MEL #067 | From Engineering Student to Emerging Disaster Relief Leader through Purposeful Choices with Caroline Czarnecki

Czarnecki (00:00)

Always make sure that people have the resources that they would need to continue with this plan that you’ve given them, but let them fill in the gaps because yes, creativity does exist in engineering. And it’s the only way that innovation can happen

Angelique Adams (00:40)

In this episode, I speak with Caroline Czarnecki, the Tickle College of Engineering’s 2026 recipient of the Student Leadership Excellence Award, now an engineering specialist at Strategy, a team of engineers, scientists, safety professionals, and project managers dedicated to the responsible care of client-entrusted resources in the environmental, energy, defense, utilities, and infrastructure sectors. Caroline’s path into engineering started with curiosity.

In high school, physics and engineering classes brought out a kind of creativity she wanted to keep exploring. Her experience with the Civil Air Patrol added a hands-on connection to aviation, search and rescue, and emergency response. She entered the University of Tennessee in aerospace engineering, then shifted to industrial and systems engineering when she realized it better matched her interest in disaster relief and complex systems involving both people and technology.

That same intentionality shaped her decision to pursue a one-year master’s degree. Caroline used the opportunity to gain research experience and study wildfire spread using systems engineering, modeling, simulation, and geographic information systems. Those choices helped position her for a full-time engineering role where she can work on engineering projects while also helping her company build new disaster relief capabilities. In our leadership segment, Caroline talks about how when she leads a project,

She starts by getting clear on what she wants and why it matters. But clarity does not mean controlling every step. Through trial and error, she learned that doing everything yourself leads to burnout, while giving a team complete free reign can create confusion. Her approach is to provide structure and resources, then give people room to determine how they will accomplish the work. That balance creates space for engineering creativity. Caroline even looks outside engineering, including to art and gardening, for new ways to think about systems and solutions.

She takes a similar approach to leadership confidence. Leaders do not need to be flawless. They need to remember why they are at the table, learn from mistakes, and keep building confidence through experience. Caroline’s advice to aspiring engineering leaders centers on a simple idea. Leadership should advance other people. That means understanding the people you work with and recognizing that they may have different needs and priorities. It also means using the team’s time wisely.

Technical capability matters, but the most complex solution is not always the best one. Caroline also emphasized the leaders’ role in shaping team culture. Leaders model the behaviors they expect, communicate clearly, and pay attention to what their own actions may unintentionally reinforce. Her approach is practical and people-centered. Set clear expectations, use resources wisely, and create an environment where people can do strong work and grow.

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

ADAMS (04:06)

Hi, Caroline. Welcome to Mastering Engineering Leadership.

Czarnecki (04:09)

Hi, thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited to have our conversation today.

ADAMS (04:14)

Me too. Can you start by telling us how you got into engineering as a career path?

Czarnecki (04:18)

Sure. So my interest actually started in high school. And I was trying to understand what I wanted to do, at least to kickstart my career. So I really just followed and pursued what excited me academically. And for that, for me, that was my physics class and a fundamentals and engineering class that I had at my high school. And I just found all the assignments really brought a certain

Creativity out of me. I thought I was being challenged in an interesting way. And it was the one of the only subjects that I really wanted to keep doing and that I actually was interested in following through on the homework with. So that really that gave me a good initial idea that I wanted to become an engineer. And then I started pursuing that thought process a little more and joined the Civil Air Patrol, which is an auxiliary of the Air Force.

And I got to be around planes and just learning a lot more about the aerospace side of things and thought, well, I will just pursue this and go into engineering.

ADAMS (05:26)

Yeah, say a little bit more about the Civil Air Patrol because I don’t know I honestly don’t know anything about that. You’re the first guest that I’ve had who has been affiliated with that. Can you just tell us a little describe it a little bit more for us?

Czarnecki (05:37)

Sure. So it is essentially an organization that you can join as a civilian. So I was not a part of the Air Force in an official capacity. But this is a group of students, typically middle school and high school, who join, and my squadron’s focus was search and rescue in the DC, Washington, DC area. And you learn all kinds of things about

Aviation. I actually got to fly Cessna planes and we got trained on a lot of rescue scenarios.

