Susan Wong shows way for women in engineering

By David Ruderman, IMCOMMarch 27, 2013

Susan Wong
(Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL

DEL DIN, Italy- Some of Susan Wong's colleagues kid her by calling her "the godmother of Del Din." But the epithet fits. Chief of USAG Vicenza's Transformation Construction Management Office, Wong has been a leader on the engineering team responsible for the largest American Military Construction project ever undertaken in Europe since its inception, and simultaneously built a career as solid as the buildings she has left along the path that a career in engineering has made possible.

Who was her main inspiration, mentor or role model?

"There have been a lot of them, but in the end it boils down to my dad, which I didn't realize for a long time," Wong said. "He's a chef, but he wound up pushing me into science and engineering. Never once did he say you can't do something."

She grew up in the Washington, D.C., area, the youngest of five siblings, four sisters and a brother. Her father had emigrated from Hong Kong and was the force behind all of them making the most of the American Dream.

"He had the opportunity to come to America from Hong Kong and I guess at some point he thought to himself, What am I going to do with four daughters?" said Wong. "He didn't know what he didn't know, but he talked to lots of other people, successful people, and he got good advice."

And good children, too. Of the five, the eldest daughter is a computer scientist, the second eldest, an electrical engineer. The middle daughter is a certified public accountant and the brother, is an electrical engineer with multiple degrees.

While still in high school, Wong was undecided between pursuing a career in business or engineering, but applied for and was accepted into the Science and Engineer Apprentice Program, which resulted in a summer stipend program organized by George Washington University. For the final three years of high school she worked every summer at the Army Research Lab in Adelphi, Md.

As her graduation from high school approached, Wong was asking around for jobs among colleagues and acquaintances at ARL when a phone call out of the blue became the gateway to her future. "The nice lady called me and asked, are you still interested?" Wong said yes, and it was off to the races, even though she wasn't sure she was making the right choice or capable of pulling it off.

"I thought, if I can, well, OK. If they say I can, let me stick with it till they kick me out. That moment of indecision led me to get my foot in the door," she said.

"I started as a GS-2," said Wong. It was her entry into government service.

She completed a BS in civil engineering with a concentration in construction management at University of Maryland in College Park, Md. It was a change from the more formulaic regime of high school, where expectations were fairly straightforward and she knew what she had to do to succeed, said Wong.

"College was difficult for me, particularly now you have these big auditoriums with the professors and the teaching assistants. At the same time, you're changing, managing your own schedules and the consequences of that. Every class is different, every professor is different," she said.

"Sometimes it's very difficult for young women and young people to know what they want to do for the rest of their lives. The fear of the unknown is half of what stops people from doing what they can or want to do. Overcome the fear. The rewards are there," Wong said