We were pleased to welcome Carey Smith, the President and CEO of Parsons Corporation onto the program for a conversation about leadership, diversity in the engineering industry and what Parsons is doing to help Build Back Smarter with the newly passed Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.  We were equally pleased to welcome our own CEO, Linda Bauer Darr to host the interview - chief executive to chief executive.  

Transcript:

Host:

Welcome to Engineering Influence, a podcast from the American Council of Engineering Companies. ACEC's strength lies in its member firms and the diverse set of markets those firms operate in to serve the interests of their public and private sector clients. And it's always great to have the opportunity to bring on one of those firms to spotlight their work and really look at what they are doing to improve their communities and the world around them. And I'm pleased to bring one of those shows to you today.

Host:

I am pleased to welcome to the program Carey Smith, the President and CEO of Parsons. Parsons is a leading provider of technology-driven solutions, focused on the defense, intelligence and critical infrastructure markets. And they've been in operation for more than 75 years. Parsons provides technical design and engineering services and software products to address their customers' challenges, and they have capabilities in cyber security, intelligence, missile, space, connected communities, physical infrastructure, and mobility solutions.

Host:

Now Carey Smith joined Parsons in 2016 as President of the Federal Solutions business. She was promoted to Chief Operating Officer in 2018 and President and Chief Operating Officer in 2019. She was unanimously elected Chief Executive Officer of Parsons Corporation by the board of directors and appointed to the position in July, 2021. Now, prior to joining Parsons, Carey held a series of progressive leadership roles within the defense and aerospace industry. She holds an MS in electrical engineering from Syracuse University and a BS in electrical engineering from Ohio Northern University. In 2018, she received an honorary doctorate from Ohio Northern University for her outstanding contributions to the university and the field of engineering.

Host:

Now, interviewing a chief executive, sometimes it's best for me to take a step back and to allow a chief executive to interview a chief executive. So I'm also pleased to welcome our President and CEO Linda Bauer Darr to move us forward and take the mic. Linda, the floor is yours.

Linda Bauer Darr:

Great. Thank you, Jeff. I'm happy to be back on the podcast. I need to do this more often. You're doing a great job. So kudos to you, Jeff. Carey, we are so excited to have you in our offices. I think this is the second time in the short amount of time that you've been on board as the CEO of Parsons. It's been since July, I think now, right?

Carey Smith:

That's correct.

Linda Bauer Darr:

That you came on board and, it's a pleasure to be working with you. We're excited to have you here. So you're a CEO now - how did that come about? You know, you're an engineer, you're a CEO. What brought you into engineering? And, and tell me a little bit about how you made it all the way up to the top ranks of such a, such a significant company as Parsons.

Carey Smith:

Sure. Well, thanks first, Jeff and Linda, I'm pleased to be here and I appreciate you hosting me today. I'll start off. My dad kind of got me into engineering when I was really young. We had, I have one brother, one sister, he wanted all three of us to be engineers and one of us decided to be an engineer. So I went into engineering and one of my first experiences was working as an intern at LTB Steel in downtown Cleveland, really got hooked on the industry. Then when I graduated college start off, uh, with IBM, which subsequently became Lockheed Martin through acquisitions and had some great experiences. One of 'em I would highlight was being one of the