MEL #050 | From Underdog Engineer to Trusted Federal Partner through Steady, Approachable Leadership with Sherry Browder

BROWDER (00:00)

Bad news doesn’t get better with age. That’s what I used to always tell teams. I want to feel like they could always come to me and talk to me about anything. And I would listen intently and then not necessarily jump in with a response on how to fix it, but hopefully help them find a solution.

ADAMS (00:18)

In this episode, I speak with Sherry Browder, CEO and president of Pro2Serve, an employee-owned company founded in 1995 with the primary purpose of providing critical mission support services to strengthen our nation’s defensive posture. Sherry shares how a simple eighth grade declaration that she wanted to be an engineer, plus parents who were lifelong educators, set her on a winding path to civil engineering. She describes struggling academically at Tennessee Tech, switching majors several times, and needing five and a half years to graduate.

but using that adversity to build grit and determination. From her first role at the Department of Energy to long tenure at SAIC-Leidos and now as president and CEO of Pro2Serve, her through line is program and people leadership rather than design engineering. In our leadership segment, Sherry’s example story centers on emotional regulation and how leaders respond when people bring them problems, frustration, and bad news. She describes intentionally remaining calm, giving people a safe space to vent behind closed doors and modeling steady behavior so her teams continue to bring her information. Over time, this approach allowed her to build what one supervisor called fiercely loyal teams that trust her with both the work and the hard conversations. Finally, Sherry encourages engineers to play to their strengths, even if that means stepping away from traditional design roles into project program or organizational leadership. She emphasizes that you do not have to be the smartest technical expert in the room but you must be dependable, approachable, honest, and consistent so people are not afraid to talk to you. Her closing message is that leadership is not all easy or glamorous, but if you surround yourself with smart people, keep learning from everyone, and let emotional intelligence guide you, you can have an impact over decades.

Explore the full episode summary, including guest bio, key takeaways, transcript, and recommended resources in the show notes at drangeliqueadams.com/podcast. Without further delay, here is my conversation with Sherry Browder.

ADAMS (02:43)

Hi Sherry welcome to Mastering Engineering Leadership.

BROWDER (02:46)

Thank you so much, Angelique. I really appreciate the opportunity to talk to you today.

ADAMS (02:50)

I’m thrilled to have you here. Can you start by telling us how you got into engineering as a career path?

BROWDER (02:56)

Sure. It actually, I can’t say that there was a particular day in time or an event or something like that. I was one of those kids that was always kind of interested in how things worked. And when I was in the eighth grade, don’t know what triggered it, but I made the comment in front of my parents that were, they were lifelong educators, that I wanted to be an engineer in the eighth grade, I said that. And my dad really never let me live that.

down. He never let me forget that I said that. And so made sure that in high school, I went to a small ⁓ high school in Middleton C, took all the classes that I could to get ready to go to engineering into engineering school. I’m also multi generational alumni from Tennessee Tech University in Middleton C. So there was no, no even consideration of going anyplace else. And very good engineering school. So

I went down that path. I didn’t really have to study that hard in high school. However, that was much different when I went to college. And so I was not your four year get in, get out of college quickly. I had to take some classes to really get better prepared and actually also learn to study and be focused. I had just enough freedom living.

35 miles away from my parents, that also meant not a lot of great time management. So I started out, wanted to be, again, going back to that comment about wanting to be an engineer, I wanted to be a sound engineer. And in my mind, I didn’t really know what that meant, but in my mind, that meant I was going to be in the music industry. That I don’t have any idea if that’s true.

I got to Tennessee Tech and even in the early days they have you designate even though you’re really taking just a lot of general classes across multi disciplines. So in my mind that equated to electrical. So I took the first electrical class and absolutely hated it. Realized that it really all I wanted, I wanted the light to come on when I flipped the switch. wanted the things to turn on. I didn’t really care how it happened behind the wall.

