 John Hawkins
Manager, Integrated Circuit
Development
Northern Telecom
Research Triangle Park, NC
 |
 B.S. -
Electrical Engineering, North Carolina State University
M.S. -
Telecommunications, Southern Methodist University
MBA - Duke
University |
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Previously a circuit
designer and design team manager; currently holds a technical
marketing position. |
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"A person needs
balance and variety in life." |
 
"Some individuals regard discipline as working 80 hours a week. I think
it's a more important discipline to make 40 hours a week as effective as
possible and to balance that with the rest of life. I think that is my
definition of discipline more than just hard work for work's sake."
John Hawkins of Northern Telecom believes that a person needs balance and
variety in life. Engineering is filled with the pressures of schedules and
market competition that make a long-term career a challenge. Hawkins makes
a point of giving time to his private as well as his professional life. As
the father of two, Hawkins finds that the demands of family life cannot be
denied. But he also makes time for church obligations and his own personal
development.
During the ten years he has been in industry, Hawkins' career has followed
an atypical path. "I've had two bosses throughout that time period, and
I've worked in one single capacity and that's in integrated circuit
design. I've been a specialist in that area for my entire career, even
before my graduation from undergraduate school when I was a cooperative
education student."
Hawkins has brought variety to his professional life by pursuing graduate
studies. He earned his master's degree in telecommunications on the job
through satellite link-up to the National Technological University. He
explains, "There is a sense that if you're in an environment that changes
a lot, you get different views of techniques, of methodologies that people
employ in your workplace or in similar workplaces to yours. Having missed
out on that, I've tried to counter with a good deal of academic exposure
and I've tried to be constantly aware and appraised of what industry is
doing by keeping in contact with my customers and with my suppliers who do
things that are quite similar to what I do."
Hawkins continues to vary his professional life. He is currently working
on an MBA and has moved into management, but sees his present work as a
natural extension of his previous work. "I view management as simply a
different engineering problem. I view a manager's tool kit as being
different. My tool kits now are other engineers, influencing people,
convincing teams that we're on the right track or that we're on the wrong
track and that adjustments need to be made. All of these, I think, are
analogous to an engineer's workstation, an engineer's technical toolbox
from which he or she draws on a daily basis. So I really don't view
management as a significant departure from engineering.
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