Bio

About me

A California native, with deep southern roots on one side and deep southern California roots on the other. My start was very humble and I attribute my career longevity in the challenging engineering field to my stubbornness and being raised by another strong stubborn female, my mom (who was one of the first few female Journeyman Electricians in the IBEW). Never give up and never let anyone tell you that you cannot do it or it isn’t possible. I got my BSEE, MSEM, CQE, CSQE, CQA, and SSGB while working fulltime and supporting my family. It wasn’t easy, but it was worth it.

Expertise

ISO Implementation Lead

I started out in the post film industry (film processing plant for daily negatives, scene color correction, reel creation, etc…, back before digital took over) where I successfully implemented a BMS (they decided to call it a Business Management System instead of a QMS to help with company moral and concept buy-in) from the ground up and achieved ISO 9001 certification. It was like working in a startup; in this role I created/updated all their documentation (WI/SOP/etc…), managed and conducted their internal audits, assisted EHS with their ISO 14000 audits, created and implemented a CAPA process, and created an intranet site for their documentation management. I did this while under the guidance of one amazing Senior VP, who would become my life-long mentor. It was a great experience and working in the post film industry had some cool perks, like promo kits (when the execs. didn’t want them), cool screening rooms (basically small private CLEAN theaters), and of course famous directors/actors (most of who I never recognized at first…lol) frequently visiting. I also once got to work on a movie set where I quickly realized the movie industry was not for me. There was a lot of down time while the scenes were being set and actors prepared (this drove me crazy). The hours were horrible and then there was the classism. Let me explain, as I am sure you are like what!? There were the directors, writers, producers, and actors (1st class, they ate first during mealtime and others were at their beck and call bringing them whatever they needed all the time),…then there were the set workers (2nd class, they ate next and pretty much took care of themselves, like adults should),…and after everyone else there were the unpaid PAs (aspiring actors, directors, writers, etc…hoping to break into the industry), they ate last and were runners for anything the 1st class requested. I just couldn’t believe it. I knew after that experience that if I was going to stay in this industry, post film was the only part that I wanted to be in. However, I was destined for a different industry and shortly after graduating with my BSEE I departed.

Automated Test Engineer

A Rite of Passage

It was a rough start. I was hired in a medical device companies automated test development group and during that time they had their hands in all kinds of development activities. As the new hire I was assigned to take over product labeling. Rumor had it that several of my predecessors were almost fired for related recalls, which had me a bit nervous. The system had a UI, which interfaced with a database to compile the static and dynamic layers in order to produce a label that was then printed on demand. I was responsible for working with a team to make their label consumable by the system. This required that I compile the images into a label template and add the dynamic fields for the database to populate. The final product was a label with the static information and placeholders for the dynamic information that would be loaded by the software. I also worked to update the database for the dynamic information and occasionally the software required an update to support new fields that previously did not exist. Once all the updates were complete, I would work with the Quality group to validate, release, and deploy. This was my very first assignment in this role and it would last for what seemed like an eternity, as no one wanted it and they viewed my assignment to it as a success because I continued without a recall scare. One day I saw the light at the end of the tunnel, as the company decided to dedicate a labeling team to take it over. I was excited to try something new and relieved to be done with my labeling duties.

Life After Labels

A Lesson in Interoperability Testing

My first assignment was to implement a trim check that gets reported as part of the DHR (Device History Record). The trim was provided by the preceding final electrical test stage and seemed pretty straightforward. I had to brush up on my Visual Basic and off I went. This test stage communicated to the DUT (Device Under Test) via a programmer (traditionally used by field clinicians). I successfully implemented the trim check and added it to the test sequence configuration file for reporting. After obtaining some great feedback during peer reviews and successful validation, the update got released and deployed to manufacturing. It took about half a shift the following day to start hearing feedback. The data reporting to the manufacturing tracking system was reporting incorrectly, and thus resulting in false failures for DUTs where the trim was applicable. I was devastated. It was my first assignment and my confidence was crushed. My manager, the senior engineer, and quality engineer quickly contacted me to initiate an investigation. The investigation resulted in a very simple mistake that could have been identified had we just done interoperability testing between the test application and the manufacturing tracking system. I had inserted the trim check within the test sequence, thus shifting the test sequence numbering. I was green and didn’t know at the time that you never shift/reassign test sequence numbers. I worked vigorously to get the fix out, as manufacturing was halted and product was isolated until we could prove there were no false passes that could occur and that the new trims were correct. As I recall, it was about an eighteen hour day of work from isolation and investigation to the release of the fix. I was exhausted and relieved to have no issues in the new revision, however it would take much longer than 18 hours to regain my confidence.

Software Quality Engineer

Coming soon.

Consultant Work

Coming soon.