MEL #008 | Achieving Big Goals Through Small Consistent Actions with Amy Kurr

KURR: To be the leader, just do one thing, just do the next thing, and then just keep doing it. And when you don’t have time or you forget or whatever, just 

Put grace over all of that. Don’t hold it as a negative. That’s what builds the confidence and the trust.

ADAMS: In this episode, I speak with Amy Kurr, a PhD candidate in energy science engineering at the University of Tennessee, co-founder of CWRU Lift, a community for competitive weight lifters at Case Western Reserve University, and founder of Grad Society of Women Engineers at the University of Tennessee. Amy discusses her engineering journey and how, through initiative and persistence, she has been able to create her dream graduate experience. In the leadership segment,Amy talks about how an unexpected medical issue inspired her to create a weightlifting community to help her get back into a sport she loves. Through dedication and delegation, she was able to help the program get off the ground, even though she transferred soon after its launch. Finally, Amy shares her advice on how small, consistent actions can result in achieving big goals. Without further delay, here is my conversation with Amy Kurr.

Hi Amy. Welcome to Mastering Engineering Leadership. 

KURR: Hello, Angelique. Thank you for having me.

ADAMS: I am really glad to talk to you today. Can you start just by telling us a little bit about how you got into engineering as a career field?

KURR: Yeah, absolutely. So I was kind of interested in science and math and all that stuff when I was in high school. And my parents, my father came from kind of a science background, a little medical, but was really in the military. And then to technician work, my mother was on the government side doing more business and compliance and auditing.

And so they had kind of pushed me towards some kind of fun STEM activity. We do a lot of STEM hands-on, know, build it yourself, home activities. And so I had just kind of been looking at engineering and then figuring out other things tangential to it. And I really went into undergrad kind of just don’t limit any opportunities. I was like, choose the most versatile engineering program. Engineering itself is versatile. I was always told it’s a great backup plan.

And I had heard, you know, if you do engineering, you can be an incredible dog walker. And when it says, you know, engineer, people will believe, wow, clearly she can do, you know, run her own business or she can do great at whatever, right? Even stuff that’s totally unconventional to engineering. So I went into undergrad, went with materials engineering, and that’s really kind of what then solidified and started defining myself as an engineer. And it just went from there. I found more opportunities and loved it.

ADAMS: Yeah, that’s great. So I think you might be the first person that I’ve heard so far call engineering as a backup plan. love that idea. But I mean, I think you’re right. I don’t know,

branding around engineering that makes people think that you must know what you’re talking about. I just thought that was funny. So then you also decided to go to graduate school. Can you talk a little bit about that decision to continue on beyond undergraduate to go to graduate school?

KURR:  Yeah. So I graduated with my undergrad degree and I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do for work. So I went and worked a couple of years and that really honed in, hey, you thought about grad school, now you know why you want to go back to grad school. Now you know what you want to do or you definitely know what you don’t want to do and you’ve got a little bit idea of what you like better. And so I went back for a number of reasons, which I’ll share, but I think the big thing was some people think I’m going to grad school for one reason, just to get a PhD, just to get a master’s or just because I don’t know what I want to do. I don’t want to say like, I think you can go for a number of reasons and you can find a school in a program to meet a number of reasons. So my big reasons were one, I wanted to kind of transition from one type of engineering to a different one. So I had done materials. I got a job as an electromechanical design engineer. So I used my materials to do electrical mechanical work, but I wanted to kind of get back out of that and go back to materials. I wanted to focus on polymers. So that was one. Two, I wanted to dive deep into the technical design of experiments.

When you’re out in industry, you get a couple failures, you get a couple pieces, a couple somethings. And people are like, can we make a decision? Yes or no, here’s three pieces. Or we’ve only got one day of testing available. Do everything you can one day. And so I didn’t know how to design great experiments with such little money, time constraints, resources, knowledge. So that was the second one. The third one was to kind of understand what do I want to actually do, right? When I go back and get the experience of

Okay, if I’m really technical in this, where would I go? Do I want to be a consultant and do consulting engineering? Do you want to start up my own business, et cetera, be more entrepreneurship with my engineering? Do I want to go and work for a specific company? Or do I want to be like an expert where I can then work with kind of a number of companies supporting a specific technical specialty? And the fourth reason was I wanted to specialize and improve my technical.

Spanish as well as my regular speaking Spanish with industry had helped pay for those kind of basic courses. And so I went and found a program that kind of did all of that and then gave me kind of a fifth bonus, which was learning about fire protection engineering and fire safety and fire research, which I had gotten interested in from supporting the safety aspect when I was in industry. And I was really excited about, you know, this new area I had never heard of. So that’s where I went back.

why I went back to grad school. 