ADAMS (06:13)

Wow, that that really sounds exciting. And I could see how that could keep your interest high in the engineering fields if you got to do really that kind of cool stuff. so then you decided to pursue engineering in undergraduate. Can you talk a little bit about your choice of where you decided to go to school and also the major you decided to pursue?

Czarnecki (06:31)

Absolutely. So I ended up choosing the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. And I initially started school under an aerospace engineering degree because of the Civil Air Patrol’s influence on my academics. However, once starting in school and in Tennessee, I got to know a little bit more about different engineering fields. And I thought that industrial and systems engineering was more.

my fit for the career path that I wanted to follow in the future. So one thing I really did love the most about the Civil Air Patrol was some of the training I did surrounding search and rescue. And over the years, my interest in disaster relief and emergency response really developed. And I thought that while aerospace engineering is definitely an interest of mine and I ended up pursuing it throughout my undergraduate and eventually my master’s degree.

I decided that systems engineering from an approach where I got to be much more involved with the people interface of systems. And I got to learn through classes all about how you can optimize a business, a program to meet certain qualifications. I thought that would be much more applicable to a disaster relief career in the future if I wanted to ever think about, you know, how can we make this

supply chain more efficient, how can we make this community more resilient? And I think it just aligned better for me. So I ended up switching at the end of my freshman year of undergraduate.

ADAMS (08:09)

Yeah, I really like how you put those pieces together about your interest in disaster relief and then systems engineering. I mean, it’s so I agree with you. I I studied chemical engineering, but I ended up doing more sort of systems type type engineering it when I actually got got out there. And I think had I understood what I was actually going to be doing, you know, back when I picked my degree, I may have also pursued systems engineering myself. And I I agree, I really like the the

integrative focus of it, how you get to sort of learn about and understand all the different aspects of a system and then figure out how to integrate those effectively. I just think it’s really interesting that you could see that lens in disaster recovery and be like, yeah, actually I want to pursue this and I don’t, you know, that may not necessarily look like an engineering type of problem.

from an outsider who doesn’t already have that lens and you’re like, Yeah, that’s actually how I wanna apply it. So I think that’s I think that’s really cool. And then you did decide to go to pursue a master’s degree. So can you talk about your decision to continue on after undergraduate?

Czarnecki (09:11)

Yes, this was more of a strategic decision, honestly. I knew that I wanted to continue my interest in disaster relief. And one of those ways that I could do that and really make sure that I was ready for my career was research. And I did not pursue any undergraduate research opportunities. I was an intern part-time. I had

Another job milking cows. Yeah. All around the board. And I actually worked for the Office of Innovative Technologies as a project manager as well. So I had a number of undergraduate jobs and unfortunately did not have time to slip in a research role. So I saw the four plus one program adding that one year of masters, a really beneficial opportunity to not only get another degree in one year, but also

A way that I could contribute to research in the disaster relief realm so that when I did go into my career, I already had a leg up there because I have researched all the technology that has been applied previously. And I could come into my job having something to say and giving my own perspective on how I think things could run in the future if I was to be involved in some kind of

system advancement opportunity.

ADAMS (10:36)

Wow, that’s great. That’s really I so forward thinking of you to think, okay, well, you know, a research opportunity is something that I’m willing to invest additional time in in addition to getting the the degree, but invest time in to strategically position myself for what I want to do in the future. So I really commend your your thinking in that way. And did you find that you got what you wanted out of that research experience and additional year to get the master’s?

Czarnecki (11:04)

Absolutely. I think it is definitely beneficial. A lot of my peers had to go through two or three years of their master’s degree or master’s program just to get that degree. And I was fortunate enough to get a position in a lab, the Applied Systems Lab at the University of Tennessee, and continue my education through them. I actually wrote a thesis in that one year on predicting wildfire spread over

Topographical region of California, I chose the Palisades. And I got to integrate so many different learning perspectives perspectives that I got through systems engineering, through some of the geographic information systems classes I got to take in the geography department just to gain some extra knowledge. And the good thing about a master’s degree is you have the opportunity to change around your classes.

In a way that you don’t necessarily get the opportunity to in your undergraduate years. So I got to take a lot of GIS classes that pulled in what I knew from industrial engineering about creating models and simulations, but I got to apply that in a the geography world. And a lot of their classes are very mathematically focused, physics focused. And on our side of campus, we don’t really know that. So it was really interesting.

