Isaac Oakeson: Hey, what's up everybody? Isaac here with Civil Engineering Academy. Excited once again to be on another podcast episode with you. Definitely enjoy doing these; hopefully you're enjoying listening to them. But it's always fun to do this stuff and, you know, share with the world news and information related to civil engineering, and also helping you on your own journey to become a professional engineer if you are headed down this route. Anyway, thanks for being here. Thanks for giving us a like and a subscribe, or whatever else wherever you're finding us.

Isaac Oakeson: So, anyway, we're excited about today's episode. I'm bringing on a special guest. His name is Craig Callewaert, and he is actually a mechanical engineer. A professional engineer, a PE, with a PMP. He also has his MBA. He has quite the resume. I wanted to bring him on because he details his own journey, not only in engineering, but he's held roles as a vice president, as a chief product manager, and really has spent a lot of his career in the product development arena.

Isaac Oakeson: But one of the things I wanted to bring him on about is that he has a very deep resume, lots of credentials as well, but also is in the job market. Trying to navigate, dealing with a job that didn't pan out so well and a project ended, and then trying to find himself back in the job market, trying to find something. But he's extremely qualified to work really anywhere. And trying to navigate that scenario.

Isaac Oakeson: So it's a really unique opportunity to kind of listen in and get his opinion on what are some best practices if you find yourself in that situation. But I thought the wisdom that he shared in this episode is really good and really applicable for those that find themselves with a deep resume that may be actually looking for work right now.

Isaac Oakeson: So, anyway, I enjoyed talking to Craig. I think you're really gonna enjoy this episode. If anyone is in the hunt for someone with a vast bit of knowledge about product development and a lot of other areas, including project management, he's your guy.

Isaac Oakeson: Anyway, with that long introduction, let's get to my interview with Craig. I think you're really gonna enjoy this, and it's coming up right after this.

Isaac Oakeson: All right, Craig. We are live with our podcast. Thanks for jumping on the Civil Engineering Academy Podcast. I appreciate you doing this with us.

Craig Callewaert: Well, thanks for asking me, Isaac.

Isaac Oakeson: Yeah. We kind of connected over LinkedIn, which is an awesome tool to do this kind of stuff. And I was super impressed by all the stuff that you've done in your career. And I just wanted to talk about maybe some of those pieces and other advice that I'm sure we can uncover based on your years of experience.

Isaac Oakeson: I always like to start these asking about your background in engineering. How did you find yourself into this world of engineering?

Craig Callewaert: I think I was a typical engineer. You know, I loved, as a kid, taking things apart, putting them back together, and sometimes they worked. Just getting into the physical things. Repairs, etc. I can remember changing the oil in my car as a high school student, and really struggling with some placement of either the filter or the drain plug and then thinking, "who put this here?" and "can I do that?" You know?

Craig Callewaert: And so it's, it's -- Yeah. I really didn't know what I wanted to do. I loved products. I loved figuring things out, solving problems. Math and science. And really, I picked mechanical engineering only because it was the broadest of the categories of engineering.

Isaac Oakeson: It's true. You definitely go into a lot of different areas that civils kind of put the brakes on. So, that's fascinating. Well, that's great. I mean, were there any family members that influenced your decision to go to this field? Any uncles, cousins, any other? That engineering brother somewhere?

Craig Callewaert: No, no. [inaudible] Yeah. And I have actually inspired other family members, which has been kind of rewarding. I've got a nephew and a cousin, both quite a bit younger than me, who got into engineering and they're enjoying it.

Isaac Oakeson: That's awesome.

Isaac Oakeson: Well, let's talk a little bit about all the stuff that you've been involved with. But maybe, before we do that, I know you've got a lot of credentials in terms of you're a professional engineer; you have an MBA; I think you have your PMP as well (Project Management Professional). So, I am curious, before we dive into anything else, but how do you feel like -- Let's start with maybe the MBA. How do you feel like that helped your engineering career so far?

Craig Callewaert: I like learning, obviously. And, you know, my goal is to be a lifelong learner. And so, either it's towards a degree or an objective, or it's to pick up some area I'm weak in or just to brush up on something. The MBA really came about because I had been involved with engineering products or modifying the product for export to Japan. So we had established a joint venture here. I was hired to do the engineering work on this. And it was myself and another guy, and we were managing this project.