ADAMS: Yeah, that’s great. I love what you’re saying about there could be multiple reasons. And so I’m curious, it take you a while to find a program that actually addressed all of your multiple reasons, or did you find that graduate school in general allows for sort of a broader experience than maybe undergrad did?

KURR: So a bit of both because I transferred. So at first, I’ve only found a couple schools. I was looking very selectively. Okay, I want polymers, want plastics. I can go for materials, but I want to know that they have polymers and plastics. And so there’s only a few programs that specialized in that, right? And then I kind of was like, okay, we’re going to narrow it down from there. You know, what do they do? Do they process plastics or do they?

Do R &D on the plastics or do they do filler analysis? What other capabilities do they have? Are they partnered with a medical school? Because I could get behind biomedical engineering. I love sports. So was like, maybe we can combine that. Or what are the other options? Do they have a master’s program or master’s and PhD? And then I was like, do they have this safety aspect? Do they have the fire aspect? Where can I go? And then I boiled all that down and I had like two or three schools.

And so there was people like, you should apply to five or six. But the benefit is when you know what you want to do, you don’t need to apply to five or six. You know what you want to do and you’re probably going to be a great candidate because you’re more like that perfect fit. They know why you want them. You know why you want to go there. And so I applied to just two universities. One was Case Western Reserve University. The other one was NC State. And I was excited about

Case Western’s polymer engineering, back molecular science and engineering department, NC State had a textile engineering department, and they both had connections with fire testing, et cetera. And so originally, nope, that was all I decided. I ended up transferring part way through with some funding issues, et cetera. And so as you can hear, I only had two universities picked out and I had heard about the University of Tennessee.

And the University of Tennessee didn’t have any of the things I was looking for on my checklist per se, right? It didn’t have a polymers department. It didn’t do a ton of polymers research or from what I had looked at online, et cetera. And those were two of the big things, right? And then do they have a FHIR program? No, not officially. And so as I researched more, they’re partnered with Oak Ridge National Lab. Oak Ridge does a lot of polymer research. There is a lot of polymer research spread out across the departments, but there’s not a home for it.

So you’re have to pull a little more work, but I was like, okay, so it is there. And it is, you know, leading polymer research in the field, some of the leading expertise, the research, the instruments, et cetera. And then I realized they have a fire protection and engineering certificate program. Okay, so right, so they’ve got some classes, but then I realized they’ve got a lot of engineers that work at Oak Ridge and Y12 and in the surrounding community, they could help me learn that content, even if it’s not in a formal class setting.

On top of that, of course, they offered Spanish classes, right, but it was actually talking to the professors, hearing that they would be willing to send me, you know, overseas to get some international experience, letting me do some customized projects, take Spanish classes, approve stuff like that. Case Western also allowed me to do that, right, but this wasn’t as formalized. I had to kind of ask for it and build it out. It wasn’t just like, we saw you speak Spanish, yep, we will be happy to let you continue doing that. had to.

ask and ask. And so I think you can do it either way. It worked for me both ways. It’s just, you know, do you know what you want? Ask the right questions, keep asking and find those, I call them 10 out of 10 people. So find the people who really want to help you. People who are going to advocate for you go forward. If you’re just facing barriers, they won’t respond to emails, etc. And you’ve tried, you know, relentlessly, I’m advised.

Let those people go, right? They’re just not in the right space right now, the right time to help you. Maybe reach out later, but go for the people who are ready to help you. And that’s where, that’s what I did. And then you find enough of them in just cascades. And so I ended up transferring and there was funding, of course, 100 % recommend, find funding in engineering or STEM. You can find funding for most master’s programs, most PhD programs.

and most MD, PhD programs if you get your MD as well. So I wouldn’t advise going for a program that doesn’t fund it. And that was a requirement everywhere I went, but luckily the funding was there at that time.

ADAMS: Yeah, that’s great. one of the things that I want to double click on is just this idea of

you might have to cobble together something that you really want. So you knew enough about yourself and you knew enough about what you really wanted that gave you some motivation, I think, to scratch beyond the surface of, okay, so if I look on the website, I don’t see this perfect program or maybe I saw it in two places, but now, you know, those.