To have the opportunity to expand my class selection in that way.

ADAMS (12:34)

Wow, that’s that’s great. That’s exciting. And so you just finished up, so congratulations. And can you tell us a little bit about what you’re up to right now?

Czarnecki (12:42)

Sure. So one of those jobs that I mentioned I had in my undergraduate years was an industrial engineering intern. And I worked on project controls, which means like scheduling, estimating, engineering projects around the Knoxville area. And I decided to stay on with my company. And now I’ve just accepted a full-time position with them where I will be continuing to work on some engineering projects.

While also helping build out business in disaster relief operations for the first time for their company. So I’m really excited about

ADAMS (13:18)

my gosh, wow. So congratulations. And you know, on the what it’s easy to say, this is such a great, I mean it’s a great opportunity, but I think it could be easy to say that you got lucky in finding what you wanted. But what I know just from having talked to you for the last five minutes is that you have actually designed this opportunity for yourself. And so I just I just want our audience to hear that that you

Thought about what you wanted to do, were very intentional about putting in the work to, you know, do these stepping stones. And now here you are with a company that you have worked with. They know you and they trust you enough to say, yeah, you can be a part of growing out this new opportunity for us. And it is in an area that not only are you passionate about, but that you have done the work to sort of build up your own credibility. So

I just think this is just a a perfect example of what all of us in the academic community would hope that students consider about how you really can influence the trajectory of your own career if you’re willing to put in a lot of extra work. I mean, you you you absolutely did quite a bit of extra work to get there, but it sounds like it’s just this amazing opportunity. So that’s wonderful.

Czarnecki (14:41)

Absolutely. Thank you. Yeah. Intention is everything. And I mean, it’s really difficult in an academic and even professional sense. You’re thrown so many opportunities to join this organization, pick up this extra project or this this extra job. But it’s so important to really think about, you know, what excites me? What can I see myself doing long term? Or what small thing could contribute to my end goal? It doesn’t have to make

Help me get there immediately. But if if it helps me take a step towards that, then it’s worth your time. And it’s important to distinguish between those opportunities.

ADAMS (15:30)

All right, Caroline, can you give us an example of how you use leadership skills in your work?

Czarnecki (15:35)

Absolutely. So one important thing, especially when I’m in a position as a leader and I have a few people that I’m working with, it’s always important for me as a leader to come into a meeting or some kind of project where I where I am the leader, knowing what I want and why I want it. And that can just be a general project objective, but it’s it’s really important for

people that are looking up to you or working with you to know and see the confidence in you with this project so that you know they can follow the vision that they so clearly see you embodying as a leader. And understanding that when you do come into a meeting, you’re eventually going to have to delegate some tasks, right? As a leader, it’s really easy to say, okay, I know what I want. I’m going to keep a straight head on this and I’m just going to take a little piece of every pie and

It’s it’ll it won’t work out. It it leads to burnout. And I experienced this even in college when I was a leader in a student organization. It’s really easy to have one tone every pool, but it’s it’s not always the most efficient use of your time or anybody’s time that you’re leading. So some things that I really like to do as a leader when I am leading a project is again knowing what I want and then

If I have done those things before, coming up with almost a standard operating procedure of how I’ve done things so that people do have a clear understanding of the resources that they can access to follow in your footsteps, but letting your team decide how those different paths that you’ve asked them or requests that you’ve asked them to fulfill can be done. So I think the biggest thing for

For me to have successful projects in the past has been allowing my team the creativity that engineers typically don’t get a hand on unless they’re in a very research-focused field. So I like to know what I want and and communicate with my team why I want those things done, but then let them take the reins because every everybody is so individually creative. And by not

micromanaging or walking with someone step by step through a process of how to get something done every single time, you’ll surprise yourself at how interesting and creative somebody can be. And it can really lead you to a better solution than what could have been done with just your own brain. I mean, people it whenever I am stuck in a creative rut, let’s say in an engineering design, I always step out to other mediums and

I look at artists or even gardeners, you can say. And you know, a landscape architect that is working on a big garden, they think about what plants will help the plants next to them. If a if a bush needs less sunlight, they’ll plant it under a tree. And that’s a it might sound like a silly example, but it gives you perspective on understanding how pieces in a system can work better together if they’re closer.