And I quickly realized that was a bad move. So I switched to mechanical, took a couple of classes there, like the first one didn’t like the second, switched to industrial. And finally, my dad, after we were on quarters at the time instead of semesters, I’d had a couple of tough semesters, excuse me, quarters. And

So much so that you know, was one of those they tell you to look on either side of you the first day and only one of you are going to be there at the end of the you know to get your degree and I was feeling very self very defeated and that I was one of those that I need to change my major and My dad again going back to that comment of him not letting me forget what I said I wanted to be He said okay fine go through the catalog that was back in the old days of a paper catalog

go through the catalog and you tell me what you want to change your major to during during Christmas break. And I did and I came back to him and said no I want to stick with engineering. He said okay then then what do you want you know what classes do you like best? And I realized that the classes that I like best were civil engineering and my dad made a very thoughtful comment on it’s because you can see it. And he was right.

that’s what resonated with me. So I ended up getting my degree in civil engineering. But again, was not, I was not a, it was a tough road. I learned how to, excuse me, I learned how to be very determined and people might tell me I might need to change my major. even had a department head when I was taking some classes at a community college during the summer, I was,

tutoring algebra and he suggested I go into teaching math. If you have a knack for this, you’re really good at this. I think that’s what you want to do. And that’s how I come from a long line of educators. And while I have great respect for that, that career path, that’s not what I want to do. So no. And so it was almost like every single time someone told me, are you sure you really want to stick with this? You’re going to have to take this class over.

And I’m like, Nope, I’m going to prove you all wrong. And I did, it took me, um, five and a half years to get out of school and I can’t blame anybody but myself. Um, and by the time, by the time I really feel like I was really taking it seriously, a lot of classes were under my belt. If you know what I mean, meaning your grade point average is kind of hard to move. Um, and so I was one of those people that when I was looking for a job right out of college,

Some people don’t want to talk to the ones that have your C plus, B minus averages. And I went to work for Department of Energy right out of college because they gave me a chance. And I found out years later the reason why they did, the person interviewed me was because I was the most excited about the opportunity, not that I was the best qualified. And that was a long time ago. That was in 1989.

So anyway, it was a decision I made early in my life that I did not let anyone tell me to change it. And again, the struggle ended up making me where I was just much more determined and felt like I could, you know, was a fire in the belly kind of thing.

ADAMS (08:15)

I really appreciate you sharing, the struggles that you had because, and we’ll get to your career trajectory here in a minute, but it’s really going to resonate with my listeners about how someone who is as successful as you are having those early struggles and in particular, breezing through high school to some extent and then getting into college and realizing, ⁓ okay.

Not only is the content more difficult, but just as you say, you’ve got more flexibility. And so if you didn’t already have really good study habits, which oftentimes the really bright students don’t, because they didn’t really have to study when they were in high school. And now it’s a completely different ball game.

appreciate you sharing that with us because I think there are a lot of my listeners who have finding themselves in that boat and maybe feeling like they’re the only ones. And so we can say with confidence, absolutely not. You’re absolutely not the only ones. And you can come out of that through, come out through the other side in a really good place if you’re willing to accept

the limitations that you’re finding and close those gaps, it sounds like in your case, part of that motivation to close those gaps was just people constantly telling you you’re not going be able to do this. And you’re like, well, yeah, watch me. So can you tell us a little bit more about your career trajectory? So you talked about your first job. so, department of energy gave you a chance.

Because of your enthusiasm which by the way is another thing I want to just reinforce here with the audience that that That is often the case that you know you go to a really good engineering school like you did people coming out of there They already kind of know that you have some baseline competency But what they’re really starting to look for are these differentiators and that can be your enthusiasm your productivity it can be leadership examples that you’ve displayed throughout your

your time in college. So there’s all these different ways that you can differentiate yourself. And it sounds like at least one of those ways for you was your real enthusiasm for that specific role.

BROWDER (10:11)

Yes, I want to go back a little bit something that just popped into my mind from wherever I was at Tech. I became very active in the student chapter of ASCE, especially in my junior and senior years. And I became that spokesperson for the department on how to, especially when classes were being offered, weird times and not in the sequence that people needed. There was a group of us that graduate in December of that year if certain classes were offered in the summer.

