Joe fierko, ENG '84 shares some of his experiences in his career, from ROTC training in Germany, to his time at ExxonMobil that's approaching 30 years.

 

Joe fierko is a prime example of what makes Temple such a great city school. A South Philadelphia native and graduate of West Catholic High School, fierko graduated from the College of Engineering in 1984 with his Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering. After serving out his ROTC commitment to the Army, he has worked for Exxon since 1989, where he's currently a global technical leaders manager in midstream global engineering. He shares a bit about his journey and some advice.

 

WHAT DO YOU DO EVERY DAY?

"My job as an engineering manager (at Exxon) is to be in a charge of a group of what I'd call 'engineering consultants'. As these facilities want to do projects to expand, or retrofit, or make new products that are being introduced to market, we evaluate what the marketers want to do.

My team determines the size and scope of the investment and the equipment that's going to be utilized by running capacity models. Essentially the marketers will come to us and say, 'We want to add 100,000 gallons of a particular product' and we'll want a model of what that will mean for equipment. Then we work with the actual field engineers who will execute the projects, and we'll provide them with technical consulting as they're executing the project. We oversee the contractors who get hired, make sure everything is built with the ExxonMobil standards and meets all the safety and regulatory requirements.

As I've risen up through the organization, I've gotten more responsibility - managing projects with larger budgets, managing engineers in a region, and now I'm managing senior engineers globally. The responsibility level has gone up over time. The reason I've been with ExxonMobil for 28 years now is that the job has always been a challenge. It's never been boring and there's always been opportunities to do something different.

Throughout my career, with my degree, I've worked in engineering, I've worked in plant operations, I've been a production supervisor, I've been a safety engineer. Having an engineering background from Temple has opened a wide variety of job opportunities for me."

WHY TEMPLE ENGINEERING?

"I always wanted to be an engineer, when I was a kid in grade school and high school. I looked at Penn State and Temple and I liked the fact that it was affordable for my family. It wasn't going to be a financial burden and the program was very good. Even coming back here, 33 years later, I recognize some of the laboratories. Some of the differentiation was the hands-on ability that I got as part of my education here.

I knew that I also wanted to go into the military and Temple had an Army ROTC program. At the time I was fortunate enough to win a scholarship for the last three years of my schooling. Using that same engineering desire, I went into the Army Corps of Engineers, where I was commissioned as a second lieutenant, and I was in charge of a platoon of earth-moving construction in Germany. We built ranges for the M-1 tanks and the M-2, M-3 Bradley fighting vehicles, helicopters.

My job was to have the platoon prepare the earthwork for all the moving targets, the pop-up targets, for all the equipment that was utilized on the range. I did that for three years. I had two years of schooling in the Army and in 1989 when my time I was up I went to work for ExxonMobil."

HOW HAS NEW TECHNOLOGY CHANGED YOUR WORK?

"When I originally started, everything was done via telephone. There was this thing called an Audix system and we left each other messages. I was on the cutting edge of word processors being introduced. The first thing we came across, actually in the Army, then it came to ExxonMobil, was a document writer called a Lang word processor. It essentially does what Word does today. I was on the cutting edge of all the technology introductions.

The big challenge, which I think Temple prepared me well for, was adapt, be open minded, and always know you'll have to learn new things going forward. Over time, the introduction of technology has by far been most impactful on my career at ExxonMobil. Back in the day we started using Lotus123 spreadsheets. Now we've introduced more computer-aid design, more engineering programs like Pro2 that do thermodynamic calculations, and things like that.

HOW HAS ENGINEERING CHANGED?

"The engineering has made things much more efficient. We've been able to eliminate a lot of paperwork and take advantage of systems engineering through development, and modern software. We have things today like warehouse management systems that keeps our inventory accuracy at 99.99%. We have planning control systems that accurately measures raw materials that we put into blenders to make our product blends, like a motor oil or an industrial oil.

Sustainability is very big; we don't want to waste anything anymore. Engineering over time has been based on 'How do I get more efficient? How do I reduce waste? How do I cut costs?' It's a continuous evaluation of new technologies. Even today, we're looking at more efficient blending technologies. We're on the cutting edge of newer technologies out there, involving things like high-share mixers, powder introduction systems. It's all geared to 'How do I make the most effective product for the least cost and the least amount of waste?' That's been the change, constant focus on efficiencies, safety, environmental cleanliness, sustainability, all very key in our organization."

WHAT'S YOUR ADVICE FOR ENGINEERING STUDENTS?

"Stick with it. At times it's a very difficult major. I know at times you can get frustrated, but the payoffs are going to be great on the back side when you graduate. My experience in ExxonMobil with my peer group is who started in the company, and having an engineering background has opened up myriad of opportunities to them because someone with an engineering background can do anything.

I have friends of mine who started with me, say, doing service station engineering, who are doing crew training or are working in our marketing or who are doing customer sales support. They go to a customer's location and we'll have a lubricant that customer may be using in some application and they'll test the lubricant to look for wear parts, or to see if there's any metal in there, to ensure we have the proper lubrication. We'll work with the customer when they come up with a new application to make sure we can provide the type of lubricant they're looking for. All that is open to you if you have an engineering degree because you have the foundation of the math and science behind it. I think if you understand the math and science, you can learn pretty much anything that's out there. I would say stick to it, work through the hard times, it'll definitely be worth it on the back end."

WHAT'S YOUR PHILOSOPHY ON LIFE?

"Take advantage of the opportunities that come to you. I grew in South Philly, in a neighborhood, and as I've gone through life, I've had the opportunity to come to Temple, I've had the opportunity to apply for an Army ROTC scholarship, which gave me the opportunity to be an Army officer. I had an opportunity to go to Europe. One of the nice things about the Army is you get a lot of responsibility at a young age so I got to do things in my 20s that some people in the private industry don't get to do until maybe their 30s. Then I had the opportunity to go work for Mobil and that's become ExxonMobil, and every time an opportunity came up at ExxonMobil, I took advantage of it, and that got me to the point where I'm in a global position. I've been to every continent in the world, just about, through ExxonMobil, all due to taking advantage of things that came up and working on projects that crop up in that area.

My philosophy on life is, if you're offered opportunities, take them, because you may regret otherwise if you don't."