It opens your mind to the possibilities of what you can bring back to your engineering job and just allowing everybody with different perspectives to contribute in their own way by leading that part of the project, assigning them a role so that we all understand what our best communications lines are and who the who has what roles, but really giving them the space to make this group project their own in a way.

ADAMS (19:19)

Yeah, that’s a great example. And there’s a couple of things I wanna I wanna threat threads I wanna pull on. So the first is what you said about really as the leader, you kind of need to have somewhat of a vision about what you want out of the project, not necessarily the end state, because maybe you don’t know what that what that’s gonna look like, but you have some sense of how you want things to go. And you, as you rightly said, need to be able to articulate that to the team. That will

Help them, one, have respect for you as a leader, but two, you know, keep them aligned to some extent so that everybody’s kind of working in the same direction. And so the my first question is how did you develop that confidence to articulate what it is you want as a as a project leader? You know, you’re you’ve you’ve been a project leader for

for some time, but in an as an still a newer project leader because you’re still coming out of college, I could see how it could be a could have been a challenge and may even still be a challenge in some cases. So how do you kind of get the the confidence to say, no, I’m ready to articulate this this vision.

Czarnecki (20:27)

I think it all comes down to just knowing that you belong at the table that you’re sitting at. And there’s not anything you need to prove to anybody. If you’re given a project and you know that you’re the leader on it, you’re the leader for a reason. You’ve you’ve taken steps to get to that position. And, you know, people are a lot less judgmental than we may think. And everybody is human. So it’s definitely okay if

You know, you wake up and you don’t have that confidence necessarily to approach your team because everybody makes mistakes. And if our confidence lies in the fact that we’re afraid to mess up, I think a change of perspective would be very beneficial there because it’s very valuable when someone sees a leader.

Make a mistake because they know that, yes, it’s we’re all human. That’s gonna happen. It’s all about how you approach the situation after a mistake is made. Or if you are trying that confidence thing and you’re standing in front of a room of superiors, even or some or a team that you are leading, and you mess up on a word or use call a project the wrong name, it’s all about how you follow from there. And it it’s really just about.

Remember remembering who you are, remembering that you have the credentials to be there. And people are here listening to you. So take advantage of that and just take a deep breath. I I always get nervous before a meeting, even, or a speech, or anything to that effect with you know public speaking. It is a journey. And you have to you have to get out there a little bit and try it out. I have definitely given a shaky speech before.

But it’s just about getting through it, taking a breath and remembering why you’re there. And yeah.

ADAMS (22:21)

Yeah, I like what you said about accepting that you deserve to be where you are. And I think one of the things that I w will often hear people talk about is, the self-doubt creeps in. And that’s certainly normal. I try to remind people that, the person who

invited you to this opportunity, saw something in you. Like they are knowledgeable. They know what they were looking for and they chose you. So maybe you could start by just trusting that they know what it is they’re looking for and that they’ve already kind of seen that you have the potential to do it.

And then the other thing I like that you said earlier was about delegation, and it sounds like some of the your approach to that is is one to offer some potential guidelines or what you know what has worked well in the past, but also to the best of your ability to allow free reign for the person to actually implement what they’re being delegated.

within their own per purview, within their own skill set. And that, you will oftentimes end up with something that is better than what you could have envisioned had you done this sort of very, very common new leader mistake, which is to just say, okay, I’ll just do it myself, right? You know, well yeah, like eventually the work will expand to where you can’t do everything yourself. And so even though maybe you were the you were the expert in the thing, now you’re a leader, you can’t, you’ve got to delegate it maybe to somebody who

Who doesn’t have that experience or maybe who has a different experience. So I really just wanted to kind of summarize that that approach because I think that I think that’s a great approach. And one of the things I really love about what you said, and you’ve used this word a couple of times, is the creativity side of it. And I I think that oftentimes people don’t think of engineers as creative, people who don’t know what we actually do. And so I I just really love that you’re actually calling that out. You’re you’re talking about how

the y you can come up with creative solutions to things. And it doesn’t necessarily mean the way that people think about art being creative, like this visually beautiful thing or something like that. It’s much more about can it can be that, depending on what it is, what it is that that we’re working on, but it can also be, you know, an approach that maybe is more efficient or maybe costs less or maybe, you know, gets actually to a better performance.

because that person had a chance to think about their own skill set. And so there’s tons of that kind of engineering creativity and the work that we do. And when you’ve over specified a task that that doesn’t come through. And so I just appreciate the way that you talked about delegation and that you’re continually reinforcing this idea about engineers being creative because we don’t hear enough about that.

