With the upcoming retirements of a large proportion of long-time, knowledgeable professionals looming over the energy industry, developing new talent and skills in today’s students is essential to the continued success of the business. One industry leader meeting that challenge head-on is Cherie Humphries of Tulsa, Okla.-based The Williams Cos. Inc. Humphries works with students of all ages to encourage them to pursue educations in the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields.

In an interview with Midstream Business, Humphries, vice president and general manager for Williams NGL Services, talked about what drove her to become involved in encouraging STEM education.

“I see this huge need for encouraging young students to pursue math and science careers,” Humphries told Midstream Business. “We have such a need in the country and in our industry for continuing to graduate more engineers and people focused on the math and science-type careers. My passion is making sure we’re preparing our students for the future.

“We’re faced with a lot of upcoming retirements and knowledge leaving the industry,” she said, “and continuing to backfill that with talented students and getting students to pursue these types of careers is where my passion lies. It’s around encouraging the students to have confidence in themselves, to pursue those types of careers.”

Encouragement

Humphries, who holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in civil engineering and an MBA from Oklahoma State University, has spent her 20-year career encouraging students to enter STEM fields. She has focused on improving education for students of all ages—from students who are entering a classroom for the first time to those who are at the age when they begin making long-term career plans.

Wherever she can find an opportunity to promote STEM education, she is ready to talk to students. She said that she recently met and spoke with “a group of girls interested in math and science, and they are fifth- to eighth-grade students.” Humphries also took part in a panel discussion for high school girls, where panelists covered career opportunities in the math and science fields.

Humphries has placed much of her focus into supporting the education of students studying or planning to study the STEM fields in college. She served on her alma mater Oklahoma State University’s Women in Engineering, Architecture and Technology Corporate Advisory Board, which worked with the university and students to encourage and retain women in the College of Engineering. She also spent from 2009 to 2012 on the University’s School of Civil and Environmental Engineering’s Board of Visitors—a group of practicing professional engineers who provide guidance to improve the school’s curriculum and program.

When encouraging older students to make it through the difficult training required of college students in STEM fields, Humphries reminds them of the rewards that await successful completion.

Humphries said that when she speaks to college-age students, “I relay the experiences I had when I was in college going through engineering—and that it’s not always the easiest path to take,” she said, emphasizing that “you’ll be challenged along the way, but the end result is so rewarding, to know that you’ve made that happen.

“I was a top student in high school, but my first college chemistry exam was not so great,” Humphries said. “That panic you feel when you get the first challenge and the first disappointment of ‘I didn’t make an A on that?’” can be difficult for students to face without reassurance, she said.

Encouraging students to overcome those initial challenges, and showing them that “you can turn that around and make an A by the end of the semester,” and that they shouldn’t give up on a difficult program is important to helping students get through what, for many, may be the most difficult years of their academic careers.

Humphries focuses on communicating to older students, “that everybody who’s gone through a curriculum like that will have those challenges and those moments of hesitation, but keep charging forward.”

An early start

Humphries told Midstream Business that encouragement from a young age motivated her to become an engineer.

“The encouragement from both my parents—that girls can do anything that boys can do—kept me focused on making that happen,” she added.

“My dad’s an engineer and my uncle’s an engineer,” she said. “I always had the encouragement from both of my parents that I could do anything I wanted to and seeing my dad’s work always fascinated me.”

One of Humphries’ missions in working with younger students is instilling in them that same fascination with science. When asked what most made an impression on her, Humphries said, “It’s seeing that light bulb go on for a student—that they get it. They see how much fun science can be.

“Let’s just take, for example, some of the kids as they look at magnets. You can see that they’re trying to challenge their thinking on what’s happening. You can visibly see the excitement from even very young students when they start playing with things that involve science.”

Humphries recently retired from the board of directors of the First Christian Church Child Development Center in Tulsa, where she participated for four years. Her work there focused primarily on pre-K and kindergarten children, where Humphries and educators focused on “making sure that we start that learning and that excitement as early as possible,” she said.

Students at the development center used a scale to learn about weight by balancing peanuts and strawberries against each other, watched objects respond to a magnetic field and assembled a dinosaur puzzle—courtesy of a grant from Williams, given to the school “to fill the classrooms with new math- and science-focused materials,” Humphries said.

“I think as a whole, the more that the energy industry can do to help continue to encourage math and science programs at as early of an age as we can, the better,” Humphries said. “We can’t just focus on college—I think we’ve got to start as early as kindergarten and first grade, and make sure the kids understand how much fun math and science can be.”

It takes a village

While encouraging students to develop math and science skills seems like an obvious boon to the energy industry, let alone the U.S. in general, it isn’t always obvious how to go about filling a need even where you see one. When asked how she became involved in local education initiatives, Humphries said, “I held up my hand, and Tim found me the opportunity.”

Tim Colwell is the Tulsa community outreach business partner for Williams. The company emphasizes opportunities for its interested employees to get involved with local education enterprises throughout its system, he told Midstream Business. Some ways Williams encourages education include:

  • In Houston, Williams helps fund and provides volunteers to work with economically disadvantaged high school students to help increase STEM outcomes through Genesys Works, a nonprofit eightweek summer program serving Houston Independent School District students;
  • In Tulsa, Williams was a 2014 founding partner of the Tulsa Regional STEM Alliance—a consortium of companies, educational institutions and funders to promote and implement STEM education initiatives;
  • In Pittsburgh, Williams’ employee volunteers teach Junior Achievement’s “Careers in Energy” curriculum in a rural southwest Pennsylvania high school;
  • In Tulsa, Williams engineers serve on panels and as mentors, such as at the Oklahoma Women in STEM Conference that attracted 800 high school girls from across the state;
  • In Salt Lake City, Williams provides funding for Utah State University’s program for middle school enrichment and STEM learning activities, along with a teacher training curriculum; and
  • In Tulsa, Williams funded an “I am a Scientist!” summer camp for 1,600 three- and four-year-olds from underprivileged homes.

Colwell’s advice for any company hoping to make contributions to education in their communities: “One of the things they might do is touch base with their local university and the school systems. We’re pretty advanced here in Tulsa by having this regional STEM alliance.”

Not many cities have similar alliances yet, he said, “but we’re hearing more and more this is going to be a major initiative in high schools and even into middle schools. We’re participating in a lot of chamber meetings here, and the area school superintendents are all saying there’s going to be a great focus on STEM curriculum at all levels; I suspect that is going to be a major focus across the country.”

Although Williams enabled Humphries to join the Tulsa Regional STEM Alliance Advisory Council, she reiterated that companies can have a huge impact on the math and science education in local schools even if there is no STEM alliance in a community.

“I can say that from my experience working with schools, and I have young children as well, having programs just like Williams does, whether it’s the grant program or a matching gift program, has helped me influence the schools my children are in” to provide a stronger focus on math and science, she said.

“A lot of the schools are short on funds these days, and when you say ‘Hey, we’re going to give you some money but I want you to make sure you’re putting it toward math and science,’ or whatever the interest may be of the employees, I feel like that is such an opportunity for corporations to really help the educational system,” she said.

“I found that for the child development center that I worked with, that was a huge benefit, that the company allowed me to influence young children with new programs. Likewise, for the public schools, it’s a huge value as well. Having those types of corporate programs, you can help with continuing to encourage children in education,” she added.

Caryn Livingston can be reached at clivingston@hartenergy.com or 713-260-6433.

Comments