at Automation Fair was an amazing sight to behold and we couldn't have asked for a better setup than a glass enclosed conference room on the show floor for doing our interview!

Transcript

[00:00:00] Well, hello from Automation Fair 2023. We got the automation ladies, and we're doing a live episode and it's very, very fun to run into people that you've worked with in the past. So we came here to visit our friends at E Plan and Allie, found somebody from the past. So we decided we need to do an episode.

 We love doing in person interviews. We got lucky enough that these guys have a nice room for us and a camera. So shout out to Josh at E Plan. Thank you for putting it together for us. Because as everybody knows, our production level is maybe not quite there yet, in terms of video. So we appreciate it when we have friends to help us out.

 Our guest today is Aslan Biber from E Plan. She's an account manager and just happens to have interacted with Ali in a past life. So that's always really, really fun when we run into good people in the industry. It's a small industry, although a big group, you know, big worlds. We find ourselves in these situations a lot where you run into good people again, and I think we all appreciate them.

So if you haven't [00:01:00] seen the show before, hi, I'm Nikki Gonzalez. You're a host that talks too much of AutomationLadies and my co host, I'll let her introduce herself. I'm Allie G. I'm the one that talks a little less, but I'm getting better at it and, uh. And one of the things that we talk about a lot is partnerships because we wouldn't be able to do this if it wasn't for the two of us, helping each other with our strengths and weaknesses.

And. We love working with companies, that see the industry and the world in the same way. We collaborate together to make more stuff. sO so much for sitting down for an interview with us. Absolutely, it's my pleasure. Yeah. Great to see you again, Ali, and very nice to finally meet you in person, Nikki.

So where is it that you're based? I'm based out of our corporate office in Schaumburg, Illinois, just northwest of Chicago. Okay. So that makes sense in how you were working with Ali back when she was at Promat, right? Probat. Probat. Yeah. Probat. Probat is a show, I think, for material handling. It's a very good show.

We're going to a lot more shows these days, but that's the one I haven't been to. How many times have you [00:02:00] been to AutomationFair? Gosh, so Eplan became a Rockwell Automation Encompass partner back in 2008, so our first show was 2009. So we've been doing it ever since every year with the exceptional, you know, the couple of years due to COVID.

Okay. I lost count how many times that is, but, yeah. And I've only been once before. It was a short stint at the Houston, automation fair a couple of years ago. Yeah. That was the first one right after COVID. Yeah. Yeah. But I, and I don't remember seeing you guys there. But this year you walk straight into here and you can't see anything but E Plant.

I think shout out to, your whole team for this. And, in particular, our friend Sarah Larson probably had a lot to do with this. But you guys, I mean, you cannot miss. This place, which is why it's been great for us to hang out here. Is it different, is it bigger? Are you guys doing the same thing year to year or are you kind of going all out now?

No, it absolutely is the biggest birth that we've ever had. Um, [00:03:00] 60 by 60 this year. Our first show, back in 2009 in Anaheim was 20 by 20. So, you know, every year we gradually, you know, I've got a bigger booth. I'm bigger booth, but this year's our biggest, we're pretty proud of it. And, as I said, as you're coming down the escalators or the stairs, you can't miss it.

And I think it looks majestic. So, yeah, yeah. And not only is it that you can't miss it, right. You can have something that shouts at people. And you can't miss it, but you don't necessarily want to go to it. There's a magnetism here, and I think it's a combination of the way that the booth looks, you've got a lot of people, and then you have actual machinery.

What are you guys showing at the show? So, ePlan, we're a software company, right? And we cover the entire controls, hardware, design spectrum, and we're Widely known by our electrical schematic and also panel layout software solutions. But we just don't live in the engineering world, right?

Because as engineers are creating their projects and creating schematics and laying out their panels, they are capturing such [00:04:00] valuable information. That can actually be used during panel build process. , and we call that a value chain, right? All the way from designing to manufacturing and actually, servicing the maintenance afterwards.

 And, manufacturing can be faster, more efficient, with better quality. You know, if there's automation equipment, you know, these are panel shops, they're using those. So at our booth, this year, as well as last year, we're showing, um, retails are, sister company that we're co exhibiting and, their,, wire terminal machine is called WT and, that's their automated, wire processing equipment.