Czarnecki (25:00)

Yes,

of course. I I mean I I learned all this through trial and error. I’ve I’ve been the leader that took it all on myself. And I’ve been the leader that gave complete free reign. And then you have all of everyone that’s working under you asking you a million questions each. So I think it for me it’s been very valuable to provide, you know, a sp a spinal cord of what this could look like and then say, I want you to fill in the rest. You know who who needs to be talked to.

Here the resources that you need to access that. Always make sure that people have the resources that they would need to continue with this plan that you’ve given them, but let them fill in the gaps because yes, creativity does exist in engineering. And it’s the only way that innovation can happen if we allow ourselves the expression that we we may see in other fields, like be in artists.

ADAMS (26:06)

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

Czarnecki (26:13)

My advice is to remember why you’re there as a leader. And one of those big items is you’re there to advance your team or your project or your company, but most importantly, your team members. You’re there to advance others. And that can look like a lot of different things, but if that is the center of what you’re thinking about when you’re making leadership decisions, that that can mean making the work that you all do.

much more influential in their own professional careers. So it’s okay to create a little bit of a relationship with people that you’re working with. And this is a very, it seems to be a very controversial topic sometimes because some people say keep your personal life completely out of work. Some say make best friends with your coworkers. So every day doesn’t feel like work. I think there’s a happy medium where you can

gain an understanding of who you’re working with enough so that you can understand what their individual needs may be for getting a task done or finding out what their priorities in life are so that you can make one, the work easier for all of you and just figure out a schedule around each individual. No nobody’s the same. So that’s the first thing I’ll say. And another way

I choose to advance others, and what I would advise others to do as well is to not always come at things from the most technical perspective or trying to find the most challenging or even innovative way to solve a problem. Sometimes things can be simple. Of course, I come out coming from an industrial engineering background, I’m always thinking about the simulation that needs to be built or a model that could be.

Shown through this system. That’s not always necessary. And I think there is power in knowing how to build a simulation or model, but it’s again, wisdom wisdom is shown in leadership when your energy and your team’s energy is used strategically and allocated to an intentionally structured priority list so that you’re not wasting your team members’ time.

You’re not wasting your own time and you’re really thinking about whether these answers need to be simple or complex. And it’s just thinking thinking about others, advancing others, thinking about what what could be the best use of everyone’s time.

Another thing I would advise is just to show your team what good behavior looks like as a team member, as a leader, but also don’t enforce bad team behavior. And for me, this looks like if someone is joining a meeting late or continuously has that kind of behavior, I will not go over things that the

meeting has said so far. I I won’t go over things or kind of catch them up and say, thank you for joining us. Just so far, we’ve talked about XYZ. I always keep notes. So I always make sure someone has a running note that they can look back on. And of course, I want them to feel like they are still a part of the team. They still have the access to this information. But I don’t want to reinforce the behavior that being late all the time is okay. Once or twice is understandable again. We are human.

But if this is a recurring theme, it’s not a respectful thing to show your boss or any of the people that you’re working with. So I try to really think things through as a leader and understand what am I doing that is showing them, enabling them, or reinforcing that bad behavior? And how can I prevent that in the future? So that’s just one small example of.

How I try to show what the expectations are for my team, which is good communication and it is showing up, it is getting getting things done. And if not, having the ability to talk with your teammates and say that you need help, just communication overall is going to be the most important thing. And if you as a leader are demonstrating that.

or even giving them examples, giving them examples of when to communicate that they’re not going to be at the meeting or if they need to do this, then make sure to tell the team. It’s just good practice to create that positive and hardworking culture within your team.

ADAMS (30:57)

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

Czarnecki (31:00)

Thank you so much for having me.