From Canadian Petro-Chemical Consultant to Washington, DC: a Q&A with Stephen Selk (7T6)

Stephen Selk, a Toronto-born chemical engineer (ChemE 7T6), spent 25 years in the petro-chemical industry in Canada before making his way south to Washington, D.C. Since 2013, he has been a supervising program analyst at the Department of Homeland Security.

U of T Engineering’s Jamie Hunter spoke with Selk about his anti-terrorism role at the DHS, being taught by Marshall McLuhan at U of T, and how an explosion on Toronto’s waterfront in the 1980s really set his career in motion.

Here’s what Stephen Selk says about the value of good writing skills for engineers:

What advice do you have for future engineers who may want to follow in your footsteps?

I’m a forensic engineer and a policy maker. If you can’t write, you can’t do either of those jobs. Engineers typically get a very narrow education, and I’ve seen many careers hindered by people who never managed to develop the ability to write well.

Read full interview.