And I went to talk to the department head and I said this, you know, we need to, we need to get these, offered and it wasn’t typically offered in the summer. So, so something that, that I realized that I had a voice even back in college is the fact that if, if you didn’t ask, you couldn’t be told, no, if you didn’t ask. And, you couldn’t be told, yes, you know, you’ve to ask the question. So that was something that I, and nothing that also goes back to high school because I was always kind of the mom amongst a lot of people.

on looking out for folks and trying to get things done on behalf of a group of people. So, but anyway, going back to, so that first job, again, when I interviewed for the Department of Energy at Tensitec and then came to Oak Ridge for the second interview, this was a timeframe when they had not, there had not been a really major effort to hire new graduates in a while, like right out of college.

employees. And so there was a conscious effort across the department to hire some new blood, if you will. So I interviewed and there was a group of us that were all hired within a couple of years of each other. And that made it where we had like an initial network, if you will, right out of the gate. But the individual that interviewed me was pulled in to interview me at the last minute because the person that was supposed to got pulled off to something else.

So, I mean, he told me this story just recently because he happens to, he happened to be until about a year ago, a consultant for the company I work for now. So this is truly a full circle moment. He told me he remembered the day that he interviewed me and the fact that while my resume did not really match the environmental program that was being stood up, it was a brand new cleanup program that was starting in the late eighties.

And my emphasis was not in environmental, it was in transportation, but my minor was in environmental. But he said, you were so enthusiastic about the position. And I was fascinated by the whole cleanup program of the Manette project. And he said, I told him I thought we should hire you because you were so, you were excited, you were easy to talk to, you wanted the job.

A couple of years ago, I was asked to speak at the student chapter of ASCE at Pentecost Tech, and I told that story. And I told them when I fielded questions from the audience, and they were asking me questions about how do you know what’s the right job to take? How do you know what to do? And I said, do your homework. Be excited to be there. You’re taking their time. You’re trying to sell yourself.

But whenever I heard that first job, the comment about the fact that it was an exciting time, this was a brand new, before the cleanup program is what it is now, of course, this is the late 80s. So it was a new program. I was also very blessed to have the first three managers I had right out of college to be very, very open to providing me all kinds of opportunity.

and didn’t let the fact that I was 23 years old hold me back. And on the same, by the same token, they gave me a safe place to learn. And so much of this, this is a new program. The environmental regulations were being applied to the federal government. No one was really experts. So that gave me an opportunity to kind of hone in to a few things like environmental regulations.

and really study them and get to know my regulators and call them and ask them questions. And I was so blessed that those folks didn’t shut me out. I mean, they, they wanted to help me. And I really do think part of that goes back to that personality trait from my parents being educators, going back to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Go back. Don’t, don’t pretend like you know everything because you don’t. and

I endeared myself quite frankly, I think to my regulators, to my management and the fact that they just kept giving me more and more opportunity. And I did not, I mean, I wasn’t perfect. I failed. I made some bad decisions. Maybe I stuck my neck out a little bit more than I should as a federal employee and had to go back and tell my managers what I had just said to the regulators that I didn’t get approved.

That trajectory, I mean, I was a federal employee for about six years, I think six and a half years. And then I went into the contracting community. And again, being a federal employee right out of college was a fabulous learning environment, great training exposed to just a lot of different people in a lot of different areas.

just a wonderful place to start my career. But then I over into the contracting side and the next place I worked, I was there for almost 20 years. in engineering, going into the federal government right out of college, I did not do design work. I mean, true engineering design. And I make that distinction because

I didn’t really, it wasn’t a conscious decision at the time, but looking back, I can see it plain as day. Going to Department of Energy right out of college and becoming a program manager, I got the job because I had the engineering degree, not that I was going to be doing design work. I was going to be overseeing and being a program manager on technical projects. So I needed to understand it, but I wasn’t designing it. So that ended up being probably one of those first

zig or zags that I didn’t really realize I was doing at the time, but it did. I never went back. I never went to that design side. So I continued on in program management, project management, line management, and that became a common thread for the rest of until now. And in that project and program management and some of those

people skills that I had on interacting with the regulators, with contractors as a federal employee. Now I’m a contractor. Now I’m interacting with regulators again, but now I’m doing it on behalf of my customers, my clients. So all of those people skills, that ability to write, to be able to speak, to be able to spell, which is not necessarily something engineers are very good at. So that actually was a trait that

that was a common strength that I’ve continued on. But while I was at that next, very large company called Science Application International Corporation, SAIC, within just a few years of being there, I was pulled into a line management role for the first time. And that really had to do with those people’s skills. But I also made some technical talks.

