TAMARA HOLMGREN // SENIOR PROJECT ENGINEER < back
	What factors influenced your decision to join and stay?
	"I knew that I'd been quite good at Maths at school, and so when they told me what was involved it all sounded quite exciting. Initially, on the apprenticeship there'd be a theoretical side of it, and also there was a practical side. I knew that, working for a big company, I'd have lots of opportunities. Once I'd started the apprenticeship, I was able to move around in the company. I got experience in all the different departments, procurements, cost and planning, civil engineering, piping, so I had all-round experience. I think it is only working in a big company that you get that sort of opportunity."
	How would you say your role has changed since you've been working with the company?
	"When I first started working at Foster Wheeler, I started as a technician, so I had no experience, and no engineering background. So then I moved from being a technician where I worked for everybody - I was basically at the lower end of the scale - and then I've moved up as I progressed. I went to university, became an engineer, came back, got experience as an engineer, became chartered, ran up to leading teams, I became a lead engineer, and now I've moved into project engineering where I'm going from running teams of engineers to running teams of multi-disciplined engineers. So I've gone from being the one that does all the work, and not having much experience, to be being very experienced, a chartered engineer, and on the project I'm working on, managing a team of 100 people. So it's dramatically changed in the years since I've worked here."
	What has been the high point of your time with the company so far?
	"I think that there are several high points. The project before last that I was on, I was responsible for 5,000 tons' work of steelwork - if you can understand the concept of that, it's equivalent to 10 very large buildings. I was the lead engineer on it; I was responsible for it from the start, to the finish. The high point for me was walking around the site, looking at all that steelwork that I was responsible for, that was being erected, and that it was basically my work, or the work of the engineers who were working for me. Another high point was when I was chartered, I was nominated, and I got to the finals of a competition for the Best Young Engineer in the UK. Foster Wheeler flew me in from Thailand for the competition, so that was another highlight for me as well."
	What do you think Foster Wheeler offers you in your career that other companies could not or would not?
	"The thing I found about Foster Wheeler is they're prepared to spend time and effort and put their money where their mouth is, and develop people until they can realise their full. Foster Wheeler has taken me all the way through my training. They're now sponsoring me to go on and do an MBA so as to become more rounded as an engineer: I'll have a business understanding as well as an engineering background. I feel that not all companies are like that, and I feel very lucky to be work for a company for so many years who are prepared to spend so much time and effort and energy in my training and my development."
	Where do you imagine your career in five years' time?
	"In 5 years, I hope to have completed my MBA successfully, and after that, progressing in the role I'm in at the moment into an Engineering Manager who's responsible for all of the disciplines, and in 5 years I think I'll be Project Manager."
	Why did you decide to join Foster Wheeler?
	"I joined Foster Wheeler initially completely by accident. I'd left school, I had no real understanding of what I wanted to do, I'd had little or no careers advice, so I didn't really know what the opportunities would be for me. My mother saw an advertisement in the local paper for a technician apprenticeship. They were going to offer to pay my salary, they were going to send me to college one day a week, and then after that were would be the opportunity to go to university if I'd got through and was successful. It seemed like too much of an opportunity to turn down, so really I started working initially by accident, but when I went for the interview it seemed like a good company to work for, so I then applied and got through."