And, so what companies can do is as engineers, again, creating their schematics and then they're laying out the panels. Their panels in 3D, they can order out the wires with that. They'll get precise wire lengths. And then now that, wire processing data can be sent to, retails WT machine and, for those wires to be.

Cut, crimped, tagged, , even [00:05:00] bundled automatically. So, it's a terrific machine. They're, you know, doing live demonstrations all day long and, would love the visitors to come out and see it. There's still time before the show closes, today. Yeah. Very cool. I know we probably won't get this episode out before the show closes, but, um, since I live in Houston, you guys have a facility.

We do. Yes. And I'm trying my best to pull Allie to come to Houston, so hopefully we'll have some real life, you know, from the production floor content, for our audience to see this stuff. If they can't make it to the show or, you know, they're not local, um, It blows me away, to be honest. I don't know about you, like, Ally, you used to run a panel shop.

I did. What does this stuff, like, do when you see it? The machines, the software? So, I ran a pretty small one, but, I remember seeing it from, like a higher elevation and just seeing, All the different panels being built in there, like little section and then all of our equipment.

And so I'm sure that there's some gigantic amazing things. We'll see there. Absolutely. So if you did go to the [00:06:00] showroom in retail, the innovation center, it is amazing. You're not going to only see the, you know, the same wire terminal equipment there, but there's also their enclosure modification equipment as well.

And that again, um, same way that drilling data, the modification data can be exported out of our, panel layout software and then imported into, retail's, milling terminal is the name of the equipment and then, the enclosures can be, drilled and, you know, cutouts and all automatically, you know, again, saving companies or those busy panel shops, a lot of time and cost.

Just just automate the entire process number of years ago, we did a kind of a benchmark study and globally, and we interviewed 50 to 60 companies, either panel shops or companies that have their own panel shops. Right? And so we asked them to let us know. Well, you know, how long does it take you to do, several tasks that are [00:07:00] associated with building panels and time and time again.

Single task that took them the longest, and this was consistent all across the board is wire fabrication. Just because, it's manually intensive. Yeah. You know, if you haven't automated that process right. You got to manually measure the wire lengths and manually cut, manually strip and crimp, manually tag them.

So the equipment that you know, we're exhibiting here at the show today, really eliminates that effort. And then if you add. milling terminal, which is the enclosure modification equipment next to it. Then really you're that much faster in the panel shop and you're getting your product out to market much faster.

So with E plan, again, we will not just, =you know saving our customers time and costs during engineering process, but we're thinking panel build, we're thinking maintenance and, service and maintenance afterwards. And that's, from design until, delivery. There's also the pre engineering that we can also, you know, we're able to help our customers capture, um, [00:08:00] preliminary engineering data, help with coding and also, connected their third party enterprise systems like, PDM, PLM and ERP enterprise systems.

So we do all of that. We do pretty much touch the entire product development process from the very beginning time that customers get the orders. All the way to when they deliver it and then starts to make this afterwards. And I think it's small business. Let's say you have a small panel shop, right?

Just like a manufacturer. Automation helps you scale, right? And you can do more business without having to constantly worry about hiring people. Yeah. More and more people training them, right? And for these types of jobs, it's hard to get quality people for them to stick around when they're doing something super tedious.

 And I personally, like With my mission, what we're doing at QuoteBeam, it's all about automating more of the process that we as automation engineers or you guys have to do to build the amazing production lines that make this consumer process goods or things that we consume on a daily basis, right? We expect them to [00:09:00] be done quickly, efficiently.

Quality so we can buy them cheaply and then, but the whole industry kind of supporting that hasn't, I mean, I think it's like the old, the cobbler's children always have holes in their shoes. Kind of a thing. I'm probably not saying that right, but that's the same. Like, when you do it for a living. You don't necessarily focus on doing it in your own house or in your own life.

 And I do see that a lot with, you know, people in the industrial automation industry is we're creating amazing automation for other people, but then we struggle on our own, side, kind of doing things manually, doing things that are not data driven or disconnected. And at least I find it to be very satisfying to be on that side to help those folks be more automated.