This didn’t work out for whatever reason. So now I’m willing to scratch beyond the surface and I’m willing to do the work to find the people to help me put together what I really want. And it sounds like you did that work and you found people and you were also willing, another thing I think is important, you were also willing to say, okay, if this person doesn’t help me, let me go find somebody else who will. And I think those are just really important.

nuggets of advice that I think our audience really needs to hear because too often folks either one, give up because they aren’t getting the help that they need immediately. And as you say, you had to be relentless about it. And I don’t know how many times you have to follow up with people, but I’m sure you did it more than once, twice, three times. I mean, you probably did it several times. I know I have a story about sending an email to the Dean and his executive assistant. I sent 18 emails. before I got the first meeting to kind of that ultimately led to the role that I have now. And so I said, well, you know, they didn’t tell me to stop. I’m going to keep trying. So I like that. And then, yeah, recognizing that, you know, you’ve got to you may have to design your own thing or put together things, pieces that maybe people didn’t see fitting together. So I just really appreciate you saying that. And so I’ve had an opportunity to

to interact with you a little bit since you’ve been here at University of Tennessee. Even as you are finding things that are here and you’re putting those pieces together, you’re also willing to start your own thing. And so do you mind talking a little bit about maybe like the grad SWE and the entrepreneurial work that you’re doing?

KURR: Yeah, I think that’s exactly what it is. I was always told if you want something, we are privileged enough to live here where we can within reason get whatever we want. you can dream it, it can be possible. And we need people to dream it and be possible. I was always told if you find a problem, we need a solution, right? There’s a reason we don’t have one. And so, yes, the kind of summary to how I’ve done this and then a few examples to follow. But I’ve created a number of things, opportunities, programs, organizations, because there’s a need and we found a solution. And that solution is what do the people need? And that’s what we’re delivering, right? It’s not what I want or what I think we need. It’s asking them. And so a few examples that you shared is we’ve created the Society of Women Engineers group at the University of Tennessee.

And we similarly created one at Case Western. And that’s where there was just a big need from graduate students in general to find community. And that’s everywhere. Right. And so finding graduate groups are great. Women really need community and there’s less of them at the graduate level. And there’s also a lot of international students. So we’ve just got people plucked from all over. Right. And graduate school, most of them haven’t just popped from undergrad. So you’re also plucked from all over there. You’re coming from different industries, different ages. And so starting an organization or a group was like, it’s obvious, right? How do we do this? And so some of it’s just logistics, but it’s really just getting enough people together who want to do something. And then of course, putting a name to it and getting more people and helping do what they want to do. If it’s fine funding, if it’s socialized new community, if it’s learned specific technical resources, get speakers, et cetera, how to do that. And so we’ve done that in an engineering example with grad SWE.

And then we’ve done that for, or I’ve done it. I say we, because it’s a team. You might have an idea, but you find people who have the same idea. You’re not going to do it on your own. It’s those other leaders that come through. Even if you take a leadership role, I never forget those people who helped you get off the ground. Even if it’s that first month, four months, one year, they might leave, but they’re the reason it’s there, right? They know they started it. And when they see it thrive, you see it thrive. That’s what.

That’s what matters so much. And an example of that is we started up a student organization was at Case Western, aside from grad suite called CWRU Lift, which was a weightlifting supportive community for all lifters, all ages, all backgrounds. didn’t have to know how to lift, et cetera. And that was one of those things. We started it up or I started it up, right? I let it for six months and then I transferred. And so again, that was a challenge in itself, but we started it up.

And that was one of those things where they still look back and they’re like, Amy started it, right? Like there’s a number of people who started it. None of those leaders are still on the leadership team, right? And it’s been there for about two years now, which is still very young and is growing exponentially, but they still know who started it. Because if we hadn’t put in six months of work, wouldn’t be hundreds, right? It’s hundreds. It started with four of us sitting there like, we think there’s a need.

And so that’s another campus organization group, but other things you can start up, not just organizations, right? But I wanted an internship somewhere. I didn’t know where, but I knew what I wanted to do. And I got a company to create an internship and send over a profile and work with me to send over the profile. And so you can do stuff like that. And again, it might not be everywhere. You might not get 10 internships just because you asked them to create one for you. But if you work really hard, you might get an opportunity.

And so other examples, and this one was big and scary for me, Cause it wasn’t university related. wasn’t student related, but we went and we had the idea to create technical standards in engineering program.

So was one of my first big non-student adventures, but taking that engineering and instead of pairing it with sports and stuff like that, right. I was pairing it with a technical connection, which was technical standards, which for those of you who might not know, they’re the formal documents that just describe everyday processes and procedures. So their primary goal is to keep you safe. So there are documents that describe a lot of technical content. And so we wanted to help students understand what is that. But we also wanted to industry professionals and professors understand it. And so again, we took the same approaches at a different avenue. And so we think we have a problem that needs to be solved. What do people want as the solution?

clearly I want a solution, but what are they gonna actually use? What kind of community do they want? What kind of technical resources do they want? And you just do it at a different level or a different avenue.

those are a couple of examples of how we’ve or I’ve created opportunities for me, for friends that didn’t previously exist

my advice would be just keep moving forward in a direction that aligns with, you know, what you’re looking for. And eventually you will find or you will create what you’re looking for.