Craig Callewaert: And so, I modified the product; I certified the product. You got to do testing and design work. But eventually, the company was having financial troubles and decided to stop the joint venture and stop working for Japan. And I thought about it and it made sense, but I really didn't understand the financials behind it. And I thought, "If I'm gonna be managing projects and doing successful projects, clearly financials are very important."

Craig Callewaert: And so I wanted to do the MBA for a few reasons. One so that I could talk very intelligently to everyone involved about why the project was gonna pay back the company. That was probably first and foremost. The other part was, you know, as an engineer, you're always an inventor. And the classic dream is to start off on your own and do that. And I also thought, "Well, an MBA is kind of kind of critical. I should know how to do some things if I'm gonna work on my own."

Craig Callewaert: And one of the prerequisites -- It took me seven years to get that, because there were so many prerequisites I didn't have from my life as an engineer. And one of those was simple accounting. I'd never taken an accounting course. And so I had to take this 200-level accounting course to, you know, be prepared for the MBA. And it was obvious and clear I was never gonna run a business without knowing how to do accounting.

Isaac Oakeson: That makes sense. Well, I think it's a great combination if you have an engineering degree with an MBA. You know, you really open up doors into moving into, you know, either ownership of your own company or even just moving up within that company and trying to grow with it.

Craig Callewaert: Yeah. It's been really good. You always have to decide for yourself if you want to do the work yourself or if you want to understand the work somebody else is doing. And a lot of what I've been doing is trying to understand the work that others do as I lead teams or lead people.

Isaac Oakeson: That makes sense.

Craig Callewaert: Not saying I'm lazy and don't wanna do any work myself. But, you know, that was the first battle a long time ago when I got my masters in mechanical engineering. Finite element analysis was really just starting up, you know? That's how old I am. So, I became this expert with a master's of mechanical engineering, and knowing finite element analysis. And it was being asked by people I worked for, "Well, why don't you wanna do this?"

Craig Callewaert: You know, at that time, they sat in the dark and worked full-time in front of a screen, you know, crunching numbers. And that's not what I wanted to do. I wanted to build products. And yeah, if those products are gonna break, I needed to be able to talk with an expert and say, "I think it's weak here. Can you run some analysis for me?"

Isaac Oakeson: That all makes sense to me.

Craig Callewaert: Yeah. I had a lot of fun when I was at [inaudible] and had to design a wheel loader bucket. And it was cracking in one spot and, you know, the guy running the finite element analysis, I'm not sure he ever left his computer. He just lived there and he loved this. And it was fantastic because he could turn around analysis at record time. But, you know, I showed him the design and he showed me that the weak spot and I said, "Yeah, I agree. So we're gonna take off material here, here, here, and get the stresses to flow."

Craig Callewaert: And when he did all that, he said, "this design is no good. It's red everywhere." Well, he's designing a bucket, which is a working implement. You need those stresses to be pretty even for all that. And, you know, red everywhere just means they're even everywhere and it's just whatever scale you're using that drove it. But he couldn't believe that that was the right design.

Isaac Oakeson: That's interesting. I guess that leads me to kinda ask, has there been, like, a pretty messy project that you remember working on? And how did you manage to make something that was messy successful?

Craig Callewaert: Well, most projects are messy.

Isaac Oakeson: Maybe Is there a favorite -- Oh, you remember.

Craig Callewaert: One of the messy projects is, I had to change roles. And I've been managing engineers and engineering projects for my career. And I had an opportunity at Volvo Construction Equipment to hire on as a project manager, not an engineer. And so, I took on this project management role reporting to a project management office, and it just opened my eyes to how you could run projects in a very specific, detailed way. And, you know, that project office led to my studying project management. And that was what led to the PMP certification.

Isaac Oakeson: Ah! Which I also think is another good combination.

Craig Callewaert: Yeah. It's a challenge leading projects without having the people reporting to you. So that was the first project I took over. And I took over a project that wasn't "going the best." It was the way it was described to me. And the previous project manager had been a bit disengaged. When I took over, it was one of those situations where, every month I was involved in the project, the more I knew about it, the more I needed to delay the project because it was clear it wasn't gonna meet its goals.