But how about this? So this time, you know, I focused on talking about the show first because we're here and it feels like the thing that we need to talk about, right? But our show is typically also we interview people and we want to hear their stories.

So this is a little bit backwards. It's normally our very first question, but can you tell us about how you got into this industry and how you [00:10:00] got to be what, doing what you're doing with each year? Yeah, absolutely. So, I am, as I mentioned earlier, based out of our corporate office in Schaumburg, but I got on board with the plan 22 years ago and, back in our Detroit office.

So I actually first 12 years of my career wasn't in our, Farrington Hills, Michigan office. And then before I moved to Chicago area to take on a full time account manager position, Michigan. So, throughout the years and I wore many different hats and which gave me in perspective as to, you know, the broader way that our business operates.

Right? I work in customer service or processing inside sales as a marketing manager for a number of years and now I'm an account manager. So, It's been a great journey and I love it. , all of us here at a plan, we really, you know, truly believe in our product. But the way that I got on board was that, oh gosh, so back again, 22 years ago, it was around the time that, back then it was Chrysler still answers now, and diamond had merged.

Okay. And [00:11:00] that opened up the gates for a lot of German companies to move into the metro Detroit area and as well as form joint ventures, right? So, and that was happening all over. It was news. And, you know, for those of us who follow the industry, you know, we always saw that. And I was working for a satellite office of a material handling company at the time who are a customer today.

And, you know, everything was fine. And, I didn't even think about, you know, leaving my job at the time. But I just saw this, you know, just slew of these German companies moving into the area. And I said, well, maybe if I just, teach myself German and, back then, you know, there's , obviously none of the, like the, you know, do a lingo or was it a son?

None of those tools were available. And as I would have, I would go to like libraries and borrow books and CDs for those of us who remember what CDs were and, and, you know, teach myself German and thinking that maybe that would increase my chances of getting into one of these joint venture companies, but because I loved working for an international company, I had done that prior [00:12:00]to the company that I was working at the time.

So I wanted to get back into, you know, working for international company and I saw an ad from E plan for sales and marketing coordinators on the newspaper. I applied for it and, 22 years later, here I am. So that's the, you know, long short of it. Seems like E Plan, I've heard a lot of people, they come and they can grow in the company.

It sounds like a culture where people really want to stick around. Yeah. And it's not so common anymore that I talk to people that have worked for 22 years at the same company. Absolutely. So E Plan as, a, company, we're a German based company, as you know, and, we were founded back in 1984.

 And the U. S. Subsidiary has been in existence since 1994. So we are not new here. And, next year we'll be celebrating our 40th anniversary as a company and 30th year here in the United States. And, when he plan was first founded in the U. S. Or formed in the U. S. It was actually in Brookfield, Wisconsin, and it moved to Detroit [00:13:00] area back in 2000 and one.

And that's actually when I got on board right shortly afterwards. And then we opened up, you know, other offices in Houston, now there's one Atlanta and we have, sales and professional services team members, pretty much all over the country. And, throughout those, years and, back when I was working in Detroit, um, they call us the fat fly because there are five of us who have.

Over, 18 or 19 year and over, experiencing with E Plan. So, you know, we've stuck around and, we all love, you know, working for E Plan. And then, we're growing fast. We are, you know, we have open positions. We've been hiring. We've been growing ever since. You know, when I got on board, we were such a small, you know, much, much, much smaller team.

And, now, we've surpassed 40. And, we've come a long way. It's been a long journey. I think, you know, the fact that, there are at least five of us who has been here, you know, here with the company for, uh, 20 or more years, tells you, it's a testament to that.

Yeah, for sure. And it's not like the [00:14:00] demand for what you guys. going down. In fact, it's than ever. Um, to really you guys are doing for th sure. That's for sure. So

So new, and we don't even consider ourselves a, you know, cat package because that is usually, in a cat. Yeah. , it's associated with drafting, right. And we're not a drafting tool. So even back then, the term e cat was so new, the technology was so new, not very many companies knew what it was.

