Q&A with South Bend City Engineer Kara Boyles
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Originally from Peoria in central Illinois, South Bend City Engineer Kara Boyles came to town for a doctorate degree from the University of Notre Dame in 1997. After attending Bradley University in her hometown, a professor Boyles was excited to work with decided to leave the school after only six months.
Noticing her immense interest in his type of work, he encouraged her to go work with his own professor at Notre Dame. “It’s amazing how one person’s one statement could influence your life,” she said.
Working across both the public and private sectors, Boyles has built an extensive career and uses the lessons learned from challenges she has faced to inspire others to achieve their dreams.
This Q&A has been edited for clarity and brevity.
So what was it about environmental engineering that you fell in love with?
Technically I’m a civil engineer. All my degrees are in civil engineering, but I liked the water side of civil engineering. Growing up in central Illinois, it’s the home of Caterpillar. So there’s always sort of this influence that engineering would be a great path, especially for someone who felt a connection to math and science. I had an internship with the Illinois Department of Transportation during my undergraduate and it was kind of a defining moment for me. Civil engineering is really about serving people, serving the community and really providing the built environment for people to have the quality of life that we would all want.
And when you were in school in the 90s, were there a lot of women in your class? What was that situation like?
There were very few women in my program. There are more women in undergraduate programs now, but it’s still low. There tends to be more of a gender balance in civil engineering. It’s in some of the other disciplines that those numbers can drop off. I think the going statistic right now is around 20% of engineering graduates are women. So it’s still a very low number. It hasn’t changed much as a composite statistic over time.
While you were in school, did you feel any kind of way about being a woman and studying engineering?
It’s a male-dominated field, and I would say there was a lack of access to role models. I don’t recall having any. I didn’t have any female engineering professors when I was in college. So that definitely stands out. One complex issue that arose as an undergraduate and I think still applies to women in their careers as engineers, is how we identify as engineers, how we feel like we don’t belong as engineers and so making sure that we are doing the work to understand our value and the value that we bring to the industry, [and] the differences that we can bring because perspective is important.
It’s important to also create an environment where inclusiveness prevails. If we can work towards that, then we can overcome some of those things that were more prevalent in the past. It’s about creating work cultures and organizations that prioritize a diverse workforce and support for everyone.
What has your career advancement looked like? Have you always been with the city of South Bend?
After graduate school, my first job was as a consultant at a local consulting firm as a project engineer. I worked for clients on mostly environmental-related projects. I came in for graduate school and then had a baby, so I took a break and started my first consulting job. About a year and a half into that, I was really feeling that I had unfinished business and really needed to complete my PhD, so I went back to school and got my doctorate degree after three years.
Afterwards, I worked for the city of Elkhart as an assistant city engineer and spent a couple years there. That’s where I really found passion for public service and serving the community. It’s definitely different from being a consultant because we get to be involved in all different aspects of projects. We get to look at a project from concept to completion.
Then I had another baby and needed to lighten my load a little bit, so I went to work for a consultant again as a project manager. It was more regional and I enjoyed it. I was doing work with clients across northern and central Indiana.
The opportunity came in 2014 to come work for the city of South Bend and I was definitely excited to do that. When I joined, I was actually the first female engineer to join the Department of Public Works. We were a 150 year-old city, and we had yet to have a woman engineer. I feel really fortunate I found this role because we are doing so many creative and innovative things across the city, investing in and empowering our community. I have been here for almost 10 years now.
As a follow up to that, how many women are in the engineering department now? And has the change happened organically?
There are eight women in total.
I have talented men and women who are working for me, but there has been a focus on my part to transform those numbers. I remember hiring our first female assistant city engineer, and I have focused on trying to create a unique opportunity for women to work for the city and under the leadership of another woman, because I’ve never had that.
It’s definitely something that really appealed to them to have that opportunity. There are women today, leading engineering groups in our region. So we are really lucky to work with a lot of fantastic women on the consulting side. When I began my career, there were fewer women engineers than there are today. I’m proud that we’re working to change that norm.
Do you lead the engineering department?
Yes, I do. My role is typically called city engineer, which means I manage the engineering team. But we know managing and leading are different things. I definitely manage which means I’m allocating resources and helping to schedule projects. My main role as a leader is to create leaders and help my team members develop and grow as leaders.
Especially as an engineer, we like to do things, we like to solve problems, we like challenges. As a manager, you have to get to a place where you no longer can be that ‘doer’ and you really have to step into that role of leading others and letting go of the work, so to speak. Because your work is now helping others meet their goals.
Is there any challenge that you’ve had to go through that comes to mind, and how did you navigate it?
There’s always challenges.
One of the greatest challenges I’ve had would be work-family conflict. I joined the city in 2014, but I took about nine months off in 2016. So I left the city because I was mad at the time. I was in a different role and I was actually managing a lot. I was the deputy director of public works and I was managing about 300 employees. I had seven direct reports and it was the first time there had been a woman in leadership. I was spending a lot of time interacting with my reports and really giving them a place of vulnerability, serving as someone with empathy, helping them solve problems they were having, and I was pretty burned out from that.
At the same time I was navigating my children and so I decided to take a break and set some time aside for my family. For about nine months, I didn’t work. I did a lot of yoga and actually became a yoga instructor. From that experience, I learned a lot about how to set boundaries and how to let go of things, which really serve me today.
Those were skills that I needed that I didn’t have. This happens all too often where good employees, people who are good at their jobs get promoted into management with no training. The challenge was that I lacked the training and the tools that I needed to serve as a good manager. That taught me I needed to invest in that type of development for myself, to be successful.
The unfortunate part really would be that at the time, it was not a performance issue. No one was saying you need to do better. But at the same time, I felt like I couldn’t give 100% to my work. That in and of itself is what I think probably many women face, that focus that we have to be perfect at everything, to be rock stars, when really when you’re a leader, it’s about being competent and it’s about having the right character. I had those things, but it just wasn’t registering. No one was helping me articulate and understand that.
The beauty of that challenge is that it’s something that I can help others work through now. If I have someone say to me, ‘I’m having a hard time, I’m struggling,’ we’re going to work it out. We’re going to figure it out. Understanding that burnout exists, that we need work-life balance and professional development is important. They’re real factors that determine how we stay in our careers or how we stay with our organizations.
What’s one piece of advice you’d give to a young female engineer?
So my biggest piece of advice is to be authentic, to bring your whole self to your work. I wish I had known that in the early parts of my career. I’d also say don’t wait for opportunity, speak up and engage. You can be specific in what you want. I love when one of my engineers notices areas where I need help, and they just step in and take it off my plate, because they’re really showing me their leadership qualities through those actions. Focus on progress over perfection. When we accept that, we give ourselves the space to just be.