This past summer I had the honor of attending the YEA Leadership Weekend (YLW) in Montreal. The weekend is designed to help young engineers learn more about Society, develop soft skills, and network with other young professionals.
The daily educational sessions revolved around understanding your own personality type as well other types, leadership development for young professionals, and communication techniques. I found these sessions to be absolutely fascinating and enlightening. It can be really easy to forget the power of soft skills in such a technically driven engineering environment. Soft skills are amazingly important when trying to build and communicate among project teams as well as when trying to portray solutions and their benefits to clients who may not have the same technical background as Society members.
The weekend also provided amazing networking opportunities. The YLW had attendees from Brazil, Canada, Singapore, and the United States (I quickly learned that Canadians are not overly fond that we have claimed the title “Americans” as they were quick to point out that they were from the Americas as well). Every one of the attendees was truly dedicated to ASHRAE and the engineering community and it was inspiring to be surrounded by such talented and dedicated young engineers.
I would strongly encourage any young engineers, especially those who have a desire to become involved at the regional or Society level to attend future YLWs. I welcome anyone interested in learning more about the weekend to email me at mmosbacher@8760engineering.com. Learn more here.
– Mike Mosbacher, YEA Chair