And, When, in Germany had already been in the market for, you know, two decades. Yeah. And, uh, so, more and more, you know, as companies, as automation got more sophisticated, right? With that the need for documentation, quality documentation, and also the need to create that documentation also became, you know, a greater need.

And so more and more companies, got introduced to the concept. [00:15:00] And we still had to work very hard to, you know, forget the name, the brand, but here's a technology, and because they're our technology, ECAE, you know, uh, electrical, uh, computer aided engineering for an engineering software, as opposed to a drafting software.

Yeah. And, so we worked very hard and, we held. Seminars and webinars, and we had, you know, customer meetings and forms and all of that just to educate the automation community in what ECAE was. And so over the years, as time passed, you know, more and more people got introduced to it and then embraced it.

And, there are still, in our opinion, too many companies just use them playing CAD, which is a In our opinion, terrible, terrible waste of a skilled engineer and designer's time. So we would love to, have conversations with them as well. And then we encourage them to do their research and, learn about the [00:16:00] computer aided engineering technology, electrical engineering technology, and, learn about it.

Contact us so we can answer their questions. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of education. I think it's sometimes when you're doing something different in the market than what's the established procedure. It's not about marketing your brand. It's about teaching, you know, educating about the process. That's it.

Yeah. And yeah, I was talking to somebody outside earlier about connectors and how a lot of, like, I kind of think of connectors as afterthoughts. And a lot of people spend time trying to figure out and specify connectors, but they're not out there shouting like, Oh, I have a connector problem. They're just used to it.

Like, Oh, yeah, connectors are a pain in the butt. And that's actually a problem that can be solved. You don't know you, you feel like you don't have a pain or you're just so used to it. Another one is like the procurement process. 

 CEO, Roman, he's an electrical engineer that started out as a machine builder. He designed panels. And he couldn't believe how much of his time was [00:17:00] spent doing non engineering activities.

Yeah, yeah. Like build materials or trying to source components and dealing with vendors and. You know, doing documentation stuff. That's not engineering, and it's like you got this education. You're incredibly skilled as a person. Your time is very valuable. How can we get them to focus, get to use that time to do actual engineering rather than, admin related almost activities or drafting just detailing.

Right? That's so true. That's fine. And as we have conversations with companies and folks in the industrial automation community. We hear that all the time. You know, they're still drawing lines and circles, and they're creating their bill of materials, just typing in an Excel or, Word document.

And, I even had conversations with, people who were using PowerPoint just to depict the schematics, you know, very simple, simple, you know, Single lines and powerpoint just drawing arrows and boxes. If you don't have the resources, [00:18:00] right? And again, for those folks that might be using a little bit more sophisticated tools, they still might not know that there are other better tools that are out there.

You know, they might be a step up from just using playing cat. But if they don't know that there are, there might be better tools and technologies and best practice methods. Then there's still missing out. So, I, you know, invite them to be curious and, talk to their colleagues, talk to experts in the industry.

And I also always, always, ask my customers to question everything they're doing manually during design and also during panels build too, because there is a chance that there are tools and again, best practices out there that, that can be wasted. Absolutely. Either reduce or eliminate those, you know, manual tasks.

The other thing is when you're bogged down with busy work, you don't have time to think strategically about how you can do things better. And so you kind of end up in a [00:19:00] cycle of there's always too much work to be done. I don't have time to look for better solutions. And then you end up kind of doing things the same way just for a long time without having the opportunity to look around and see what's out there because there is a lot of, I don't know, technology or tool fatigue.

There's always somebody out there pitching you something new and better. And you could waste your entire career doing nothing but looking at. New things and never getting anything done either. So there's a balance there. That's true. That is so true. Yeah. So how does E plan help once you've, you know, convinced people that E plan is incredibly powerful, which it is, how do you help companies convert to their people into your software?

Okay. So from the other softwares that we all know are out there. Yeah. So glad you asked that question. You know, we are company name is or North American company name is in a plan LLC now, but it used to be plan software and services. So software is only half the equation. The other half is the services.

 I once read [00:20:00] somewhere that the 80 percent of implementations just end up in failure because of poor planning. Yeah. So we feel that it is incredibly important to support our customers so that their implementation is successful. So we don't just hand a box or, you know, piece of software and, okay, here's the code.