Craig Callewaert: I had three successive monthly meetings with upper management where I delayed the project yet another month. It was a struggle to learn the project and it [inaudible] quick enough because it was so messy. It was a struggle to communicate the environment properly to everyone and yet keep enough -- Not momentum, but you know, enthusiasm in the project team that "Yeah, it's messy and everyone knows that. But alright, here's the real target. Let's get this thing where it can be. Let's draw a stake in the sand and say 'this is all the content it could have.' Now, when can we launch this?"

Craig Callewaert: It ended up launching successfully. I mean successfully meaning, pretty close to target cost, on target was reliability, and about six months late.

Isaac Oakeson: Got it done, though.

Craig Callewaert: Yeah. Yeah. Which also set us up for the follow up project, which was probably an important part of being able to put that stake in the sand because we could say, "Okay, we're not gonna do these now. But we've got another project." And this is the tile of diesel engine emissions really ramping up. So there had to be several progressive projects. We could define that, add it to the scope of the next project and say, "Okay, that's the one that's gonna capture what you're waiting for."

Isaac Oakeson: That's interesting. You know, a lot of people, I guess, in their careers have to make a distinction whether they want to follow the route of being maybe an engineer in design the whole time, or if they want to go more into a people management type of route. And it seems like, with you and your career, you've been a director, you've been a vice president.

Isaac Oakeson: What's the skill set for an engineer to look at managing more people versus going into, I guess, a deep dive into engineering? And, you know, I guess, are there benefits to going in that management route versus the engineering route?

Craig Callewaert: Yeah, that's an interesting question. I think with the management route, you can get more done. It's the way I look at it. You know, if you're, let's think about a new backhoe, for example. If you wanna make a new backhoe, if you are the engineer, well, you get to design maybe the new bucket that goes with it. If you're the project manager, you get to say, "Hey, Mr. Customer. Here's this whole new machine for you. My team of 15 people have been working the last 12 months to get this thing done for you." It's just a matter of scope

Isaac Oakeson: That makes sense.

Craig Callewaert: But that's part of why I enjoy the management. But it's tough. You have to understand what makes people tick. And engineers are no bunch.

Isaac Oakeson: Well, sometimes engineers just don't wanna deal with people, right? We like --

Craig Callewaert: Well, you know, those are actually the easiest ones to deal with. You know, the ones that don't wanna deal with people and just wanna sit in front of the computer and do their design work all day long. The challenge with them is to help them understand what they're doing. And for that, you really need to understand what the customer requirements are and how to design things, you know? And recognize good design when you see it.

Isaac Oakeson: That makes sense. Well, that's --

Craig Callewaert: The more challenging people are the ones that know they're right and can convince others that's true and that the customer is wrong. That's the challenge.

Isaac Oakeson: I never really thought about that one before. I can see that being an issue though, and it's coming the other way.

Craig Callewaert: Yeah. So, you have to be able to picture things and explain things, you know a bunch of different ways so that you can come to a common understanding. If you could explain how the customer views things to your engineers in six different ways, they'll pick up on one or two of those and understand what it is they're truly after.

Isaac Oakeson: That makes sense.

Craig Callewaert: Yeah.

Isaac Oakeson: Well, let's fast forward a little bit. So let's talk about where you're at today. I know you're kind of in the hunt for work right now. And, what's that been like for you? What have been the opportunities? What have been the challenges?

Craig Callewaert: Yeah. I got -- Like, the project I was in charge of got redirected and in October I got called up to my boss's office and he said it's taking another direction and we'd like to part ways. And so, that ended the work that I was doing at my last employer. It's hard and sudden and difficult.

Isaac Oakeson: No discussion of shuffling you into a different project or being involved somewhere else?

Craig Callewaert: No, no. And, you know, some of that was my blindness to the scenario. You know, nothing's ever a complete surprise. So I needed to have been more aware of what was going on and probably more aware of different alternatives. Instead, I was just hyper focused on this particular troublesome project and taking it down the wrong path, or what turned out to be the wrong path.

Isaac Oakeson: Okay. So you're in the job hunt. Has it been a challenge to find something? Because I kind of wanna set this up the right way. But here you are, you've got a resume that's deep. You've got a lot of qualifications. You know, you're a licensed professional engineer, MBA, PMP. To me in, my eyes, it seems like it would be fairly easy to find something else out there that someone could plug you in and get going on.

Isaac Oakeson: But I'm just curious what your thoughts have been about, you know, has the market been challenging for you to find something? And is that because there's a specific role that you're looking for or is there other reasons?