Again, not doing design, but overseeing environmental projects, environmental programs. And as that, then I got more into business development in addition to project management and program management and people management. And all of that, I think, had to do with the fact that I was a good generalist.

and good at seeing things from different perspectives. Good project manager, enjoyed also managing large programs. But all of that to say, all kind of went back to some of those traits that I tried to hone in college and in those early days of realizing it was okay to not be the smartest person in the room, know when to ask for help and admitting when you don’t know the answer.

and you need the people around you. And it was, I was very, very fortunate in both at Department of Energy and in that first job, well, in my entire career, but in those very early days where I was surrounded by a lot of different mentors, formal and informal. I also have shared with people in the past, you know, always have to have formal.

formal mentors, but you can always observe. And if you see somebody in the room that’s stuck in the very life out of the room, don’t be that person. Emulate the people that are making a difference and are motivating people, inspiring and motivating people. So anyway, so in my career at SAIC, I started out with a very small organization of staff.

That was my first exposure to two line management. Then that morphed over time to where by the end, I guess my largest organization was several hundred people across the country. And so I found that I had a knack, if you will, for people management, program management, customer relations. I enjoy doing a lot of different things. I didn’t like being

hitting hold in one thing or another. And I found a way to zigzag through those things and be able to kind of.

do succeed in those, those kinds of

ADAMS (19:29)

And I appreciate your perspective on being a good generalist. I will say that that mirrors my own career to some extent. I mean, I certainly have a deep technical background and can understand a lot of the technical details and to some extent be a good customer of the technical work. But I found pretty early on in my own career that I excelled at the people management, the cross-functional team collaboration.

helping projects move along in ways that maybe if you only had pure technical people, they butted heads all the time and I could help to smooth some of that out so that people understood their roles and their responsibilities and how they contributed and then you could actually get something out of the team and then continue to grow those teams into bigger and bigger and bigger organizations. And so I just wanted to mention that because many of my guests have talked about

The other way to become a leader as a technical person is to be the expert and continue to grow your expertise in a niche technical area. And what you’re saying, which I’ve heard less of that, there have been a few others, but we’ve heard less of that so far in the 45 episodes that have come out so far. Less have talked about what you’re talking about, which is being strong technically, but also being really strong on

the interpersonal side and the leadership side and the management side such that you can lead these large organizations pretty early on in your career.

BROWDER (20:56)

And you know, if I could add just a little bit to that, that you made me think of something because as I started to do, you know, at first it was just kind of your classic people management and then also some project management and program management, just different. The individuals might not report to me, but they, but they did in some way or another. So wearing those different hats, depending on the role that I was in. And.

And also not being afraid. I wasn’t afraid to not be the smartest person on the team. Hopefully I could help to motivate those. And again, the team dynamic, whatever that meant of whatever it needed to be. But when I started doing more in the business development side, that’s where I kind of felt like I was being able to use a lot of my skills. know, I was able to do the

some of the business development activity because I had a technical background, but they weren’t expecting me to design something. So as long as they recognized I shouldn’t be designing what we talking about, that was a good day. But really good at trying to pull teams together and get everybody pulling in same direction. And really enjoying that dynamic a lot.

ADAMS (22:06)

Yeah, absolutely. And then can you continue on with your career trajectory and tell us a little bit about what you’re doing now

BROWDER (22:12)

Yes, okay, so the longest stint that I’ve been at a company was whenever I was at SAIC and then that became Leidos. I was there for almost 20 years

Since then, I have been in different leadership roles and now the role I’m in now. I’ve been at ProtoServe for almost five years now. In fact, five years this month. so just realize that.

And there’s an interesting circle back to how I ended up at Pro2serve. The founder of Pro2serve happened to also be the person that hired me when I went to SAIC when I left federal government. And when five years ago when I ended up going to visit him just to get caught up.

and realized he was actually interviewing me for the position, not for the position I’m in now at Pro2Serve but for a different position. And it was just a, very interesting full circle moment when he made the comment and he said, I hired you at SAIC a long time ago and you did a great job. I expect you to do the same thing here. It’s like, okay. I didn’t know I was being interviewed, but okay.