You can download it and go knock yourself out. That's not what we do. We do offer an array of services to make sure that our customers are successful with E plan and we do support our own customers too. So they don't have to call some call center that are not E plan or they don't have to go through, resellers to get their support.

So we support them directly. And so anytime they need technical support, anytime they need training, Implementation and coaching and if they're like stuck somewhere and they have a list of questions and we help them with those. All the way to creating custom solutions for our customers to either tie into [00:21:00] maybe other systems or maybe, automate their, application and take it to the next level all the way to, uh, we have this tool called, you know, engineering, uh, you find engineering configuration easy.

And, so that is with a click of a button. Customers can create all their electrical, fluid power, PNIDs, mechanical, designs, , as well as PLC post, purchase orders and packing slips and invoices and all of that. So services, they're critical for implementation. And, we have a terrific team of, professional services team, who help our customers.

Implement a plan and solve their issues and take them to the next level as far as they want to go with their automation desires. Yeah, that's pretty cool. Yeah, because you really do need. You know, not just the technology, it won't make you successful. You don't use it. Right? And if you don't have the support.

And training to learn how to use it, right then. You're going to go through a whole big thing. I see this a lot with ERP implementations and make [00:22:00] digital transformation initiatives because of poor planning or support or, you know, not getting buy in from the people that are actually going to be using the thing.

Also, you hear a lot about these things. Failed investments in software or transformation, and I think it scares people, like everything, the devil's in the details, right? Like, just because you had a bad ERP implementation with 1 vendor doesn't mean that all types of digital transformation should be avoided.

 I will also say I'm guilty of this. Sometimes first impressions matter. When the first time I went to automation fair, I didn't really like it. And I was like, I don't ever need to go back, but that's not the right attitude to have because sometimes you need to look a little closer or maybe it's a different view that you got at another time.

And you realize that, you know what, my initial impression wasn't necessarily correct, or I'm making assumptions based on my bad experience with something else and tying that to something that I'm seeing now, that quite a bit as well. People have been burned, whether it's by automation in general, they're like, oh, I don't want to [00:23:00] automate because.

We bought this machine from the systems integrator that didn't support it or whatever that is. And I think that's a hurdle that all of us kind of have to be aware of and understanding when customers have those problems. You can't just think that they're dumb for thinking that way because there's real pain behind that.

Do you see that a lot, Allie? Oh yeah. Out in the market? I mean, I definitely see, you know, even, the need for documentation just from, people being burned by not having the documentation. But yeah, definitely see. A lot of spending money, and then it's not working. Yeah. And then just knowing that that doesn't work that you gathered your data now, even though that was a 1 sample and now you've decided, you know, especially if you lost the money, but my other question was, You know, let's say you've already, invested in, it's not a plan and, but, now you want to change, you've built up systems in these other softwares. Like, can you help them, you know, bring some of that stuff into plan?

Yeah. How does that? [00:24:00] Yeah. So, one of the fundamental differences between the technology that we provide and, some of the other, products in the market is that E plan is a truly database driven system. We're all about entering information once and then using it as many times as needed, wherever it's needed, you know, where, the design method that's really conducive for us is library based.

As opposed to copy and paste type of design method. So, you know, as long as, customers are, you know, building their parse libraries and, creating their templates and, all the other, master data, we call it that they need to more efficiently. And consistently and uniformly create their designs.

You know, it's always better to work with that master data as opposed to user a doing it one way, user B doing it another way. And they don't look similar. Right. So, speaking of, you know, entering information once and using it as many times as possible, we looked at the upstream and downstream [00:25:00] processes and then see.

 And really try to discover. Okay, what is what information is already existing that we can use, existing in other systems that we can bring into E plan? Similarly, what information that we have captured in E plan and now we can, use it in the, downstream processes. So that's really important for those customers.

And we get this question all the time. They'll have a, uh, just File cabinets full of, legacy drawings. And I say, well, you know, we created these projects, we have equipment out in the, you know, field and, these are the projects that we've created. You know, it's all in chat, or sometimes it's just even only in paper format, not even in digital format.

