Sharlene Brown typically accompanied her husband, IEEE Senior Member Damith Wickramanayake, to group conferences. He has held management positions within the IEEE Jamaica Section, in IEEE Region 3, and on the IEEE Member and Geographic Activities board. Each are from Jamaica.
She both waited exterior the convention room or helped with duties resembling serving refreshments. Despite the fact that her husband inspired her to take a seat in on the conferences, she says, she felt uncomfortable doing so as a result of she wasn’t an engineer. Brown is an accountant and human sources skilled. Her husband is a pc science professor on the University of Technology, Jamaica, in Kingston. He’s presently Area 3’s schooling actions coordinator and a member of the part’s schooling and outreach committee for the IEEE Educational Activities Board.
Sharlene Brown
Employer
Maritime Authority of Jamaica, in Kingston
Title
Assistant accountant
Member grade
Senior member
Alma mater
University of Technology, Jamaica, in Kingston; Tsinghua University, in Beijing
After incomes her grasp’s diploma in public administration in 2017, Brown says, she felt she lastly was certified to hitch IEEE, so she utilized. Membership is open to people who, by schooling or expertise, are competent in several fields together with administration. She was accepted the identical 12 months.
“Once I joined IEEE, I might spend lengthy hours at evening studying numerous operations manuals and insurance policies as a result of I wished to know what I used to be stepping into,” she says. “I used to be at all times studying. That’s how I received to know a variety of issues in regards to the group.”
Brown is now a senior member and an lively IEEE volunteer. She based the Jamaica Part’s Women in Engineering group; established a scholar department; sits on a number of high-level IEEE boards; and ran a number of profitable recruitment campaigns to extend the variety of senior members in Jamaica and all through Area 3.
Brown was additionally a member of the subcommittee of the worldwide Girls in Engineering committee; she served as membership coordinator and ran a number of profitable senior member campaigns, elevating girls on the committee and throughout IEEE.
Brown additionally was integral within the promotion and follow-up actions for the One IEEE occasion held in January on the College of Know-how, Jamaica. The primary-of-its-kind workshop related greater than 200 members to one another and to the group by showcasing Jamaica’s lively engineering neighborhood. The Jamaica Part has 135 IEEE members.
From manufacturing facility employee to accountant
Brown grew up in Bog Walk, a rural city within the parish of St. Catherine. As a result of she had low grades in highschool, the one job she was capable of get after graduating was as a brief manufacturing facility employee on the close by Nestlé plant. She labored as many shifts as she might to assist assist her household.
“I didn’t thoughts working,” she says, “as a result of I used to be making my mark. Something I do, I’m going to be glorious at, whether or not it’s cleansing the ground or doing workplace work.” However she had greater plans than being a manufacturing facility employee, she says.
A good friend advised her a couple of non permanent job overseeing exams on the Jamaican Institute of Administration, now a part of the College of Know-how. Brown labored each jobs for a time till the college employed her full time to do administrative work in its accounting division.
One of many perks of working there was free tuition for workers, and Brown took full benefit. She studied data administration and laptop purposes, Jamaican securities, fraud detection, forensic auditing, and supervisory administration, incomes an affiliate diploma in enterprise administration in 2007. The college employed her in 2002 as an accountant, and he or she labored there for 5 years.
In 2007 she joined the Office of the Prime Minister, in Kingston, initially as an officer dealing with funds to suppliers. Her onerous work and optimistic perspective received her observed by different managers, she says. After a month she was tapped by the finances division to develop into a dedication management officer, liable for allocating and overseeing funding for 4 of the nation’s ministries.
“What I spotted by my volunteer work in IEEE is that you just’re by no means alone. There may be at all times someone to information you.”
As a younger accountant, she didn’t have hands-on expertise with budgeting, however she was a fast learner who produced high quality work, she says. She realized the budgeting course of by serving to her colleagues when her work slowed down and through her lunch breaks.
That information gave her the talents she wanted to land her present job as an assistant accountant with the finances and administration accounts group within the Maritime Authority of Jamaica accounts division, a place she has held since 2013.
Whereas she was working for the Workplace of the Prime Minister, Brown continued to additional her schooling. She took evening programs on the College of Know-how and, in 2012, earned a bachelor’s diploma in enterprise administration. She majored in accounting and minored in human sources administration.
She secured a full scholarship in 2016 from the Chinese language authorities to review public administration in Beijing at Tsinghua University, incomes a grasp’s diploma with distinction in 2017.
Brown says she is now able to shift to a human sources profession. Despite the fact that she has been supervising folks for greater than 17 years, although, she is having a tough time discovering an HR place, she says.
Nonetheless prepared to tackle challenges, she is growing her expertise by volunteering with an HR consulting agency in Jamaica. To get extra formal coaching, she is presently engaged on an HR certification from the Society for Human Resource Management.
Sharlene Brown organized for the acquisition of 350 desk shields for Jamaican colleges in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic.Sharlene Brown
Constructing a vibrant neighborhood
After graduating from Tsinghua College, Brown started volunteering for the IEEE Jamaica Part and Area 3.
In 2019 she based the part’s IEEE Girls in Engineering affinity group, which she chaired for 3 years. She advocated for extra girls in management roles and has run profitable campaigns to extend the variety of feminine senior members domestically, regionally, and globally throughout IEEE. She herself was elevated to senior member in 2019.
Brown additionally received the WIE group extra concerned in serving to the neighborhood. One undertaking she is especially pleased with is the acquisition of 350 desk shields for Jamaican colleges so college students might extra safely attend lessons and examination periods in particular person in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Brown was impressed to undertake the undertaking when a scholar defined on an area information program that his household couldn’t afford Web for his or her house, so he was unable to attend lessons remotely.
“Each time I watched the video clip, I might cry,” she says. “This younger man may be the following engineer, the nation’s subsequent minister, or the following skilled.
“I’m so comfortable we have been capable of get funding from Area 3 and an area group to supply these shields.”
She established an IEEE scholar department on the Caribbean Maritime University, in Kingston. The department had nearly 40 college students on the time of formation.
Brown is working to type scholar branches at different Jamaican universities, and he or she is trying to determine an IEEE Power & Energy Society chapter within the part.
She is a member of a number of IEEE committees together with the Election Oversight and Tellers. She serves as chair for the area’s Skilled Actions Committee.
“What I spotted by my volunteer work in IEEE is that you just’re by no means alone,” she says. “There may be at all times someone to assist information you. In the event that they don’t know one thing, they are going to level you to the one who does.
“Additionally, you’re allowed to make errors,” she says. “In some organizations, for those who make a mistake, you may lose your job or must pay to your error. However IEEE is your skilled house, the place you study, develop, and make errors.”
On a few of the IEEE committees the place she serves, she is the one lady of coloration, however she says she has not confronted any discrimination—solely respect.
“I really feel comfy and appreciated by the folks and the communities I work with,” she says. “That motivates me to proceed to do properly and to the touch lives positively. That’s what makes me so lively in serving in IEEE: You’re appreciated and rewarded to your onerous work.”
