Hartford Business Journal

www.HartfordBusiness.com August 28, 2017 • Hartford Business Journal 3 Pratt's Gerken aims to make STEM gender blind By Gregory Seay gseay@HartfordBusiness.com J onna Gerken, a Pratt & Whitney engi- neer recently elected to head the world's largest peer female-engineer organiza- tion, had another career in mind — that is until her analytical bent revealed itself. "I went through a summer program in high school, thinking I was going to be an archi- tect,'' Gerken said recently of that period in her native Long Island, N.Y. "I was miserable. I spent more time worrying about the struc- tural integrity and practicality of my design, rather than the design aesthetics.'' She had an uncle who was an architect, but no one else in her family was directly or indirectly involved in engineering, Gerken said. Her father was an electrician; her moth- er, an administrative assistant. Gerken, 42, enrolled at Rensselaer Poly- technic Institute (RPI) in upstate New York, graduating in 1996 with a degree in industrial and management engineering. There, she connected with other female engineering students, joining the Society of Women Engi- neers (SWE), which counts 11,000 women and men as members. Hartford is home to a SWE professional section. Two decades after joining the organiza- tion, Gerken was formally installed to a one- year term as SWE president at an Aug. 10 ceremony at the Connecticut Science Center in downtown Hartford. After graduating RPI, West Hartford gun- maker Colt's hired Gerken as its youngest and only female engineer at the time. Gerken said she was part of the company's revived "rota- tion program'' in which young engineers spent time in various departments at Colt's, learn- ing its products, processes and culture while also being groomed as leaders, she said. But that experience was short-lived. In 2000, with Colt's facing bankruptcy, she was "furloughed'' along with other workers. She immediately landed on Pratt's payroll, where she has worked ever since. Winding her way through various Pratt engineering assignments at its East Hart- ford manufacturing campus, Gerken now manages the group of Pratt chief engineers who have broad input as to the ways in which various jet-engine components are designed, produced and checked for quality. It's a job Gerken performs part time, an accommodation she says she requested more than a decade ago after the birth of her first son. She and her husband, an Eversource engineer, reside in West Hartford with their two sons. Working part time as an engineer has been a mixed bag, said Gerken, who after joining Pratt, enrolled in and received her MBA, with a focus in technology management, from her alma mater's Rensselaer at Hartford campus. "Yes and no, depending on the day,'' she said of whether a full-time work schedule would be preferable. "It's certainly allowed me to do things I otherwise wouldn't have been able to do.'' One of those is her volunteer leadership on behalf of nonprofit SWE (Gerken says members pronounce it "swee"). She said her SWE contacts helped her settle in when she arrived in Connecticut to work at Colt's. "It's an important part in my life. Even my husband knows that. With me comes SWE,'' she said. But balancing her career, family and vol- unteer life is ongoing, she said. A past SWE Continued Pratt & Whitney engineer Jonna Gerken recently was the keynote speaker at one of her first local chapter functions since becoming president of the 11,000-member Society of Women Engineers. Gerken addressed the SWE Hartford section at J. Timothy's Restaurant in Plainville, then distributed scholarship certificates to aspiring engineers. RECOGNIZING BUSINESSES & BUSINESS LEADERS WHO SUPPORT NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS. NOMINATIONS ACCEPTED UNTIL SEPTEMBER 13 GO TO: WWW.HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM/OUREVENTS EVENT SPONSOR: P H O T O S | S T E V E L A S C H E V E R

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