惠而浦公司的女工程师和设计师大大Patent Numbers

美国专利商标局的一份报告显示，密歇根州的贝里恩县（Berrien County），惠而浦公司的全球总部所在，被确定为在“纺织品”技术领域专利的女性发明者的顶级县。该类别包括用于洗衣电器的专利，并由惠而浦公司的女工程师驱动。

Sr. Mgr. and Cooking Performance Subsystem Leader Michele Paustian has been with Whirlpool Corp. for nearly 20 years, joining after college graduation. She started with a lab internship right out of high school. She has patents in laundry and now works in the cooking category. When asked which patent she is most proud of, she recalls one for clothes dryers.

“It’s an improved temperature control capability for dryers that I worked on as an intern, so it was pretty exciting,” she says. “I had my very first patent filed during my first year at Whirlpool, and to have that one actually go to production on millions of units feels really good.”

When she was younger, Paustian says that there wasn’t as much exposure to Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) careers. “My own exposure was that my dad was an engineer, so I knew what he did, and I knew it was something that I could do with my interest in math and science.”

“我想说的是，年轻人可以从事机器人技术或任何涉及通过事物组成或思考的活动等活动；它们的制作方式，它们如何由较小的元素组成（这是工程学的基础，使我小时候对此真正感兴趣 - 与我父亲一起做这样的事情。我会告诉任何有兴趣工程的人，要进入那里并弄脏您的手，看看您是否喜欢。”

曾在惠而浦公司工作了21年的宾莱·陈（Binglai Chen）在柜台制造商设计下拥有专利。她目前是电子工程系统信息计划总监（EESI）。她是宾夕法尼亚州立大学的毕业生，她认为父母培养了对工程学的热爱。

“It was part of my upbringing,” she says. “I grew up in the backyard of Penn State because my father was going through the university for his doctorate. When you’re in that environment, you see engineering at work and you see that they’re talking about how to make the world better. One of the things that not only my parents instilled in me, but teachers did as well, is that an engineering degree teaches you how to learn.”

Chen说，如果您对任何工程师进行调查，询问他们为什么要进入该领域，他们会说他们想成为“解决问题者”。

产品开发总监Colleen Doyle领导惠而浦公司的烹饪创新和烹饪高级开发。她以前曾在洗衣店工作，在那里她拥有多项专利，围绕着散装洗涤剂分配和其他解决方案，以帮助进行洗衣过程。Doyle认为女性可以为产品开发和设计带来不同的观点。

“我通过经验了解到，在团队中拥有多样性的人有多大价值，他们的方法有些不同，并且看到了同一问题的不同方式。”她同意工程师本质上是问题解决者的核心。

“我一直喜欢数学和解决问题。小时候，我曾经在公路旅行上带来逻辑问题，我会在车里做。”她在工程职业和医疗领域的职业之间被撕毁了一段时间。

多伊尔说：“当我第一次完成一个我真的很兴奋的项目时，这个问题消失了，觉得真的会改变消费者的生活。”“就在那时，我知道我在正确的地方。”

Director of Product Design Jessica McConnell is well known around Whirlpool Corp. for her patents in Color, Materials and Finish (CMF). She says that her first patent was for a unique interior color for a KitchenAid brand refrigerator. She has several patents in refrigeration, but is also known for her colors and finishes for the iconic KitchenAid stand mixer.

“我们使用Stand Mixer所做的任何事情都可以从材料的角度甚至不同的碗进行创新 - 我们正在采用超过100年历史的产品，并继续进行创新。即使这样的简单创新也可能非常有影响力。”

也许她最难忘的专利是她设计的詹妮尔黑曜石冰箱内饰。“这可能是我永远感到骄傲的事情之一。这也是该品牌商标的过程，这是专利之外的下一步。当它是一项专利技术时，这确实很特别，而且也成为一种独特的品牌资产。”

她对年轻工程师的建议是：“如果您有想法或相信自己可以做某事，那就去做。修补或分享您与他人有的想法并试图以某种形式或方式建立它没有错，无论是素描还是原型，还是将其进行原型打印。不要害怕分享您的想法并真正说出来，因为那是有多少好主意成为现实。”

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