Leadership Academy

Jeff Nakashima has been a project engineer with Fortis since 2015. Since joining the team, he has worked on Facebook’s mission-critical campuses in Texas, Utah, and New Mexico, helping to deliver over 1.8 million square feet of data center facilities and over 68,000 square feet of administrative support buildings. Jeff’s experience also includes the $85 million overhaul of Gresham High School in Oregon and the new, state-of-the-art Learning Innovation Center for Oregon State University. These highly-collaborative projects have prepared Jeff to jump into any integrated project team and deliver consistent results across diverse market sectors. Jeff continues to be involved with OSU, his alma mater, and professional organizations through his work on the OSU CCE Industry Advisory Board and the Construction Leadership Council with the AGC Oregon-Columbia Chapter.

Every day hundreds of millions of people depend on Outlook on Windows to run everything from our government to our banks, hospitals, and schools.  If you're one of those people, JJ Cadiz is responsible for your experience.

After graduating from Oregon State University with degrees in Computer Science and Speech Communication, and Carnegie Mellon with a Master of Human-Computer Interaction degree, JJ joined Microsoft where he's spent two decades researching and building software to help people work together.  He was a founding member of the team that built Skype for Business and has spent the last 10 years building Outlook. He is currently the Group Program Manager for Outlook on Windows.

Outside of Microsoft JJ is a proud dad and husband, and he's enjoyed volunteering as a speech and debate coach, a Little League coach, and PTA President.

Lauren Wallace is an Oregon State Chemical Engineering graduate and currently an Application Development Engineer at Momentive Performance Materials in Fort Wayne, Indiana.  There, she works on custom compound formulations for customers across the United States and Canada, utilizing both technical engineering skills and interpersonal skills.  Lauren is also a part of the National Rubber Division and SWE. Previously, Lauren worked at Nestle USA as part of their Factory Management Development Program.  As a Factory Leadership Development Program Trainee, Lauren gained many experiences as both a continuous improvement leader, utilizing Lean practices, and as a people leader, managing over 70 direct reports on day shift and on night shift.  While in college, Lauren interned at E&J Gallo as a Start-Up Operations Engineer, running unit process tests and leading process changes at the largest distillery in the world, and at Nestle USA as an Operations Engineer, building a multifaceted process flow visualization tool to observe, trend, and predict process changes throughout the entire process stream. While at Oregon State, Lauren was a COE ambassador, a student researcher for engineering education and situated cognition, and group instructor for Pre-College Programs.  In her spare time, she partakes in socially-distant hang outs with her friends, barre, and reading. 

Kalan Guiley is the Senior Manager of Global Aviation System Safety at Boeing Commercial Airplanes. Prior to this role Kalan served as Manager of Equipment and Tool Engineering (E&TE), Computer-Aided Metrology Systems (CAMS) and the Everett Final Assembly Innovation Cell for the 787 Airplane Program, and before that, Systems Integration Manager.

Kalan was previously the Manager of Continued Airworthiness for Twin-Aisle Programs, responsible for in-service safety and fleet risk management for the 747, 767, 777 and 787 models.  In that role, he and his team provided vital expertise in safety analysis, risk and hazard assessment, root cause investigation and corrective action to ensure that potential fleet safety concerns were identified, analyzed and addressed promptly and comprehensively.

Kalan joined Boeing in 2004 and has a strong background in design, safety and certification of aircraft systems.  Kalan is an active member of ASME and has participated in society governance since 2001.  He currently serves as Senior Vice President, Public Affairs and Outreach, for a three-year term that started in June of 2018.  He previously served as ASME Vice President, Government Relations from 2013 to 2016.  He is also a Past Chair of the Western Washington Section of ASME and a Past President of the Puget Sound Engineering Council (PSEC).

Kalan lives in Seattle with his wife, Jennie, daughter Josie, and son Harry.  He holds an MBA, Technology Management from the University of Washington's Michael G. Foster School of Business and an Honors Baccalaureate of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Oregon State University.

Grant Yoshihara spent nearly 40 years working professionally in the energy and utility industry.  He retired in April 2018 as the Senior Vice President of Operations and Chief Engineer for NW Natural, a natural gas and water distribution utility serving 800,000 customers in Oregon, Washington and Idaho. He worked for NW Natural for the past 27 years, starting in Gas Supply, and had subsequent management assignments in Industrial Market Services, Commercial Business Services, Utility Operations, Marketing and Customer Acquisition, and Customer Service.  