Craig Callewaert: Yeah. Well, one of the first things that's made the hunt difficult is, this is the first time in my career that I've said, "I could see retirement from here." And I was, "I really like Virginia Beach."

Isaac Oakeson: Makes sense.

Craig Callewaert: You know, so I can't go back to the Midwest to, you know, the construction company that really needs my help. You know, I have to try and manage what's here. Have to try and fit into that position the best I can and see what I can do.

Craig Callewaert: The other piece of it that has happened, I've always kept my LinkedIn profile pretty up-to-date and managed that. But I'm learning about applicant tracking systems and other automated means of rejecting good experience.

Isaac Oakeson: Yeah. I feel like this is one of those spots where it's like, who you know helps. It's a general thing and you plug it in. It's like, "See you!"

Craig Callewaert: Well, and that's, you know, who I know, unfortunately, has -- I moved to this area that I like so much. I've not been here all my career, so I don't have that many local contacts, even though I want to find a local position. So that's been one of the challenges.

Craig Callewaert: Another challenge is learning about the applicant tracking systems. And in fact, I ended up taking, because I got rejected quite often, quite a bit, and I hadn't heard anything back in the first month or so, I ended up taking a, what do they call it? Job search school. You know, how to search for a job in the modern method. And I had to revamp my profile quite a bit and change things up quite a bit. And it's amazing. But I am getting a lot better response now and finding better availability.

Craig Callewaert: Some of the things that are counterintuitive definitely have to cut your experience at 20 years.

Isaac Oakeson: You have to cut your experience 20 years?

Craig Callewaert: If you have more than 20 years experience, it counts against you in the applicant tracking system.

Isaac Oakeson: Oh! Did not know that.

Craig Callewaert: And it's interesting, if you read through a lot of the applications, very few of them are actually asking for more than 10 years experience.

Isaac Oakeson: That makes sense. So they're looking for people in this kind of range that they want to get you in at. Okay, that makes sense.

Craig Callewaert: You know, and then you gotta play with all your keywords and present in the right, objective sort of way. But you know, the years of experience was probably my biggest tough one to take, because all my experiences has been so good. But, you know, you get to talk about it once you get into the interview. But you gotta get your foot in the door to get that.

Isaac Oakeson: That's true.

Isaac Oakeson: Why don't you touch a little bit on, you know, what it would look like or why you like working for maybe a bigger company versus being maybe a contractor or doing something on your own?

Craig Callewaert: Yeah. I kind of touched on that before when I talked about leading teams. You know, it's the same kind of thought. Bigger companies have bigger goals, and those bigger goals lead to bigger projects. And so, if you want to lead something that's gonna have some impact, unfortunately, that's where you gotta go.

Isaac Oakeson: Get the big team.

Craig Callewaert: Yeah. You know, you could strike out on your own, but you know, I'm not gonna be developing the next car line by myself, you know? And Elon Musk didn't do that overnight and by himself either, you know? Big things take big teams. And so, for me, it's been fun to work on big things. It's given me a chance to get products out everywhere in the world. I traveled the world working on that product, and it's just been fascinating. But I couldn't have done that on my own.

Isaac Oakeson: That's fascinating. Well, thanks for sharing that.

Isaac Oakeson: You also have your professional engineering license. And I know you're a mechanical engineer, but how have you felt that helped you? I know we're Civil Engineering Academy, so we lean towards civil engineers, but with mechanicals, I have a brother that's mechanical. Not all mechanicals seem like they need their PE. I guess it depends on which area that you kind of go into. But how has the PE been a benefit in your career?

Craig Callewaert: It's kind of a personal thing. I have never needed the professional engineer. What it has been for me is, I've always wanted to be an engineer. And the best way to say that to the world is to be a professional.

Isaac Oakeson: Right. Great way to explain it.

Craig Callewaert: Yeah. And so, I took the EIT as soon as I could. I think that was in the last year of college. And then, as soon as my five years experience were in, I went and took the exam. So I got licensed. At that time I was living in Wisconsin. I had gone to school in Michigan and got my PE license from Wisconsin, have kept it current ever since.

Craig Callewaert: It has on occasion been necessary. It's separated me from others. It's allowed me to sign some very important documents. It gets you visibility within the company because, somehow, management knows who their professional engineers are. And with mechanical engineering, in a department of a hundred, there might only be two or three.

