Our People: Sara Irick

Can you share your journey and what motivated you to become an engineer?

As a kid, everyone always told me I should be an engineer. My family saw that I was into Erector sets and Legos, so it was something that I was always encouraged to do. I also went to a SWE event at Manhattan College when I was in middle school. It was cool to get to see other engineers and be a part of a program like that, which was all about encouraging young females to be engineers. I also had an uncle as a role model who is a metallurgical engineer turned CEO, which made engineering a familiar career path in our family.

Can you tell us a bit about your background and how you came to work at FPA?

I went to Lehigh University for my Bachelor of Science in civil engineering. I participated in Lehigh’s co-op program which allowed me to work during my junior Fall semester. I worked for that same firm for about 12 years, and I gained a lot of really valuable experience there. I worked on a lot of cool projects, but I started to realize that I wanted to learn some new things. And I realized that to continue to develop my leadership skills I needed a strong female mentor. I was given the opportunity to work for Lehigh University as a full-time consultant. That was one of the coolest experiences I could have had. I worked there for four years on their capital program. They are still one of my favorite clients. It was a really great opportunity to gain a different perspective than that of the standard consultant. Not a lot of us get to work for the client, as a part of the client’s team, and I got that experience.

At the time that the contract was ending at Lehigh, I was looking around, thinking about what I should do next (also- you know – COVID), and Matthew Kearney [FPA Regional Manager] reached out thanks to a connection through one of my female mentors. We had a lot in common professionally and personally, so it seemed like a good fit. I started at FPA in 2021. I chose FPA because it appeared to be – and continues to prove to be – an employee centric firm that supports their people. I’m thankful for this company’s flexibility that it offers that allows me to be a present mother while shooting the stars with my professional goals.

Have you had any influential mentors or role models in your journey as an engineer? If so, how have they impacted your career?

I think in the beginning of my career, I thought that I had to be somebody different and try really hard to fit into the standard ‘Engineer’ mold. There’s not a lot of us ‘ladies’ in the engineering world and we’re learning a lot from a similar type of people. So instead of relying on the old leadership styles and methods that don’t quite work the same way for females as they do for men, I started to develop a lot of female role models. I feel like I collect female engineers, we have an unofficial club (and an official one through WTS). It really doesn’t matter what level you’re at, you can be a leader at any level in your firm, your job, or your career. The women in my life, whether they work at other firms or within our firm, I learn a lot from observing them and learning their communication style, how they connect with people. I really learned that one size does not fit all and there isn’t necessarily one leadership style that works well for everyone. A strong company knows this, and they seek multiple styles of leadership and multiple types of people. This is really where diversity helps us in management and in companies, because you get so many different perspectives, and you can really leverage that.

I’m pretty proud of the world of females in civil engineering. Being in professional societies, I feel I have a really strong network of them. If you go to any professional events with me, you’ll see that I gravitate towards the ladies. We really build each other up and those relationships are really critical to where I am today. I wouldn’t say I have any one mentor; I think it’s always important to look towards a lot of different types of perspectives and people. There’s been a lot of people who have taken me under their wing and taught me a lot, so there’s a lot of people that I’m grateful for.

What do you consider an advantage of being a woman in STEM?

Women have a great tendency of being multitaskers and planners. I think that lends women to being very strong Project Managers and efficient at work. We are balancing a lot, especially as mothers. We can sit down, figure out the problem, we can take action, we don’t linger too long, we get it done. We’re good leaders because we tend to be more emotionally intelligent. In the workplace, being emotional isn’t often seen as a positive, but being happy at work is an emotion. I think that emotion in the workplace is important. You need to develop strong relationships with your colleagues, you need to be empathetic, you need to read between the lines sometimes. Emotion allows you to communicate effectively. You could be really good at your job technically, but if you can’t work with your team and collaborate, those technical skills often don’t get the job done. It’s all about connection. Us ladies are often good at fostering that positive team dynamic. We’re empathetic, effective, and that’s good for an organization in the end. It goes back to diversity, we work better as a team if an organization embraces diversity because you have people from all different backgrounds and mindsets.