So I’ve been CEO and president

of Pro2serve, which is a nationwide consulting, just like the name sounds, professional services, engineering professional services. And ⁓ founded in the Oak Ridge community, our headquarters is in Knoxville. we have 300 people across the country. And the company was founded

by an individual that came from SAIC, so the government contractor consulting business. So the company was kind of stood up in the mirror of that image, if you will. And so now I realize looking back in the 30 something years of me being in the business is I realized I can see some common threads that go all the way back to that first job.

at the Department of Energy where I am now, not just the fact that it all was somewhat around the Oak Ridge environment. When I went to SAIC, I had projects all over the country. So my network quickly broadened beyond just the Oak Ridge area, which is where my first position was, of course. But some of the skills that I learned in that second,

longest career path at FSC had to do with ⁓ people management, program management, customer management, working with regulators, all of those things, all those people skills, all those soft skills that I really feel like that’s how I got to where I am now. And I really enjoy doing a lot of different things. When I did talk

to Dr. Goss, the founder of ProServe that day that I didn’t realize I was being interviewed. And he asked me, goes, what’s the perfect job for you? And I had been reflecting enough to hopefully have a decent answer to that. And I said, I really need to be doing a lot of different things. I don’t want to just do business development. I don’t want to just do line management. It’s way too long ago since I got my engineering degree, so I’m not gonna be going back and getting, know, and doing design.

So I need something that kind of has all of those elements in order for me and I feel like I can do that. And then he came back and they offered me the position as the Deputy COO, which kind of touched upon all of those things. And so that when I realized some of these traits that I’ve had all the way back to the beginning, this generalist disability to

deep dive to a degree in some technical areas when I need to, the ability to communicate with the regulators or staff or management or the public, whatever that is. And knowing how to adjust the message for your audience is something that I think I’ve learned from my parents they were lifelong educators.

ADAMS (26:12)

Sherry, can you give us an example of when you use leadership skills in your work?

BROWDER (26:16)

Well, to be honest, I think it’s something that’s probably a daily thing in the role that I’m in and then when I think back all the way back through my career at times when as soon as I became a line manager, as soon as I became a line manager, I remember at different times wanting the staff to feel comfortable to come to me with problems of whatever it was and know that I wouldn’t overreact.

or that I would listen and then hopefully give some good advice or help the individual come to a conclusion that was beneficial to all. But I also a few times I can recall having someone coming to my office that was very frustrated, that was very animated as to whatever was going on. I closed the door and said, okay, get it out of your system. Say whatever you need to say.

Because when you walk back out of this office, you’re one of my senior leaders. You’ve got to, you’ve got to act it. And I need to, you know, come to me and, you know, then all you want to, but when that door opens, you’ve got to be the leader I need you to be. And I, and I remember that day, like it was yesterday. I remember that conversation with that individual and the look on, on her face.

And she nodded and we were good. said, you can always come in here. We’ll close the door. Whatever needs to be said, said, but we’ve got to realize that the staff will see how we handle things. And one of the best compliments I was given by someone that was on my team that was in the Washington DC area. I happened to be visiting the office and I was set up in a visitors office.

It was kind just a steady stream of people coming by to talk to me and sharing things with what was going on and everything. And as luck would have it, there were several issues that were being brought to me because I was there in person. And this individual heard me hear statement after statement after statement. And she came to the door later. She goes, how do you do that? And I said, what? And she said, how? You didn’t raise your voice.

you didn’t get, know, how did you do that? And I said, because I don’t want people to not come and talk to me. If I react, the first reaction that people, if I blow a gasket, then they’re going to shut down. They’re not going to come to me. If they don’t feel like they can come to me and talk through problems, then I’m no good as their manager. You know, in a leadership role, whatever that role is, whether it’s a project manager, a program manager, or a line manager. And so,

⁓ and then at the same time, sometimes I as, I as their leader, I need that same outlet to go vent. I’ve got to be able to get it over with. Yes. And so I was very fortunate that I had managers that appreciated that. My managers, my, my superiors, they, they knew that sometimes I was just going to blurt out something and I would try my best for that to be in a situation where it wasn’t where it shouldn’t be.

But at the same time, they knew I wanted to be very honest communicator. But honesty doesn’t necessarily mean, you know, mean. Or, you know, you can be effective and be an effective communicator, but it doesn’t mean you just have a free pass to say whatever you want to people. No. I had some fabulous mentors in the human resource department. And I still…

credit them with some of the best training I ever had back in those SAIC days. but, you know, going back to, you know, how, you know, your question, a person doesn’t have to be a leader. You don’t have to be a manager, but I can’t help but go down that path because that’s been my career trajectory that I have been in a management type position for several years.