ADAMS: Amy, what leadership situation are we going to be talking about today?

I would really like to talk about my time at Case Western Reserve University while I was working to start up the student organization, CWRU Lift.

So from this background knowledge, was at Case Western for some time, a bit, and all of sudden I had kind of had a heart issue.

And so I needed surgery, which was a surprise. And so I was a competitive lifter before and I had been, you know, doing my normal routine, but this just stirred it up. so afterwards, of course, you go from everything to you’re just laying around and you haven’t done anything in six months. And so I was trying to get back into the gym, but I had no community and I didn’t really know that many people because I’d been there some time. But when you’re brand new to the city and everything, you know,

what’s a couple months when you’re trying to understand everything. And so there wasn’t anything, there wasn’t a club, there wasn’t an organization, there wasn’t anything that I could find from the Flyers. And so I was like, well, I’m not gonna get back into the sport I love as easily. And I don’t know if I have the energy to do it at all, because I’m starting all over,

And so I felt just shattered. So I was like, let’s see if there’s other people who need community, you know, and then could use friends, et cetera.

So a few of us were like, let’s start an organization.

We got flyers, we had emails, all of that stuff well in advance. So everyone knew this is the day we’re going to launch, It’s going be great. It was a thought. were like, we’ve,

advertised plenty enough, we’re telling all our friends it’ll be great. So we had a location on campus and a few people showed up. I think there was six people and four of them were the leadership team of us that were putting together. So it was four of us and one

random person. And so that’s where we’re like, Okay, what are we gonna do?

we literally grew just kind of one by one, right? It was really slow. At the same time, we had kicked it off right at the start of the semester with our event, you know, one weekend to rally people. So we had six, we could call it. And we had planned to do an event. We had told ourselves we’re going to do one big event.

at the end of the semester so that the whole time we can tell everyone, hey, we’ve got a goal, we’ve got a big thing, and we’re going to make this look like we’re professional. Because we might not get that many people doing it, but if we can pull it off very well, everyone’s going to see it. And hopefully they’ll believe that we’re legit, we’re moving forward.

So then we started finding funding avenues.

And so one of the big things I tell people, for leadership or just if you want people to come to something is slowly release new, cool information so it looks like you’re always making progress Hey, we’ve got an event. Hey, we’ve got a date. Hey, we’ve got food sponsored. Hey, we’ve got this many people. Hey, we’re going to lift this much weight because we the leadership team can lift that much weight.

Don’t over sell, but sell what you know you can deliver on. And so that’s what we did. We built it up and we built it up and we got funding, And then we started saying like, okay, who’s our club made of? We’re made of engineers. And at that point there was a solid amount of women, right? And a solid amount of like medical related individuals, kinesiology doctors, dentists, et cetera. And so we’re like, all right, that’s where we’re publicizing, okay? So we had everyone publicize in their own little area and that’s who showed up, which was great. And that’s where we also said, you know, it’s free. We wanted everything to be free. So anyone could show up, parents could show up, et cetera. And so that worked really well.

The event went spectacular, We had our closing dinner And then at the end, I told everyone, I’ve accepted a position, a graduate position at University of Tennessee. I’ll be leaving in three weeks.

And it just kind of crumbled, right? Nobody wanted to do it. Everyone’s like, if you’re not here, like, what’s the point of this, right? We have a club and you’re going to disappear and no one wants to do it. And that’s when you’re like, okay, again, you have a goal. What’s the goal for it to last? How do we get there?

I helped kind of along first six months I was in Tennessee, Here’s who to contact, here’s what to do, here’s where to get funding.

If I can break down that barrier, they’re going to do it. If I email it to them, I’m going to help them do it. And so it slowly goes. And then, you know, once they had their next event and it went quite well, I was like, now I’m going to cut you off. I’m not going to help you because I need you to do it on your own and own it. And at first they flounder, you know, for everyone does as you know and then they picked it back up and now they’re soaring and rising. And I think the clubs at 350 people now and it’s only been two years, they’re hosting a big event, and they’re planning to do even bigger things, intercollegiate, they’re partnering with different organizations on campus, they’re getting more funding than we ever did.

