Jean Oh Age: 27
The Boeing Company Portland, OR
UNDER THIRTY A
lover of science, Jean Oh had always imag- ined herself going into the medical field. But then, during her coursework at the University of Washington in Seattle, she encountered a roadblock. “I learned I wasn’t good at chemistry,” she joked. That sent her investigating other science-related options.
A friend had mentioned that the industrial engineer- ing program “had a good camaraderie” of students, which appealed to Jean, who also had an aptitude for fixing things. As it turned out, industrial engineering was a good fit. “I found that I under- stood a lot of it and it made sense to me from both a technical and business perspective,” Jean said. She wished somebody had told her years ago how important people skills are to being suc- cessful in engineering. “I feel like that’s a very overlooked part of most engineering schools in general, the team player aspect,” Jean said. Since 2010, Jean has been a manufacturing engineer at Boeing, in the production engineering, fabrication division and has newly transitioned to a Quality Engineering role. Her work revolves around providing producibility analysis to accommodate part design changes, executing projects to reduce pro- duction costs, and facilitating/planning for process changes. “Working with cross-functional teams is one of my favorite parts of the job, people of differ- ent disciplines,” she said. “There is a very high level of interaction with others. It forces you to look at the bigger picture of things.”
People, she said, have a lot of misconceptions about what engineers do. “It’s definitely not all about math aptitude, at least from what I've seen,” she said.
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“I like being able to work with the cross-functional teams, people of different disciplines. There is a very high level of interaction with others. It forces you to look at the bigger picture of things.”
Jean said that one of the things she loves best about her job is solving problems. For example, she noticed that inspection reports on a boring operation on a 2-inch pad of titanium for the 747-8 Landing Gear Beams were consistently off by a certain degree, forcing the drilled holes out of tolerance. She did her own research and analysis and came up with a fix. In addition to mak- ing her proud, the fix saved Boeing money and helped deliver a higher quality part on critical equipment. “The perception off the bat is that you have to have some sort of fabrication skills in order to get this job, and when I got hired, I had no background in machining,” Jean said. “It’s more about your willingness to learn and listen and being open minded to everyone’s advice.”
Ann Simmons, a manufac- turing engineer at Boeing in Portland, who nominated Jean
as a 30 Under 30 honoree, said Jean is a standout engineer. “The primary job of a Manufacturing Engineer at Boeing is configuration control, but Jean has taken this to a whole new level by utilizing her proactive project management style,” she wrote. “She has earned her Six Sigma Green and Black Belt with Boeing and enjoys being able to advise others on projects, while seeing how the data collected correlates with improved part quality.” In addition to her work at Boeing, Jean also works to help develop the next generation of STEM leaders. She serves as a mentor for FIRST Robotics Team 2517. “They did not have it in my school,” she said, “and I wish they did, because I would have started on the Engineering path earlier if I knew it was that much fun.” Jean is also active in several STEM efforts in local high schools and volunteers every year for the Engineering Week with Boeing Portland. ME
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