Anoosheh Oskouian, President and CEO of Ship & Shore Environmental, Inc.
B.S. Chemical Engineering, University of Colorado, Denver
Anoosheh Oskouian is President and CEO of Ship & Shore Environmental, Inc., a Long Beach, Calif.-based, woman-owned, certified business specializing in air pollution capture and control systems for industrial applications. Ship & Shore helps major manufacturers meet Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) abatement challenges by providing custom energy-efficient air pollution abatement systems for various industries, resulting in improved operational efficiency and tailored “green” solutions.
She has more than twenty years’ experience in industrial and commercial project construction on a range of air design and fabricating combustion equipment including thermal oxidizers, catalytic oxidizers, boilers, burners, carbon and zeolite absorption mechanisms. During her impressive career, Oskouian has mastered air pollution abatement, waste heat recovery, energy consumption reduction and fabrication of integrated green solutions. (Editor’s note: Oskouian was profiled earlier. You can read her first profile here: https://www.designworldonline.com/women-in-engineering-anoosheh-oskouian/. This is an update on her activities since.)
Breaking with the expected
As with many women engineers, Oskouian enjoys analytical thinking. “I like the idea of the structure that analysis has, of keeping you within it while you are thinking about a problem. It brings a sense of order to what could be chaos.
In addition, challenges seem to motivate Oskouian. When she was a young girl, she heard comments such as, “girls can’t do this, and that something “can’t possibly be what you want to do. So, when I heard those comments, that became what I wanted to do. I’ve always looked for things to solve, or for problems that arise in life as a whole. If you don’t have that analytical mind, it can be a challenge to segregate a problem, box it up, and find out through the process of elimination what is absolutely not feasible and what is.
“Some of the things we do here in the company, some of the challenges we come across stem from situations where we have to come up with a system and design it. And others struggle with the challenge because it doesn’t fit within the parameters. They will say, “Well, how could this be possible?” So those are the challenges that I really like to tackle.”
And she explores other science disciplines to tackle challenging problems, such as physics. “Physics classes gave me a different angle. If you look at a problem through different science disciplines, you’ll see things differently, including what a solution might be.”
Opening education
Thus, a broad science education has always been helpful to Oskouian. But she does see areas where engineering education could improve.
“Engineering, and the teaching of it, does not have to be cut and dry,” she says. “Those interested in engineering do not have to fit a particular profile.”
One teaching issue she sees is with educators who have issues about entertaining different ideas or dealing with highly intelligent student.
“I think the way we have all been taught over the years, there is a certain arrogance about schools and teaching. Many educators don’t want to deviate from where they’ve been. There is a certain element of… they probably won’t call it fear, but I do. Because they think they will lose control, if you allow a genius sitting in your class to get up to the board and tell you how to do things, it frightens them.
“I think if we move away from that, it could enhance the way our kids are taught. I would prefer to open it up. And maybe use other concepts, other technologies, other ideas, and apply engineering to it and see what we come up with as solutions.”
Oskouian sees examples of this idea in industry. “There’s a company we worked with that recently started using Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) beads or foam in their concrete mix. EPS can turn plain concrete into a type of insulating concrete. This idea has really taken off and become an industry with many applications.
“Whereas in the past, if somebody said, ‘Let’s mix something else with the concrete,’ others would say, ‘What are you talking about? We lose the value of the concrete being concrete.’”
Exploring other technologies and ways of thinking, “opening it up,” can result in more opportunities.
Taking on the environment
While not an environmental engineer, Oskouian is proud of the work she and her company do in the design and manufacture of anti-pollution control systems.
“We design around any particular, or any potential emissions that may be coming from any processing or manufacturing facility, and deliver clean air out of the other side.
“I truly feel great about being able to walk the talk and contribute to a better climate for all of us to live in. Our systems have a great impact on what the air quality is around the country, as well as all the other countries that we work with. I’m proud that we design with the purpose of seeing this equipment erected and fully in operation. And we’ve done a lot of projects over the years. And that probably is one of the things I’m extremely pleased. And if I may just give myself a little pat, yes, is what I like to claim.
Leading the way
Oskouian is the rare women CEO in this industry, which is an accomplishment in and of itself. The engineer side of her likes to be at the forefront of things, especially when she’s analyzing a customer problem. She often sits across from a customer that is beginning a sustainability initiative.
“I’m able to bring what I’ve learned from all different applications that I’ve seen and talk to them technically. I find the combination of the CEO role and the engineering role together, especially in the industry that we in, provides me with a lot of advantages. Because I know what I’m talking about. I’m not just coming in and trying to strike a deal and be gone. And I can always tell if somebody’s pulling something over my head.
She multitasks to combine both engineering and leadership skills to handle both roles. For her, one of women engineers’ strengths as the ability to multitask.
“Not only do we do what we are doing, but most of us, if we want to have a balanced life, we try to pay attention to everything else, such as the family.
Dealing with the unexpected
All CEOs faced unexpected challenges with the Covid pandemic. For Oskouian, these challenges brought opportunities as well.
“Naturally, we were shocked at hearing that, as a business, we would have to close or work remotely. And how were we to go about it? The first thing that came to my mind was whether we could have our engineers work somewhat remotely and make ways for that.