Grant completed his career at NW Natural as the lead officer responsible for all aspects of engineering, construction, system and storage plant operations and maintenance, customer service, field services, resource scheduling and dispatch, training and quality assurance, and other utility operations functions. Additional key company assignments during his time at NW Natural also included union labor relations and contract negotiations, safety management and oversight, strategic planning, change management, workforce development, seismic resiliency, and diversity council leadership.  During his time in the natural gas business, he represented the Company and served as board and/or committee chair for several industry trade and research organizations including the American Gas Association, Western Energy Institute, and the Gas Technology Institute. 

Grant has been actively involved in the community.  He is a past board member and chair of Volunteers of America Oregon, Community Vision, American Leadership Forum of Oregon, Japan America Society of Oregon, the Multnomah Athletic Club, and is one of the founders of Partners in Diversity.  He also has continued his energy industry engagement and passion for customer, employee and operational safety as a member of the independent safety advisory committees for two major US utilities.

Grant received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in nuclear engineering from Oregon State University, and his MBA from the University of Oregon.

Lauren Lippman is a 4th year Chemical Engineering undergraduate student. She works as the Vice President of Events for the Engineering Student Council, a College of Engineering Ambassador, and a researcher in environmental engineering for the Navab Lab Group. This combined with her work with the Society of Women Engineers as the SWesters Coordinator and Chem-E-Car Project Manager has given her exposure to a multitude of digital tools. Learn more about Lauren here!

Colette is an Associate at Landau Associates, Inc. with twelve years of experience in environmental consulting with a focus on environmental source investigations and remediation design. She obtained her Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering from Oregon State University in 2008.  Her professional experience includes extensive work developing and implementing soil, groundwater, stormwater, and anthropogenic material investigation and remediation programs; identification and evaluation of source control methods; and evaluation and reporting of analytical data relative to regulatory criteria and cleanup levels under both state and federal requirements. Colette has served on her firm’s Board of Directors since 2016 in the position of Corporate Secretary, and has been a member of the Oregon State College of Chemical, Biological, and Environmental Engineering Industry Advisory Board since 2018. 

Rob Grover is an Entry, Descent and Landing (EDL) Systems Engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).  He is the veteran of five robotic flights to Mars and led the EDL team for the InSight Mars landing in November 2018, for which he received NASA’s Exceptional Public Achievement Medal.  He is currently working on NASA’s Artemis program to return astronauts to the Moon.  An Oregon State University graduate (BS Physics 1985), he has spent nearly 20 years working as an aerospace systems engineer at JPL.

Born in Mumbai, India, Shivali immigrated to the United States with her parents at the age of two. Upon graduating with her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Oregon State University in 2018, her interest in microelectronics led her into the semiconductor manufacturing industry, where she currently works as a process engineer.

Determined to eliminate the barriers she had to overcome as a woman in engineering and be the person she needed when she was younger, she has cultivated over seven years of STEM outreach and advocacy experience and currently serves as the Chair of the Outreach & Education Committee for the nonprofit organization Women in Science Portland.

Priscila Narcio is a graduate assistant within the College of Engineering Leadership Academy, focusing primarily on the Grand Challenges Scholars Program. Priscila’s main responsibilities include coordinating and expanding the Grand Challenges Scholars Program for engineering students to serve people and society through the 14 challenges required to deliver changes to coming generations. She is passionate about developing student’s leadership and professional skills through GCSP’s transformational program framework. Priscila considers herself a lifelong learner, and a passionate student advocate. She is excited to get students involved in GCSP to work towards solving the greatest challenges facing society.

Rachele graduated in 1996 from Oregon State University with a Bachelor’s in Construction Engineering Management and a minor in Business Administration. She chose OSU for many reasons, including a great engineering program, family ties to OSU, and the proximity to her home and immediate family.