Right. What do we do with this? So, I wish I was sitting here and I could tell you, Oh, well, there's a magic button. We didn't bring them all into the plan. I mean, we can make them all intelligent. We're not there quite yet. However. There are ways that, even if a project is existing in cat format, right?

There are ways that some of that information, you know, we can [00:26:00] bring into E plan and, use it sometimes as just, yes, templates to trace over. Or it could be just a title block that actually in that case is a perfect use case that, you know, instead of just recreating any plan, we can bring it in and then add the properties to, make that title block intelligent.

Another example is we can bring in a, machine to layout, and then we can insert the intelligent. Symbols for field devices. So now at least, you know, you can bring in the cat, either the front or top view of the equipment and that that's going to come in as cat, right?

But then you, when you put in these symbols, you know, feel of the field devices and we call it an overview page. And now, to the customer, they're going to look at that drawing and they're going to see exactly where they're, automation components are located in, you know, on the equipment.

So that's another way if the customer has already have an existing database, right? You know, customers will have it either in [00:27:00] Excel or some form of database, right? Initially, we always recommend our customers to go to our data portal, and that's our web based library of manufacturers past data. We are at the automation fair today.

So we're really proud to say that we have over 32, 000 Allen Bradley parts just from Rockwell alone. Close to 500 other manufacturers with 1. 5 million parts. But, customers, hopefully if they have their own parts database they can just go into data portal and see what exists.

And then download those parts. There will always be some parts that, you know, they're not going to find on the data portal. We are, constantly expanding it, but, there will be some occasions that they're not going to find all the parts that they're looking for. In that case, they can actually bring whatever information they want into E plan.

It's just a simple import process. And then whatever, plan specific information that could be the symbol right for that part. It could be the macro for that part, or it could be maybe the step file for the [00:28:00] 3D footprint, right? Any information that's missing, they can just add it, but it's still having to create a.

From scratch. So let's look at what's existing, and then let's see how we can leverage it. Um, I attack data export. Import is another one. We can synchronize with, prominently lc programming software products such as studio 5000, for example, and, if a company Does their PLC programming first, or they're going to have some IO tag data information, right?

And that needs to be also put in the hardware designs as well. Well, instead of copying and pasting or, you know, trying to type it manually. They can actually, import and export the information, synchronize the same data between the two software products. So, let's see what's existing and let's try and leverage it.

So, I know you mentioned that, you were in the industry and working at a material handling company when you ended up getting into ePlan. A little bit further back than that. When did you know that you wanted to even be in manufacturing or engineering? I think it [00:29:00] goes, back to my middle school and high school years.

 I was always a better student when it came to, you know, chemistry and physics, and especially math, in high school. We had to specialize in, you know, certain topics. So I picked math and I had like eight hours of math a week. And so, so I think it comes from that. And, when I, uh, started college, I was actually studying food engineering and, later on, I changed my major and, draw some life changes, or I should say as a result of life changes, but, It's just, you know, technology, engineering, you know, every single job that I had, every single company that I had worked since then.

It's always been either technology or manufacturing, business. And I just felt really comfortable. Uh, it's Technology, it messes so fast. Yeah. Right. And, you always, you know, have to be on your toes and, you really wanna keep up. You don't wanna fall back because you'll be left in dust, right?

Mm-Hmm. . So, so there's this old need to really just discontinue to develop yourself [00:30:00] and, , and. You know, learn on. I love that. I'm a I love learning and I love being challenged. And because of the speed at which that technology advances and manufacturing is just creating something and something that either the consumers or the businesses, whether it's, you know, C to B or B to B type of business. It's fantastic, right? And, even today, you know, when I go into production floors, and I love doing that with every, you know, because when I visit customers, if they give me a tour of their either panel shop or a better their production, floor. It just amazes me, you know, , just, it's kind of like watching how it's made right on TV.

It's just, I love all of that. So I feel really, really, fortunate that I, you know, I've had the opportunity to work in this industry, uh, for all these years. And, still every day, especially coming to shows like these and, seeing also what other companies have, you know, brought to market and, you know what they're working on.