But there’s leaders throughout the organization and your staff will follow leaders. So it’s the work. So to try to build teams to really recognize the strength of all the members of the team and play to their strengths. I was very fortunate in all the various roles I was in.

to work with lot of fabulous people and learn from a lot of people.

ADAMS (30:26)

Well, I love this example And I love that you talked about both sides of it, which is around leadership behavior when you are either confronted with frustration from your team members or you have your own frustrations. And you have to find a way to manage those. And I really appreciate you saying, know, people notice. People notice how you behave.

And if you blow a gasket, just as you said, and or overreact, people will in fact stop bringing you information that you probably need to know because they think that you will punish them for bringing you bad news. I have worked in organizations where the leaders did not handle themselves in those situations, would fly off the handle, and it was just this running joke with the…

with the leadership team about, you know, he’s gonna go off the handle, just brace, everybody brace yourself, the leadership team sort of figured out how to manage this guy, but if he was in a meeting with lower level people, I mean, they would be terrified. And eventually, you’ll find yourself surprised at a leader about bad things happening that you didn’t know anything about, and there’s a reason for that.

is because nobody felt like they could tell you and that’s how things like safety issues pop up or projects are way over budget nobody wanted to tell you six months ago that this was set in the wrong direction. And then I would love to hear, because I had the same question that you

Your staff person came in and was like, how do you do that? do you have deep breathing or is it just kind of your personality is always to be calm or are there any kind of other self-regulation techniques that you have learned along the way that help you stay in that head space when stuff’s coming at you all day long?

BROWDER (32:06)

this is definitely a self reflecting comment on the fact that I feel like I’ve gotten better at this as I’ve aged because earlier in my career and I think, I think everyone, everyone does this to a degree where you, when someone’s talking, you’re trying to gauge what they’re about to say. And, and you might not be listening as intently as you need to be because you’re trying to already think about your response. I had to,

make sure that I didn’t interrupt, let people finish what they were saying, and just have a piece of paper in front of me and jot things down And this is just something that the HR folks taught me too over time, and me and some people, especially in hostile situations. You needed to let people vent. You need to let them say what they were going to say, but then not lose your train of thought or get sucked in

because you’re trying to formulate your response before they’re finished. And that’s very hard to do. And my husband, claims I’m not as good at that as maybe I think I am. That’s a whole other topic for another day. But I try really hard to

be in the moment and be present and listening to what’s happening and not react because a lot times they need to be heard.

If you were to see in front of me right now, I’ll have notes where I’ll write down things. Cause that’s a couple of things that helps me remember. And then if someone’s talking and I want to make sure I remember something, I will have, I’ll make myself a note to take me back to that.

sometimes it’s just that person wants to be heard that they’ve not been given an avenue to speak up. in engineering school, they teach us to be problem solvers, right? From the get go. they drill that into your head. Well, that doesn’t necessarily mean fix it immediately.

Okay, it means gather information, you’re a problem solver, but there’s also a lot of variables at all times. There’s a phrase that everyone’s very used to hearing me say, family, work, everybody, have you thought that through? Have you thought that through? And the reason why I say that, a lot of times if you say that to someone and you help them see all the different perspectives, a lot of times it helps them come up

with their own answer to the situation, but then they can also see everybody else’s perspective. one of the best compliments one of my supervisors gave me years ago that I actually happened to just hear by happenstance. We were at a large dinner and we were introducing ourselves to some people from other offices and I overheard him say that this new employee

Sherry didn’t say this about herself, but she builds fiercely loyal teams. And I turned, I was like, wow, thank you. I need to remember that. Because I wanna make sure the teams feel like every individual is heard. But it also means that when a decision needs to be made, that you don’t languish on the decision.

Sometimes you’ve got to make a quick decision and deal with the consequences even if it’s a bad decision. But you’ve got to make a decision. You can’t have decision paralysis. I do like getting a lot of data. And because back to that perspective thing, I’m always trying to think of everyone’s perspective. And it’s a form of consensus building, but it’s not, I’m not going to say I’m a consensus builder

So I am, I’m not going to say that drives every decision, if you know what mean. So for me, that comment I made about myself being a generalist in a lot of ways in engineering, I think it made it where I could have those technical conversations with people. You didn’t want me to go design something, but I could have those technical discussions.