After earning her degree, she spent 8 years at Baugh Construction Oregon (in Beaverton, OR), a nationally  recognized commercial contractor (now a part of Skanska USA). As a project manager, Rachele utilized sophisticated material and labor tracking systems, as well as complex budget  forecasting tools for large-scale commercial building projects. Her commercial project background includes work on high tech fabrication, animal care, healthcare, and educational facilities. She left Skanska in 2003 with a desire to work for, or to start a more community and family-focused company that would create opportunity for its employees to achieve an ownership stake in the company and prioritize giving back to the community.

In 2006, Rachele started Clark Construction on Bainbridge Island with a very small group of people, including her father, who ran a small residential business. The team quickly created the framework of employee ownership and empowerment that allowed the company to grow and flourish into what it is now. Clark Construction, Inc. now has approximately 75 employees, of which 27 have an ownership stake in the company. Despite project delays due to Covid-19, they plan to complete nearly $50MM in construction over the next 12 months. They also plan to continue their legacy of stewardship through employee education, volunteer action in the community, and participation in programs that drive sustainability, affordability, and support of community programs.

Nicole Lewey has been a software engineer at Garmin in Salem, Oregon for five years. She designs, writes, and tests embedded software for certified retrofit avionics and performs a leadership role on her team. Nicole graduated from Pacific University in 2016 with a BS in Computer Science. She first became interested in the topic of imposter syndrome in college when she and her fellow presenter, Alexandrea Beh, founded a Women in Computer Science club at their university. Through that experience she learned the power of speaking with people about imposter syndrome and other issues facing women and minorities in the workplace.

Alexandrea Beh works at Mentor Collective and helps to build a research-driven mentorship platform for college students. She has been a software engineer for the past six years. Alexandrea has navigated imposter syndrome as an underrepresented person in the tech industry who also doesn't have a traditional Computer Science degree. She will share her experiences from landing her first job to becoming a senior engineer and mentor. She has given several talks on imposter syndrome and is passionate about teaching people how to cultivate a better relationship with this feeling that many people experience but fewer people openly discuss.

Nico graduated from Oregon State in 2014 with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering. While at Oregon State he participated in the MECOP program and completed his internships at Portland General Electric (PGE) and Daimler Trucks North America. For his senior project he was on the Global Formula Racing team whose car ending up winning 4 international competitions. After graduating Nico began his career at PGE working with industrial companies complete energy efficiency projects with the Energy Trust of Oregon. In 2018 he moved to his current role within PGE to a group called Power Supply Engineering Services where he provides sound and cost-effective design improvements and engineering solutions to complex mechanical problems at thermal, hydro, and wind plants.

Subisha Sundaram is a third year Radiation Health Physics undergraduate student. She works as the President of the Engineering Student Council (ESC), a College of Engineering Ambassador, an Intern for the Center for Diversity and Inclusion and works in Dr.Giebultowicz’s Integrative Biology lab. Subisha never fathomed majoring in an Engineering discipline in college. She realized that being uncertain is alright and that she was not alone. By helping other students in her role as President of ESC and other on-campus roles like Wellness agent, she discovered how to nurture and build communities and in turn help find her own calling. Subisha’s focus is to empower communities and to help students navigate their way towards a successful engineering career while becoming active contributors to their communities.

Sydney Forbes is the CEO and co-founder of Tonsil Tech, where she aims to help people suffering with tonsil stones by developing tools for at home removal and educational awareness of the oral healthcare issue. Tonsil stones are the calcification of food, mucus, and bacteria that form in the pits of people’s tonsils and have a pungent sulfur smell. In July 2020, Sydney and her team launched the TonsiFIX starter kit which is the first commercially available tool specifically designed for tonsil stone removal.

Before founding Tonsil Tech in 2020, Sydney worked in the Bay Area at pharmaceutical companies and a 3D printing company. While working in 3D printing, Sydney specialized in dental medical devices.

Sydney earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Bioengineering from Oregon State University. While at OSU, Sydney was elected for multiple leadership positions including the Bioengineering President of the Chemical, Biological, and Environmental Engineering group as well as positions in the Society of Women Engineers, Engineering Student Council, and American Association of University Women. As an alumna, Sydney has presented at OSU Leadership Academy events and she is an Alumni Career Ambassador where she works with students and alumni to develop and accomplish career goals. You can find Sydney on Linkedin as Sydney (Quinton-Cox) Forbes.