Josie Lantz ChatterHigh Profile

Background

Josie grew up in Moncton, New Brunswick, and studied Chemical Engineering at the University of New Brunswick (UNB). Josie wasn't sure what she wanted to do after high school but was encouraged to try engineering because of her interest in math and science. She started off in a generic engineering program and, during her first semester, was introduced to each engineering discipline. After seeing what the courses and potential careers looked like in each discipline, she decided on Chemical Engineering. Josie graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in Chemical Engineering in 2015 and started working at Irving Oil four months later. 

Career

Josie started her career as an Area Contact Engineer at the refinery. She was responsible for troubleshooting problems in her operating units and providing technical support on several interesting projects. The best part of this job was being able to climb through equipment such as distillation columns, tanks, furnaces, etc. during outages and seeing how they worked from the inside out.  

She then moved on to become the Energy Engineer within the Process Engineering Team at the refinery. She was responsible for raising awareness of energy-saving opportunities at the refinery and working with various teams to implement these changes. The best part of the Energy Engineer job was having the opportunity to travel to Ireland to spend time at the Whitegate refinery learning about their Energy Management Program.

Josie is currently a Process Safety Engineer within the Process Safety Management team at the refinery. She has been involved in interesting projects such as a study on the refinery’s flare header relief system, and a project to identify and solve potential risks around pumps in a certain operating area of the refinery. The best part about the Process Safety Team is that every day is different, and you get to learn about all areas of the refinery.