This informational interview assignment was an opportunity to gain true insight on the career path that has interested me. With having a potential future in finance, this meeting gave me more information to the career in wind energy management. It gave me a chance to see first-hand the professorial development, and interpersonal skills that are required for this occupation. For that exact reason I used my resources of TTU alumni, friends, and family to lead me to Mr. Fontenot who leads a network with Diamond WTG as a wind energy management specialist. Mr. Fontenot has been with the company for 6 years, with over half a decade dedicated to this field I strategically categorized interview questions to able myself to better understand and comprehend the overall position with this company.
Before the actual meeting as instructed I did my research through occupational websites to get a better insight of the job I was interviewing. As a wind energy management specialist I found that their main duties consisted of managing wind field operations, including personnel, maintenance activities, financial activities, and planning. The people associated with this line of work specialize in leadership, integrity, dependability, and making impact decisions. They must obtain a bachelors degree, or masters degree to have the educational credibility. The average salary for the position is $105,610 with a max salary of $176,800. The software and technology that is used is IBM lotus notes, and Microsoft outlook. Finding the general information about the job made it much more comfortable to utilize my knowledge of the occupation to use during the interview.
Over the weekend, I was able to meet with my contact in Lubbock for brunch. We set this meeting over the phone 2 weeks in advance. All of my questions were answered thoroughly, which made the interview extremely beneficial. The main topics that were focused on were how he obtained his position at this job, his likes and dislikes of his work, how much promotion room there is in his line of work, where he started and begin to get into this job, and his recommendations for an eager student possibly wanting to pursue this career. While discussing how he obtained his position for this job, he explained that having management background and customer service experience helped with the employers outlook on the type of person and employee he would be. Mr. Fontenot had been in car sales during his college experience, given he wasn’t able to work the full schedule of a salesman he was able to obtain a higher ranking in management with his work ethic and commitment to being the best he could be. This experience showed he had the skills of communication, leadership, and integrity that are valuable in this line of work. He started out his line of work by entering a program for wind energy after he graduated which gave him the full eligibility to become what he is today, I found that the program is not completely necessary to achieving this job, but it does give the upper-hand for being in his position. He explained his pros and cons to the job, his pros consisted of the traveling aspect is average and not very out of range. Also that the salary and work hours are exceptional and “keep a smile on his face” in his own words. The dislikes are that there is times where work gets hectic, and stressful due to situations with upcoming projects, and not only meeting his customers needs, but the companies expectations. He recommended that I stick with the pursuit of this job, he explained that this line of work is an enterprise thats growing daily, with more young visionaries like myself the possibilities are endless to what the wind energy growth can achieve.
In addition to the topics I discussed with Mr. Fontenot, I made sure to get a little bit of information about the cultural environment of the company. I learned that Diamond WTG has a very disciplined environment with a lot of regulations. He described
In terms of the company itself, I did not learn anything too specific that made the industry more or less favorable to me. However, it did spark my interest more relative to the world of wind energy. My contact met every expectation very well. He was a very smart employee, who seemed to really enjoy his job. It surprised me how easy it was to talk to him, he made the interview very comfortable with his confidence, and eagerness to answer my curiosity of his career. Based on what I did learn of this occupation I am positive that my interest is still into the wind energy world. I say this because I have always been one person to see the good and bad, the bad being what humans are doing to the planet we call home, and that gives me the inspiration to make the world a better place by applying myself to something that does so. I learned that having networking skills is very beneficial to the line of work I am to be apart of. Mr. Fontenot described that one has to be willing to learn new things, and be open to every possible opportunity to create a relationship. Even though there may not be a guarantee that a business relationship will yield benefits, one should still pursue the relationship in order to open doors for the future. In time my networking skills that are required to be able to succeed in this industry will progress day by day by remembering that the key to strong networking is to be a sponge in regards to knowledge, and to have patience when it comes to contacting high-ranking business persons.
To conclude, meeting with Mr. Fontenot gave me the chance to gain new insight into the wind energy world, and it has made my path to a wind energy specialist more clear than before. The knowledge I gained from him and this interview was the most rewarding part of participating in this assignment. The best part is that I have taken my first initial step of networking, and am able to contact him again if I ever needed or required his assistance, or recommendation for future jobs. I know that I will be able to look back at this meeting as an asset to my network in five to ten years.
