Dr. Charles Davis is the president elect of the Florida Engineering Society. Your host of the Florida Engineering Society, Engineering Florida Podcast, Sam Yates, recently sat down with Dr. Davis to learn more about him and his latest book Systematic Guide to Leadership Selection Using Total Quality Management Techniques.
Dr. Davis also discusses different types of leadership and what makes a true leader. His comments are enlightening.
And what about the future for Engineering students post COVID? We'll explore that topic as well on this episode of the Florida Engineering Society Engineering Florida Podcast.
The Florida Engineering Society, Engineering Florida podcast, is produced by Yates & Associates, Public Relations & Marketing. Contact Sam Yates, Sam@Yatespro.com.
Dr. Charles Davis is the president elect of the Florida Engineering Society. Your host of the Florida Engineering Society, Engineering Florida Podcast, Sam Yates, recently sat down with Dr. Davis to learn more about him and his latest book Systematic Guide to Leadership Selection Using Total Quality Management Techniques.
Dr. Davis also discusses different types of leadership and what makes a true leader. His comments are enlightening.
And what about the future for Engineering students post COVID? We'll explore that topic as well on this episode of the Florida Engineering Society Engineering Florida Podcast.
The Florida Engineering Society, Engineering Florida podcast, is produced by Yates & Associates, Public Relations & Marketing. Contact Sam Yates, Sam@Yatespro.com.
Today's Engineers are ingenious professionals. Engineers invent, design, verify and qualify, engineers are the professionals who make our lives and businesses prosperous and safe. The Florida Engineering Society is proud to put our Engineering professionals in the spotlight so that they may educate, share information and introduce you to the world of engineering that is thriving in Florida. Here's your host of the Engineering Florida podcast, Sam Yates, with today's guest. Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Florida Engineering Society, Engineering, Florida podcast. You know, we've had some pretty amazing guests over the past few weeks, and I have never ceased to be amazed at when I have a particular guest that that comes in and just wowed me. And that is what has happened with my guest today, Dr. Charles Davis and why he has amazed me and given me that wow factor is something to do with his book. And I've got to give that little bit of a tease, because I want to talk about that book. It's it's got the elements that you would not believe when it comes to choosing leadership. And I'm going to get into that. But Dr. Davis, welcome to the program today.
Dr. Charles Davis:Welcome. Thank you.
Sam Yates:You know, I always like to start our programs by getting a bit of background about our guests. So please tell us about yourself.
Dr. Charles Davis:So, I am Charles Davis. I am originally from New Orleans, Louisiana, as they say in Orleans, New Orleans, and I have been in Orlando since while 8687. Sometime around that time. I actually came here for work. And believe it or not the job that I applied to which was an industry at the time, I worked for about six months, and that particular job. And then I got transferred to their corporate office, which was out of Lawrence, Kansas. So I stayed in Lawrence, Kansas for about a year, about a year and a half, got accustomed to snow when driving in snow. And being from the South that was a little bit different from me. But then I eventually came back to Orlando, Florida, and I've been in Orlando, Florida ever since. Well, in Orlando, I had already completed an undergraduate degree. So I decided I'd go back, same company that I was working with, had a continuing education program. So I went back and got another degree in Design Engineering Technology, love school so much continued and got my master's in industrial engineering with a concentration in engineering management. And love school so much. 25 years later, completed my PhD in industrial engineering. And that would happen actually during the COVID, to pandemic, so it was somewhat of a challenge. But I got through it and I persevered.
Sam Yates:You know, I sometimes have to pause, we do an audio version of our podcast and from time to time we have a video version. For those of you who are going to be listening just to the audio version. When I take a pause, it's usually to point something out. And Dr. Dave was what I noticed, when you talked about the years that you spent in school, and learning the many things that you have learned, there was a smile on your face. So when you say you love it, you know, I really believe that deep down in your heart, it is a passion for you.
Dr. Charles Davis:You're correct. I do have a passion for lifelong learning. And I also feel that the talents and the knowledge that I've received is one reason why I'm actually teaching now paying it forward to students. So not only is it a passion to continue in education, but also to pay it forward to the young minds of today.
Sam Yates:And where do you teach now?
Dr. Charles Davis:So I'm currently teaching at Valencia College. I have this coming fall, believe it or not, I will be teaching 20 years. Wow. I started back in 2003. And so I did part time applied to the school while working still in industry. Because I just I wanted to say, you know I could do this too, right? So I started teaching, build the Construction Technology Program. And then from there, it kind of grew into teaching some pre engineering courses. And then eventually, Valencia ended up getting a bachelor's in Electrical Computer engineering, technology and 2011 And so I that's what I've been teaching in their bachelor's program. And again, going back to that whole loving of math loving school, I went back and got my 18 hours of additional math courses. So I teach Matt, in addition to my engineering classes that I teach. Just a little bit of great news. I applied to Embry Riddle about a year ago and they reached out to me and made an offer to me. So I start on August 14, as associate professor will be teaching, teaching at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University. And I'm very excited about my new adventure with them.
Sam Yates:Congratulations on that. I'm not sure that I have shared with you but one of my favorite pieces of background is aviation technology and aerospace. So would you say Embry Riddle, that is something near and dear to my heart did not attend that school. But I know quite a few people who are graduates of it, and quite a few people that have taken their knowledge base from Embry Riddle, and have in a couple of cases, take it into space. So quite a bit of congratulations to you.