I think, I think it's just [00:31:00] wonderful. Did you go to middle school and high school here in the U S? I did not. I did not. So I was born and raised in Turkey. And when I left the country, I was 20 years old. So I started my, college education there and I was going to technical still is actually, Internationally accredited technical university.

I'm sorry to complete my first 2 years there. And then, moved to the United States. And after that, uh, you know, had my daughter and, wasn't able to go back to complete my degree, you know, seven years after, at which time I actually switched my major to, business management and, uh, after I graduated.

Then after I got my degree and I just continue to stay in the technology and manufacturing industry, but I was working full time as I was completing my degree. So, which that's why, which is why it took me, I only had 2 years of college to complete, but that took me 5 years to do. So, because I was only attending school in the evenings while working full time during the day.

Yeah, [00:32:00] that's a lot. And I know a lot of people, you know, you have life circumstances changes, careers and education aren't necessarily linear. And oftentimes you take turns. So I ended up in a business major as well, but always had that kind of tie back to wanting to make things or do, you know, my dad's an engineer.

 So I think that. Engineers with business skills or vice versa are really, really necessary in this world. People that can kind of translate those two sides. I agree. So I think you probably ended up in the right place. But did you find that when you were going to school, and maybe this is a cultural difference, I'm not sure, but I don't often hear here in the U.

S. that girls in middle school or high school are really encouraged to go into engineering and manufacturing. And obviously you didn't go to school here. Younger, I did, I went to, you know, middle school and high school here. I actually moved to the U. S. in middle school and I was not at all encouraged to go into those fields, but I was [00:33:00] lucky because I had my dad and I actually did have one really good female physics teacher that I loved.

I took AP physics and I was the only girl in the class. But is there over there? Did you feel encouraged to go into this field? And was that something special? Or do you think that's more common in Europe too? So, back then, there's obviously, you know, generational, gap too, but, back then, we were encouraged to really, uh, cause that was really the only way to, you know, survive and, make something of yourself.

Yeah, you know, stand on your own feet and also, um, get a job really. You have to have a college degree to get a job. So, you know, the popular, degrees, or I should say programs, or of course, you know, everybody wants, you know, your parents always encourage you to be a doctor or engineer or lawyer, right?

So my sister is a doctor and I wanted to have nothing to do with that. So again, I was more fan of a, natural sciences. And um, so. So yes, it was at least, you know, my parents always encouraged me and supported me. And, [00:34:00] I was fortunate because of that. So back to, the more recent time, I loved how much, uh, values put into STEM education and it starts at the very, very early age.

And, there are programs in even elementary school level where, you know, First robotics and, you know, kinds of competitions. I think that's very, very helpful. And, there is obviously, you know, feature is in the stem. It's so important. And, in terms of, being encouraged to do so, I think, we talked about diversity earlier a little bit and we see a lot more, girls being interested in, you know, and at a young age in STEM type programs.

And, that's wonderful. I love, following the two of you. Uh, LinkedIn. And I love what you're doing to, you know, spread the word and really show the community out there that, this is not just a man's world, right? Even though sometimes it might feel like, you know, we're in the automation industry, manufacturing industry, [00:35:00] exactly.

And, no, I actually see, more and more, female engineers. And, engineering managers and, that I'm, you know, personally dealing with on a one on one base and who faces who are decision makers who are leaders and, they do lead a, you know, team of multiple, engineers.

And I, I love seeing that. It just makes me really proud. Yeah, absolutely. And again, what you're doing with automation ladies is fantastic. And I think you're inspiring so many people that, you know, female engineers out there or those who are interested in, again, uh, you know, technology that there's a place for us and, there should be a seat for us on the table and, which we should take our seats.

Yeah. And we were just talking about this earlier out in the booth, but. Being genuine, right? So Bruno with his channel, he's just like, you know what? I put myself out there and I do what is genuinely me. And I think a lot of us creators, you know, we're, it's hard to put yourself out there, but I think when you do, and you do so [00:36:00] genuinely people are certain people are attracted to that and they see that, and then you can surround yourself with other.