“But we can’t build things remotely. Because we were also providing a lot of equipment for companies that are essential businesses. Companies like food packaging, and doing plastics production for a lot of the PPE that was going out. We needed people here in order to build our systems. We could not just close down. So, we found a solution. I and most of my employees were able to work every single day that the pandemic was in effect. I sat down with our VP of Engineering, a gentleman that I’ve known for many years who has done a lot of work with ozone.”
Oskouian and her engineering team developed an ozone cleaning product to keep their offices clean, using it daily after hours.
“With ozone, you have roughly 20 minutes to clean any surface, the air, or the environment in which it is introduced. It cleans all surfaces and leaves no residue behind. However, it must be a controlled environment because ozone can also become quite destructive.
“I can say confidently that no one caught Covid by coming to work here. Naturally, our guys working on various manufacturing sites were all wearing masks, fully gloved, and so on. But this was one of the things that we were able to develop. And we got a little bit of recognition for it. So that was one of the silver linings from the pandemic.”
While the pandemic was a challenge, it was not one of the bigger challenges Oskouian has faced. One of the greater challenges involved meeting EPA regulations.
“I’ve been here for 21 years. When we design a system and install it, it has to be tested and verified by a third party, mostly EPA or local agencies. At one point, the requirement from EPA was to make sure that we have a minimum 95 to 98% destruction of volatile organic compounds. We were able to achieve that without a problem.
“Then the requirement changed and we had to do 99% destruction, which means you cannot leave hardly any residue, everything has to be captured. So that one extra percent (98 vs. 99%) requires the same amount of work as going from 95 to 98%.
“Our staff considered how we might accomplish this without adding a larger footprint and more expense for our equipment. It took a while, but I’m happy to say that we were able to achieve it. We’ve got a number of systems designed that way now.
Thoughts on leadership
Oskouian thinks many of the skills needed are a combination of innate abilities. “You have to be able to step forward and want to take on responsibility, want to assume a leadership position. Whereas a lot of people are extremely brilliant, they can’t manage that. I’ve never had a problem just jumping into the front line and assuming responsibility. At the same time, as much as you take that lead, you realize that there has to be a team behind you to support you. You cannot be a leader without having a team behind you.
“To execute a plan, you really do need to empower the people you’re working with. And being an engineer, as well as being able to develop that understanding, it’s been great, especially when helping others learn to be open to ideas and suggestions.
As a leader, it’s important to Oskouian to mentor many of the women engineers who come to work for her company.
“Some of the young women that we hired were shy and timid, not able to speak up in an environment with a lot of men. But little by little, their talents surfaced. And I’ve always given them room and opportunity to be able to showcase their talents.
“I’ve been fortunate enough to have been on a number of panel discussions to promote engineering among women and share my story. Not boasting, but letting them know that if I can do it, so can they. All you have to do is have enough confidence. Speak up and get heard. If you think something is wrong or right, speak up. There may be some backlash, but don’t let that stop you. Listen to your intuition. I think that’s something that women all have, they just have to give it a voice.
“You don’t need to hide behind the shield of a man. You are whole on your own. You really can stand your own ground. If you have the brains, and if you understand the concept of what you’re trying to work on, you definitely can walk every single path that a man has walked. Just keep the emotions out of it for the task that you’re given. Because we have a tendency to become emotional. We’re women. I understand. But keep the emotions under control. And then afterwards, get emotional. There’s nothing wrong with it. And it’s good to have emotions. At the same time, don’t ever let anyone tell that you can’t do something just because you’re a woman. I’ve seen that so many times that their great ideas are given to somebody else to present. And they always stay in the background rather than at the forefront of things. Don’t be afraid of failing. You can fail just as much as anybody else can. But that shouldn’t be any reason for you to not give it a try.
“I’ve been blessed to have had a number of young ladies who’s first job out of school was with my company. And little by little, they were able to get out in the big world, and do what they want to do, and we make sure that we give them their voice.
“That’s why I tried to do a lot of internships for girls. I used to go around to high schools for a program called Discover Engineering. My goal was always to promote engineering, particularly for the next generation trying to decide where to go. There are so many amazing fields that women can enter. And even if you don’t pursue an engineering career after you graduate, engineering is still a launching pad for other fields. There is not a single field that I can think of that a woman cannot do compared to a man. There’s nothing wrong with having a good, strong science engineering background in your education. You can go anywhere from there.
“I think if a woman has as much passion, and enthusiasm about the field that they want to get into, in any of the engineering fields, they would be just as good, if not better than a man. We have had amazing women rise up through many companies in a lot of big corporations here and abroad.
“And I think everyone needs to make sure that we grab hold of a few other hands and pull them up. And not necessarily let them be on their own. I’ve always been busy but I make time for our women. A few young ladies initially were just so scared to even talk to me. Whereas I was like, ‘I’m very okay. You could come in, talk to me, but don’t talk to me about nonsense.’ So, just get out of this mode of, ‘Well, I’m a woman, I can’t do this.’ Having been there, having done it and then working in a totally male dominated field, at least my field, I know women can do anything.”
Filed Under: Engineering Diversity & Inclusion
