Meet Justina Sanchez of TÜV SÜD America in Sorrento Mesa

Today we’d like to introduce you to Justina Sanchez.

Justina, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I am a wife and a mom to an eight-year-old little beauty named Lillyan. I have the most amazing mom and bestie a girl could have ever been given! They are so supportive and encouraging! I am also a Product Safety Engineer at TÜV SÜD America. I started here in 2005 as a Product Safety Administrative Assistant. Being in this atmosphere and surrounded by engineers day in and day out who were working on the coolest products in technology it wasn’t long before I knew I wanted to do what the engineers were doing. After a brief but life-changing conversation with my boss, he told me I needed to go to school and get a degree in Electrical Engineering. I immediately went back to my desk and googled schools. I found ITT-Tech, and they had a Computer and Electronic Engineering of Technology program. Some of our engineers even went through it and had good things to say. I met with the school’s counselors and enrolled in the next quarter’s sessions. Never having had an interest in STEM before I really wasn’t sure what I was in for or if I’d even like it. Turns out I really enjoyed it, and I was good at it! I even made the Dean’s List a couple of the quarters. Upon completion, I was promoted to a Product Safety Test Technician, where I did all the safety testing and maintained all lab-related responsibilities. It was achallenging but a great growing experience. After doing this for five years, I was promoted to a Product Safety Engineer, where I was able to handle the full scope of the projects. It’s so cool to see things I have tested in our lab and then go out in public places, like theme parks, hardware stores, or even malls and see things I have tested. Knowing I’ve been a part of getting that to the market for people to use is amazing!

Last year was an explosive year for my career! I was asked to be highlighted as one of the female engineers for a webinar our marketing department was doing for an International Women in Engineering Day Campaign. From that, I was contacted by the International Women’s Network at TÜV SÜD. They asked if I’d be interested in applying for a grassroots mentoring program. I thought sure, it sounds like a great initiative so I applied for the mentorship program. I was 1 of 4 girls selected globally and the only one from the USA! I was shocked to learn who my mentor was. I was paired with Mr. Stefan Rentsch, the CEO of TÜV SÜDs Central and Eastern European Divisions! I couldn’t believe I was being given this great opportunity. This has been such a great learning and growing experience for me. My mentor is so knowledgeable, kind and has great experience. Truly a great leader! Having been blessed with this opportunity I wanted to do the same for someone else, so I registered with a few mentoring sites and took on three teams of high school students to help with their engineering projects last school year. I met my current mentee through the Society of Women Engineers – San Diego Chapter, where we are both members. Her name is Madalyn Nguyen, and she is part of Poway High Schools Robotics Team SPYDER1622, and she is interning with us at TÜV SÜD America for her summer break. It’s been a great experience with real-world, hands-on training for her. Since my experience with the International Women’s Network had been so fruitful thus far, I wanted to bring that to the Americas and offer some of these opportunities to the ladies here. I reached out to the International Women’s Network and asked if this was a possibility, they were thrilled by this and very supportive! In April of 2019, with the support of our CEO, Mr. John Tesoro, we rolled out the Americas Women’s Network at TÜV SÜD America. There is a lot of work that goes into trying to establish something new and different within a company that has many locations and employees throughout North America. Especially since this is all done outside of my everyday job as an engineer. I knew early on that more brains are better than one and we are stronger as a team, so we have established a core team of ladies that are leading this Women’s Network. Our CEO recently named the Americas Women’s Network as one of the successes of Quarter 2, 2019, and that makes me so happy! There is definitely a lot of potential for this initiative! Starting in 2020, we will hold our own mentoring program with C-Level Executive mentors for the ladies in the Americas, in hopes of building relationships that are cross divisional and cross functional as well as seeing larger numbers of ladies in leadership positions within the company. I am so grateful for all that has happened, and I am looking forward to all that is in store!

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Absolutely. We don’t grow in our comfort zone, there has been a lot of stretching and growing along the way. I have had clients want to rush in because they are on tight deadlines and lots of money riding on the approval of the product. One time, in particular, we had a client drop in for testing immediately after we opened the project. I was fairly new to project handling and wanted to please the customer, so I tried to fit him in immediately. I started with all the basic tests we would do and saw he was happy because he felt progress was being made. This was not a good idea because a proper pre-construction evaluation had not been done prior. Turns outa critical component did not have the proper approvals required, so all testing that had been done was now void because now they had to find a new component that did have the proper approvals. I had to redo all testing with the new component. Now I can look back and laugh at my inexperience, but at the time I felt awful about it. That was a rough lesson to learn, but I never let that happen again.

TÜV SÜD America – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
At TÜV SÜD, we offer many different services like auditing, testing, product certification, and cybersecurity, to name a few. I am a Product Safety Engineer and in my division we test and certify products before they go to market. I specialize in Information Technology Equipment and Laboratory Measurement Equipment and Environmental Evaluations.

I get to test things like flat irons, and virtual reality headsets, spas, casino gaming machines, turnstile kiosk and ticket vending machines and that is just the beginning. Anything you plug in or could be battery operated and has electronic components inside needs to be tested and approved before it is available for use for the public. Turn over any of these types of product, and you will find agency markings, and TÜV SÜD is one of the many out there. The testing side is really cool! Some products meant for outdoor use, must be evaluated for different environmental conditions. We have a huge wet room where we simulate falling rain and can shoot large streams of water or fully submerge the product in water. We also have a dust machine that simulates blowing dust or sand for parts of the world where the product will be exposed to dust or sand storms. It is so cool when I am walking through the mall and look over and see the TÜV SÜD mark on a product. What’s even cooler is when I can say “I did the safety testing and evaluation on that” and there it is in public. Every product that gets the TÜV SÜD mark on it now must be monitored in the production facility in which that product is being produced. Another side of my job is to go out and inspect these facilities to ensure that all the components they are using are the ones we have given the “ok” during the evaluation. This way, we know they are building a safe product for consumers.

What sets us apart from others is the fact that we Add Value and Inspire Trust. We aim to create a safer, more sustainable future by enabling progress and protecting people, the environment, and assets from technology-related risks. We have some of the industries top leading professional handling your evaluations and we are very proud of that.

What is “success” or “successful” for you?
To me, success is living an honorable life. One that I am are truly happy in and filled with love and joy! Waking up and loving who I am with, what I am doing, and where I am going. To be successful is far more than monetary possessions, although those things are nice, that is not what success is all about. Success is giving to something greater than yourself and seeing the fruits of your labor. I do set yearly goals for myself and consider it a success when I met those goals because there is a lot of effort put into each one of them. Success is also seeing those you share your life with doing well and achieving great accomplishments.

Contact Info:

• Address: 10040 Mesa RIm Road, San Diego CA 92121
• Website: https://www.tuvsud.com/en-us
• Phone: 858-678-1401
• Email: justina.sanchez@tuvsud.com
• Instagram: Instagram.com/justinasanchez
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/justina.sanchez
• Twitter: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justina-sanchez-4a629836/
• Other: https://www.fabfems.org/users/justina-sanchez

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