People and companies that are genuine about what they're doing and they're willing to learn along the way. Right? And you mentioned, you're kind of, you know, lifelong learner, right? You would like to continually stay on top of new things and learn. In my opinion, that's the skill of the future stem is absolutely important, but, you know, computers will be writing code for us at some point in the future.

What we need to know is how to interact with the machines and the people. And how to make sure that the people serve us well, and that we use that in a positive way. But in this industry, we see a lot women have bad experiences as companies. And they leave the industry altogether. And again, we want to try to, you know, open up that door and say, you know what, there are great companies out here out there in the industry.

Not all of them are great. So leave the bad ones, leave the bad ones and go to the good ones. And you can look at the number of, you know, the diversity in leadership, or [00:37:00] a lot of it's about personal relationships to go out there and network and see who's happy in their jobs, who is engaged with their company, you know, who really, and you can start to look at those companies.

You know, don't just apply for a job and look at the job description and say, does this look good or not, go out there and meet people and you get more of a feel for it. A lot of what we do in terms of when we select, who we want to collaborate with, whether it's on the business side for our companies or for the show.

It's kind of a lot of it is a gut feeling. We'll try to do some research to make sure we can back up our gut feeling, but when we meet people from companies. And we can tell that they're genuine and that they have, you know, genuine love for what they're doing and the people that we're working. They're working with.

That's a huge sign and we want to bring those companies to the forefront so that everybody that is in a bad situation, you know, with their company culture or their position. Don't leave the industry. Just come to 1 of these companies. That is actually in this industry [00:38:00] and is a great place to work and where you can be valued for who you are and what you the skills you bring to the table and genuinely have co workers that you can enjoy working with, because unfortunately, I think in manufacturing and engineering, it's been, in the past, anyway, a little bit more secretive.

Right. And it's kind of like, well, whatever, you know, it's how it's done is how it goes. And. Right. We, for one, want to just open it up, right? Showcase your culture if it's good. And if it's not, you're going to find out and you should fix it. Instead of trying to slap marketing terms or something just to say like, Oh, we do it too.

You know, the proof is in the pudding when people get there and are you hiring any women or minorities and that they're not sticking around, you know, there's a lot of science, um, ask questions about culture in your interviews and see what they say or see what their facial expression seems like when you first ask that question.

And if you're young and you're in the early part of your career. It's okay, not to love your 1st, [00:39:00] 1 or 2 jobs. Make sure that you just stick it out a little bit. Learn from it because you can learn even at a bad company. You can learn a lot. For sure. You can learn a lot of skills and then find yourself a new opportunity by networking, by finding people working somewhere else that's better.

And it's a lot easier to find a job when you already have one. So don't quit on, you know, day three, when if it's not right, we'll take the opportunity to learn and you will find your way to a place in this industry where you can use your passion and, you know, feel at home. Absolutely. And you'll learn a lot about yourself as well.

Thank you for doing that. Yeah. You know, you'll learn about your, what your preferences are, what you want to do, what adjustments you need to make, or how you want to make up or something you might be lacking, you know, whether that's skill or knowledge or even soft skills, right? So you don't learn about yourself.

Well, thank you so much for spending the time with us today. I know it shows it's crazy. We're always running around. It's hard to find, time to sit down, but. We really appreciate this, I guess our last question in the spirit of the way we normally do [00:40:00] it on the podcast is. Can you tell us where people can find you or follow you if they want to be in your network and maybe ask you questions if they want to come work for you plan.

 It's always great for us, you know, it's women to have a community of other women that we can look up to. Where can people find you and what should we expect to see from you going forward? Absolutely. No, thank you very much. First of all, for the opportunity. This is great. Great catching up with you again in person.

And, I'm on LinkedIn and, , you can find me either, um, through our company, page, a plan, USA or, uh, as that'd be bad on LinkedIn. And, always, you know, love to hear from, like minded people or, anyone, you know, who has any questions. As far as, you know, finding about our company, eplanetusa.

com and our solutions and, uh, feel free to give us a call. Our phone number is listed there, or we do have a form people can just, you know, if they don't want to some, you know, some people, some people don't want to call. And so we have a form for them to fill out and, the responses will come directly to us and then, [00:41:00] you know, we'll reach out and, would love to start a conversation.

Absolutely.