About CTLR’s #HumansOfCleantech
Modeled after the New York Times' Humans of New York series, this is an idea by Peter Kelley and the RenewComm team for us to showcase our members!
Follow #humansofcleantech on LinkedIn for more in this series. #climatetech #energytransition #cleantechleadersroundtable
“I just really, really enjoyed math. My favorite subjects in school were math and science – and I’ve always focused on getting good grades and being at the top of my class. I stand on the shoulders of some very strong women in my family who were purposeful in achieving their goals.”
“I'm not an athlete. All my brothers and sisters were athletes, but I was the manager of the track team.
“In middle school, I also did a lot of the set designs for the plays we had.
“I was really focused on going to medical school. But when I was in high school, I said, ‘You know what, I'm not going to just do the typical biology or chemistry. I'm gonna do engineering. I'll get my medical degree after that.
“I started at the University of Michigan for my first year and then transferred to Maryland. But they didn't have the same curriculum. So I said, ‘Well, I'll just do chemical engineering.’ It turned out to be the hardest major there.
“The first job I had was in North Carolina as a process improvement engineer. I had to convince the operators that there was a better way to run systems. They didn’t take kindly to young engineers from ‘the North’ telling them what to do. They're like, ‘We have been running this for decades. What can she teach us?’
“But I began really engaging with them. They learned to trust me so we could get things done.
“I learned that it doesn't matter what education I have. I still have something to work on coming into something new. I try to focus on how we actually achieve the goal we all want.
“I love to travel. Every year, I try to go to at least one place I've never been. I like to experience different things, different cultures, and different foods.
“There’s a lot of travel that changed my perspective. I can really see how people think about Americans and is so different than how we think about ourselves. To me, that is the benefit of traveling outside of the country or even the state that we're in – just having that perspective and a balanced view of who we are as Americans.
“I'm actually the family photographer. Every year for the past 15 years I've put together a family calendar. I get pictures from all my visits and set a calendar for my side of the family and my husband’s. And this year I also did a dog calendar because we all have dogs. So I've done three calendars this year.
“It’s one of the things that I do every year that I love to do as a hobby – but it's no longer a hobby because I cannot get out of it. Everybody expects it.
“I'm very focused on sustainability and making sure that we have a world that we can leave in good shape for our children and generations to come.
“I think we've got the ability to do it, but it’s not easy. I'm 100% focused on how we get there.”
Cheryl Ginyard-Jones leads the Americas business for Ramboll, an architecture, engineering and consulting firm with over 18,000 experts who help governments and companies become more sustainable.