Katie Wertz

Job Title: Electrical Engineer

Company: Smith Seckman Reid, Inc.

Location: Charlotte, N.C.

Age: 25

Years on the Job: 4

Interests: Cooking, baking, and spending time with her husband, friends, and family

Katie Wertz and her family were stationed for four years in Hawaii. During this time, her dad served as the Commander of the 154th Civil Engineering Squadron at Joint Base Pearl Harbor Hickam, and he oversaw the design and construction of the $158 million F-22 facility program.

“I had the opportunity to meet my dad’s project team, including the architect and engineering consultants who designed the facilities,” she said. “I didn’t know it back then, but those experiences sparked my interest in the AEC industry.”

After her second year in the architectural engineering program at Penn State, she interviewed with a local engineering consultant firm for an internship position. She originally wanted to pursue the structural option, but because the firm had only electrical and mechanical engineers in that office, she decided to give electrical engineering a try and never looked back.

Born and raised in Pennsylvania, she earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in architectural engineering, which enabled her to accelerate her career in the AEC industry.

“The five-year program at Penn State dives deep into practical engineering skills, while providing training in creative thinking and problem solving,” she said.

While in college, she completed three summer internships, which helped her to accelerate her full-time career in her first role. Currently, as an electrical engineer and aspiring project manager with a PE license, she is designing the electrical distribution for large-scale health care projects. Her typical day includes attending design team meetings, marking up drawings, and working alongside EITs to execute project deliverables, engaging in multi-disciplinary coordination discussions, and reviewing submittals/RFIs for projects in construction.

“My favorite part of my job is the people I work with and the projects I work on,” she said. “I believe the people you work with truly make a huge impact on overall happiness in your role and your success.”

Currently, she is the lead electrical engineer on several large health care projects, including an emergency department renovation and expansion in eastern Tennessee and a hospital renovation in Atlanta. For this project, the electrical distribution system had to be modified to accommodate the addition of isolation panelboards in each operating room.

“I feel an immense sense of purpose and responsibility in health care design, recognizing that the completed project will play an important role in supporting the health and well-being of the surrounding community,” she said.

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