And I think to be a leader, you can lead it and you can start something. But I always say a good leader also knows when to transition it off, when to hand it off, I seem to be good at starting things and that’s great. But I don’t think I could have brought this where it is now. And so it was great to see how they were all using this lifting for their own professional careers. So I used lifting with my engineering, there was business people using it as a way to get into business sports broadcasting and stuff like that.

ADAMS: this is a great example and there’s a couple of things I wanted to follow up on. You knew you were leaving you made a deliberate effort to make sure that your team had the resources that they need, make sure they had, they were reminded, make sure that they got recognition and they were highlighted when things went well.

and kind of kept that vision in front of them, which is exactly what leaders need to do in order to delegate effectively. I’m just curious how you came to that strategy for this example.

KURR: I just kept asking myself, like, what would I want if someone was gonna try and dump this on me?Because that’s what I’m to do. I was going to dump it on them. And my big thing is I want to know that it’s fun. This isn’t a work thing. This is a fun thing. I believe if the community’s there, other things will happen. You will do work for the community. You will fight for the community when I was like, okay, we have the community. They know I’m leaving and they’re still, you know, going to be here to help.

And it was a graduate student group. So you can see that was a struggle as well because grad students might only come for their masters. Could be a year, could be two years, right? Could be a PhD, but those students have a lot of time. So we went with the basis as well, maximum impact, maximum impact, minimal effort. So we got asked all the time, well, why don’t you have social media accounts? Because I don’t want to do it, because I don’t have the bandwidth,

So that’s where we literally functioned as an email only group and the society woman engineers at the university of the university of Tennessee is graduate group of society woman engineers. are email only, is no social media. And that has changed now, right? But what I’m trying to say is like, and you’ve heard it before,

Don’t start running before you’re walking. So I start with email, just like if you’re not great with designing fancy flyers, use the same flyer, just change the content. No one’s going to judge. And so you just start with like, does it matter? And if it doesn’t, it doesn’t matter at all 

ADAMS: being able to just let go of the small stuff that doesn’t really matter is critically important because it allows you to do so much more, You’re able to do your coursework and your hobbies and entrepreneurship ventures and things like that, because you’re not bogged down with worrying about these minor things that really don’t matter. You’re focused on the most important things and moving those things forward, which is really important.

And it sounds like you were really connected to the purpose. you started it because it was something you really needed. It really meant a lot to you, both physically and emotionally. And I think it’s just really amazing that you got it off the ground and are continuing to still care about what happens to it and really left a legacy there that sounds like people really appreciate.

KURR: I think that’s what’s cool is seeing people take their hobbies, combine them with whatever their professional interests are and taking that to create, Leadership opportunities, create the next place they want to go drive the path forward and then bringing others with along the way so that they’re not the only one down this path where collectively helping people reach their goals and become tomorrow’s leaders.

ADAMS: All right, Amy, what advice would you give to engineers who want to move into leadership roles?

I would say, try it. Just move forward and do it wherever the opportunity comes up, especially if it’s one of your first leadership opportunities, if someone asks you to do something and you’re like, maybe, okay, like if you’re not saying no, absolutely no, then just try it, right? And ask, can I try it? Can I do it for six months? Can I do a portion of it? I’m really excited about this, people need

leaders everywhere. There’s professional societies that can’t get enough leaders, they can’t get enough students to provide impact and feedback and their own input. So maybe you’re like, okay, I don’t know if I want to join the leadership team, but I want to be a student leader. And I want to tell you my thoughts. Even stuff like that is a good way to get into it. I’d say don’t be shy of a title.

And don’t do all the work as a leader and not get the title.

It’s you doing the small actions that add up and add up and add up that make you the leader. Just like, you you get one person in the group and two and three and four, no one ever just sees 600 people walk over and start an organization. And so I was like, just do those little things.

that’s what I write when I write recommendation letters, I wrote one for like a senior leader, you know, a dean the other day. And I was like, what makes them special? It’s the little things they do, right? It’s the consistency and the commitment. They show up and they do it for the small things and for the big things, right? And so I know they’re gonna do it for the big things and I’ve known they’ve done it for the small people.

That’s who I was, was a student writing something for a dean. They’re showing up for a little pion me and they show up with little emails and little high fives and they show up with bigger things like writing new letters, et cetera.

And so to be the leader, just do one thing, just do the next thing, and then just keep doing it. And when you don’t have time or you forget or whatever, just

Put grace over all of that. Don’t hold it as a negative. that’s what builds the confidence and the trust.

ADAMS: Great advice, Amy. Thank you so much for sharing your insights with us today. 

KURR: Thank you so much for having me, Angelique. It was a pleasure.