And, but I could also just listen to all the different perspectives and try to take everyone’s positive feedback and input and for the outcome.

ADAMS (36:00)

All right, Sherry, as we wrap up, what advice do you have for engineers who are interested in pursuing leadership roles?

BROWDER (36:06)

I think first and foremost, play to your strengths and be very thoughtful and self reflecting on what those strengths are. What you as an individual think your strengths are versus what they really may be may not be exciting. Again, I’m an engineer by degree, but I got into program project and

organizational management as opposed to our core engineering. so along the way, I was very, very fortunate to have all kinds of experts around me. I was given great opportunities, but I also, I learned quickly that I was not the expert in the room and that was okay.

I surrounded myself by people that were experts in the room. I tried to learn from everyone. And just like, you know, if there’s someone in the room that’s sucking the life out of the room, don’t be that person. Learn from that. Don’t have that type of management style. And just because someone has a different approach doesn’t mean it’s wrong.

You need to be open and listen. With regard to when I think about leadership, a big one, say what you’re to do and do what you say. Be dependable. And also honest, dependable, approachable. You don’t want people to be scared to talk to you. It takes.

I truly can’t think of a situation in my entire career that I could say that I single-handedly did something all by myself. Everything took a village. Everything took a team. And one of the things, as I look back, I think I’m the most proud of the fact that some of these teams that I had and some of these people I worked with since I was right out of college, I’m still connected to.

When I think back that, you know, I joined the workforce in department of energy in Oak Ridge, Tennessee in the summer of 1989, and I could name five people that I knew back then, they’re still in the business. And so that’s the type of, that’s what, you know, what, what would I, what advice would I give learn from everyone? And also, you know, I, I’ve been asked the question by engineering students in the past few years.

about, well, how do you know, you know, how do you know which job to take? You know, what would, how, would you know? Like, well, first of all, don’t, you know, I don’t know if I want the quote, I don’t know if I want to do that for the rest of my life. Well, then don’t. The first job is not your last job. The first job is your first job and you’re going to learn from everything and everyone around you.

The people that are around you that you want to emulate, take note of their style. The people that, again, suck the life out of the room, don’t be that person. Don’t be afraid to ask. Don’t think you know it all because you don’t. If you’re as lucky as I was coming up through the business, you’ll surround yourself by smart people and learn from all of them.

⁓ and it can be overwhelming. leadership role is not all, you know, rainbows and puppies. ⁓ sometimes it’s a tough decision. You know, if you’re in line management, sometimes you have to terminate people. have to fire people. That’s not fun. but you’re, the people around you will notice if you’re not consistent, you need to be consistent.

And my biggest thing is I’ve always been a man. I know I’m drawing leadership and management. I’m putting those two together because I can’t help it. I mean, I can’t help it, but, you know, the worst thing that could happen is have your team, your subordinates or anyone be afraid to come talk to you. That’s a terrible, terrible fright. And so.

ADAMS (39:47)

Me too, by the way.

BROWDER (40:03)

You know, emotional intelligence, that’s something that I feel like I’ve probably, that’s the strength of mine and the ability to read room. You know, I also, you know, I’m a big believer in having fun and laughing and laughing at yourself. And I tell a lot of stories on myself for people to feel comfortable because I am not by any means perfect. Have I ever been?

I could give you an example of bad decisions all over the place, but in the contrast, I’ve actually been pretty successful despite all that. and you know, sometimes it is overwhelming and you just got to kind of, ⁓ do that. Got to check if you will take a deep breath, separate yourself from the situation and just kind of just take a deep breath. Just take a moment. ⁓ I’ve

I’ve seen a lot of things, ⁓ the office environment I’m in now, they now apparently, they call me mom a lot. So apparently I do have that trait. But something that I try to, you know, having a servant’s heart, being compassionate, having humility, but being firm and consistent. Sometimes those seem to be counter words, but they’re not.

You know, bad news doesn’t get better with age. That’s what I used to always tell teams. I want to feel like they could always come to me and talk to me about anything. And I would listen intently and then not necessarily jump in with a response on how to fix it, but hopefully help them find a solution.

ADAMS (41:31)

Sherry, thank you so much for sharing your insights with us today.

BROWDER (41:34)

Thank you so much