Isaac Oakeson: Right.

Craig Callewaert: You know, and if you wanna set yourself apart, that's, that's an easy way to do it.

Isaac Oakeson: That's true. Well, yeah. We definitely preach that. So, definitely get your PE license. Definitely a must to get. And it's one of the things we love helping civils go get. So definitely do that.

Craig Callewaert: Yeah. I also, just recently, which was in the middle of Covid. So maybe two years ago I decided that, since I'm staying here in Virginia, I wanted to get my Virginia license as well. And so, you know, that should be easy to do with the committee. You know, somehow, your license is in one state, so you transfer your license to the next.

Isaac Oakeson: Yeah. Get it in a lot of different states. Except California; they require some extra exams. So you gotta do that.

Craig Callewaert: Yeah. Never lose the original, is just the way I looked at it. And because I wasn't practicing, you know, where I was signing documents every day, I didn't really need to go past Wisconsin. But now that I'm here in Virginia, I went ahead and got the Virginia license. But that was a bit of a challenge because some of the things -- They needed a copy of my EIT.

Isaac Oakeson: [Inaudible].

Craig Callewaert: That was the problem. I believe it was in 1986 that I took the test. But because I took it in Michigan, but got my PE in Wisconsin, they couldn't locate that.

Isaac Oakeson: Wow.

Craig Callewaert: The mere fact that I passed the PE license doesn't mean I took the EIT? So I had to prove to the national board that, you know, I did indeed --

Isaac Oakeson: You did do that.

Craig Callewaert: Yeah. Yeah.

Isaac Oakeson: Well, that's awesome. I think you're well credentialed. I have no doubt that you'll find something that fits you.

Isaac Oakeson: As we conclude this, maybe, do you have any tips or advice for anyone else that maybe in a similar situation as you that, you know, has a great resume, really credentialed, but is also struggling to find something that's out there that they're specifically trying to find? Do you have any advice or tips for them?

Craig Callewaert: It's not personal. I think it's hard because you take rejection personally. And, I need to count, but I think I'm close to a hundred rejections now, you know? And those are ones that have not made it past the initial screening, you know?

Isaac Oakeson: No interview, per se.

Craig Callewaert: Right, right. You know, it's been an automated process that's automatically rejected me. I continue to send in those applications because a few of them click, a few of them lead me to find something and find people and so forth. So I have to continue to do that. But you're gonna get rejected and it's not about you, it's just that they've chosen to set up some rules about who qualifies for their position, and you don't happen to match those programmed rules.

Isaac Oakeson: Makes sense.

Craig Callewaert: And, you know, don't underestimate networking. So, I've been networking as well. Do that more than any engineer's comfortable with. So it's --

Isaac Oakeson: Yeah. Putting yourself out there.

Craig Callewaert: Yeah. Exactly. And this is part of it. I really appreciate you asking me here. A lot of the work that's being done in the Virginia Beach area has to do with the construction and architecture. And they all are demanding PE licenses. And so, I've been using that to get in, and I'm hoping a few of them will be listening to this podcast because they would do that.

Isaac Oakeson: Well, I think you're well qualified to probably look at any one of those, you know? Professional engineer, mechanical engineering background, project management skills. There's a huge demand for project managers all over the country. But even fully remote things that I know they're around.

Isaac Oakeson: But you know, I do think you'll find something. Hopefully you'll find exactly what you're looking for. And definitely we will help you with that. So we'll make sure we link your LinkedIn profile and all that fun stuff in here too. And maybe in the future we can follow up and see where you're at on that journey. But it's been really fun to hear your tips about that.

Craig Callewaert: Well, I appreciate it. And, yeah, my name is unique and that's been helpful. You know, it's common in Belgium. It's a Belgian name. Up here in the US, I've not met someone I wasn't related to. So if you look me up, you'll find me.

Isaac Oakeson: Yeah, I agree. It's a unique last name. I like it though, so.

Isaac Oakeson: Well, this has been fun, Craig. Thanks for doing this. Thanks for jumping on the podcast. I think you've shared a lot of tips with us and really appreciate you doing this.

Craig Callewaert: All right. Well, I appreciate it. Thank you.

Isaac Oakeson: All right. Thank you. See you next time.

Craig Callewaert: Sure.