Meet Deb Mrazek

How did you learn about PDXWIT and what keeps you coming back?

I suspect I first learned about PDXWIT shortly after I took early retirement from HP at the end of 2012 and was looking around for what to do next. At that time, I was attending some PDXWIT meetings, some ChickTech meetings, and various Design/Design strategy events. Of all the organizations/events that I sampled, the two I found myself coming back to were PDXWIT and Portland Design Thinkers. Each group felt like a place I could both be myself and make contributions. Over the years I've been a PDXWIT presenter, event helper, Slack participant, mentor, and on-the-spot mentor.

Can you give us some background on your career in tech? Did you intend this career path?

I graduated from HS in '78 and knew I wanted to be involved with people and engineering. Being the first person in my family to go away to college, and being a girl during a time when engineering was typically thought of as a profession for 'guys' - I got accepted into the Engineering Program at the University of Illinois, at the time, one of the top engineering schools in the country. After a few small pivots within the engineering program, I graduated with honors with a Systems Engineering degree, with an emphasis on Human Factors. Two years later, I completed my Systems Engineering MSE (focus Human Factors) from Arizona State. Through being at the right place at the right time, my first engineering job was as part of a control room design team at a nuclear power plant in California. Not something I ever imagined myself doing, but something that was a great learning and growth opportunity. After 5 years, I jumped from the nuclear industry to tech, landing at Hewlett Packard. Throughout my 27 years at HP, I held a number of design, engineering and leadership positions, each with some challenges and plenty of great people. For the past 9 years, I've been consulting and volunteering.

Was this exactly what I intended? No. Did I, and am I still, working at the intersection of technology and people? Yes.

What’s the scariest, most overwhelming thing about your new project (this has to be deeply frightening. The thing that keeps you awake at night.)

At the time, trying to carve out a role and define who I was, as one of only 3 women among the 2000 technical professionals at the power plant at the age of 22 should have given me nightmares. But, since I didn't know what I didn't know and trusted that I could find a way to do what I needed to do, be it the traditional way, or my own way -- I found a way to not only do so but do so successfully. This early professional accomplishment gave me the confidence to lean in and tackle new and somewhat scary professional challenges.