To celebrate National Engineers Week, we are highlighting a few SDG&E engineers who play an instrumental role in enabling the delivery of clean, safe and reliable energy to our community.
Jennifer Lewis is a Team Lead for Operations and Engineering and has been with SDG&E for 14 years. She leads a team of engineers focused on the reliability and safe operation of our substation equipment. Learn more about Jennifer in the Q&A below.
What made you decide to pursue engineering?
My mother was a nurse and my father was a mechanic. Both of them encouraged the math and science fields and higher education. Honestly, growing up, I didn’t know what an engineer was, but after getting involved in a high school program called MESA (Math Engineering Science Achievement), a whole new world of engineering fields opened up. I enjoy solving problems, seeing those solutions come to fruition, and learning that engineers did that.
What does a typical workday look like for you?
A typical day for me as a Team Lead is focused on ensuring my engineers are supported in their projects and providing them with as many opportunities as possible to grow their technical skills. I look for maintenance and construction activities in substations to gain field experience and insights from our field personnel. I encourage all the engineers to join and or do the same.
When I’m in the office, I’m reviewing budgets, vendor contracts and invoices, and working on my individual projects. There are many topics to learn and challenges to tackle and grow from.
Is there a project or initiative that you’ve worked on that you’re particularly proud of?
The program that I’m most proud of is the condition-based maintenance program for substation equipment. Building this program supports the need to be more efficient with O&M resources, utilize real-time monitoring, and gain valuable information on equipment to make better economic and operational decisions.
What do you like to do outside of work?
Outside of work I enjoy hiking and traveling. We went to Disney World for the first time last Thanksgiving. It was magically … tiring! We had a great time and I racked up at least 15,000 steps each day!
Thank you, Jennifer, for all that you do for our company and our community!
