Viktoriya Todorova, BEng ’13 (Chemical Engineering)

Understanding process control, process design and automation is a key part of what makes Viktoriya Todorova successful at her job.

Working for Lakeside Process Controls, a partner of Emerson Automation Solutions, she is a technical specialist who helps customers find the right equipment, instruments and systems for their process.

“I see manufacturing processes in absolutely all industries,” says Todorova. “I learn every day, I touch equipment and I work with reliability, maintenance, engineering, procurement and capital spending management teams across various industry sectors.”

But while her engineering knowledge gives her the language she needs to communicate with her customers, she says her job success also relies on her personality.

“That’s a key part of what makes this job enjoyable for me,” says the 2013 Chemical Engineering grad. “I truly believe that there are two key components to a satisfactory match between [the] place of employment and an employee – a person’s personality and their base knowledge set.”

Starting with Lakeside as an Application Engineer six years ago, Todorova then moved into the role of Lead Engineer for Southern Ontario before taking on her current job as a Valve Technical Specialist.

Along with working with customers, she also leads training programs and manages key initiatives related to corporate values, policy and strategy.

While loving her current job, Todorova admits that she stumbled into it, largely because the company was the first to offer her a position and she couldn’t convince herself to spend much time on a job search.

“I hated the fact that I was growing up and that I had to leave university, so I accepted the job just because I didn’t want to spend more time on the things grown-up people must do,” she says.

And while she does miss the detailed engineering and process design work – “the geeky stuff, as some would call it” – she diverts that passion into tutoring high school and university students in Math, Physics and Chemistry.

“I’ve thought about pivoting my career in the direction of teaching, and it’s my dream still to have my own school,” she says. “I’ve never taken any steps to achieve that dream yet, but life is still young and you never know where it will take you.”