Spring 2002
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Julia
Gee deftly juggles working and volunteering
By Bonnie Azab Powell
 Julia
Gee, ME '82, isn't just a workaholic, she's a volunteer-aholic.
Looking at the professional activities page of her résumé,
you'd think the soft-spoken Gee was an entire army. A few highlights:
president of the Berkeley Engineering Alumni Society (2000); coordinator
of the National Society of Professional Engineers' Golden Gate MATHCOUNTS
program for 15 of the 19 years it's been around; president of the
Golden Gate chapter of the California Society of Pro- fessional
Engineers for almost 10 years; chair of the San Francisco section
of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (1987, plus numerous
other positions). And the list goes on.
And that's in addition to her travel-intensive, full-time job with
Bechtel. Gee started working for the engineering construction corporation
on a six-month, co-operative internship her junior year of college.
She returned full time after graduation.
"What drives me is the opportunity to learn new things and
Bechtel has given me that," she says. Since 1982 she has rotated
through Bechtel's construction, project control, 3-D simulation,
and (currently) subcontract divisions, working on mammoth undertakings
ranging from waste management facilities to a space vehicle processing
and fueling annex in Kazakhstan.
Gee says that although few of her Bechtel projects have drawn specifically
on her ME course work, the method of learning itself has proven
useful. "Every company has its own way of solving problems,
and yet they use the same basic engineering methodology," she
explains. "It isn't about memorizing equations, but about knowing
which equations to pick under what circumstances."
As part of her plan to ease back on volunteer activities -- and
in exchange, take a few more hiking and kayaking vacations -- Gee
is currently focusing on MATHCOUNTS. On a recent Saturday she rose
at 5 a.m. to coordinate a competition for 110 sixth-, seventh-,
and eighth-graders and 30 volunteers. "I really believe it's
helping to interest more kids in math. I know it's helped energize
the math teachers, the 'champions' of the program," she says.
"I've gotten a lot from these organizations, and I like to
give back." |
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FOREFRONT reports on activities in the College of Engineering
at the University of California, Berkeley. It features developments
of interest to the engineering and scientific communities and
to alumni and friends of the College.
Published three times a year by the Engineering Public Affairs
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