Dr Charles Davis:Appreciate it. Thank you.
Sam Yates:Now somewhere in all of this, Dr. Davis has also managed to carve out enough time to write a book and the book, if I can look at my notes here. It's a systematic, or a systematic guide to leadership, or leadership selection using total quality management techniques. When I read it in bits and pieces and link it all together, it makes perfect sense to me, because there is a formula, I can see what I look at certain qualities of leadership. But what went into that book, and how did you come up with that concept.
Dr. Charles Davis:So both myself and my advisor who was part of my PhD program, and two of my classmates, we decided to collaborate together and my portion of my PhD, my two classmates, their portions of their PhD, and then my advisor who was just an amazing person, Dr. Rebello, we decided that we wanted to put together something that dealt with leadership, but then also dealt with quality management. And we initially, in my, in my dissertation, I dealt more with like undergraduate students, but what we say we want to do was we want to cast this net net out to not just students, but also to industry. So to be able to use this same book, and to be able to apply it to industry, and people who either retooling in leadership, or have never been in leadership, and then also apply in quality management as it relates to it as well.
Sam Yates:Now, I guess the big question there is, are we at a point in many, many industries, no matter what industry, you take a look at that something new and different by way of management, especially coming out of COVID is needed?
Dr. Charles Davis:Yeah, I think we have to look at management a little bit different because of coming out of COVID. Especially, we were kind of locked up for a while indoors. So most people who were managing actual people were managing them from home. And even still today, some people are still working remote, it's kind of become a thing of the future. So we kind of have to look at management in a way that we could still manage, but we could manage remotely as well, and still be able to use these tools. I think students that are coming out of school today. Along with the technical skills, the hard skills, the soft skills are the things that would be without supply as well. So either to go on to leadership, or apply any type of quality, especially in a work environment. They have to make sure that it can be done not only face to face, but it can also be done remote as well.
Sam Yates:And I think that ties in with something that a lot of people who keep an eye on true leaders, management leaders, they always say managers do more than manage. They lead they inspire true statement.
Dr. Charles Davis:With hesitation, I'll say yes. I when I was putting together my paper for my dissertation, I always feel that a true leader as a servant leader. These are people that basically can lead by example, but also basically can have others lead them as well. and a true leader who manage other folk, if they know that they can get out in the trenches, they can get out and get their hands dirty. They can learn from the people that work for them, our true leaders, because they get to respect each other, and learn from each other.
Sam Yates:These are all aspects of your book. So the big question, I would like our audience to know, how can one go about getting a copy of your book.
Dr. Charles Davis:So right now, you could actually go to Amazon, it came out in December, December 26, to be exact. But you can get it from Amazon, there's a good price on it. Initially, it was like, somewhat high, we'd gone back to the publisher and kind of tried to find out a way if you know, the price can drop a little bit, but I think on Amazon right now, you can get it somewhere between 20 to $50. It's in hardcopy. It's also an ebook version as well. So for those folks that actually like to listen to it, versus actually reading, you can find it in both modalities. Switch back
Sam Yates:to Embry Riddle for a moment if you could, what are some of the big challenges that you see moving into that position? And And how has your background helped prepare you for those challenges?
Dr. Charles Davis:So at Valencia, teaching the pre engineering classes because that's a couple of the classes that I'm going to be teaching at Embry Riddle as well. The fact that I like Embry Riddle also have small class sizes. They have anywhere between 25 to 30 students in some of their engineering courses. And so I actually when I started teaching pre engineering at Valencia, I had a class of 200. So I know how to adapt to either large and or small. So if I was to be challenged by teaching a larger class, I would not have a problem with it. I think the biggest thing for me is in terms of transition is just that, because the students at Valencia are even though it's a two year institution, it's a college, it's a university and they go hand in hand. Teaching the bachelor students, I'll be teaching the same students at Embry Riddle, you know, I'll teach the ones that's coming in as freshmen and they now have some that are in their junior and senior year. So I don't think it's as much as a change in a way of the type of student. It's just a different environment. And it's something that I look so forward to because it's just it's new, right? It's something that I think for me, it's like that next stage in my life. I've done industry, I've taught for 20 years. And now I'm basically at Embry Riddle, to keep that chapter going.
Sam Yates:And we're going to look forward to seeing what is written, no pun intended. But I'm sure there will be something written in that particular chapter. One of the things that, that I see as a central theme in all of our guests here on the Florida Engineering Society podcast, is that concern for new engineering students, as an industry is the Florida Engineering Society leading the way in attracting quality engineering students.
Dr. Charles Davis:Yeah, from the actual society itself, we actually have student chapters at each, each of the universities and colleges. So we try to do as we try to make sure that we network with them, mentor them, communicate with them, and then also basically have them come out to our annual conference, which this year is in Marco Island. So being able to network with them being able to for them to be with engineers that are already in the industry. So they could ask those important questions like, you know, how do I go about actually interview? And how do I go about dressing for success? How do I go about landing that perfect job or that near perfect job? And what are the things that I can do? Even though there may be these little bumps in the road? Are there lessons learned from those? And so those are the things that I think that the Florida Engineering Society does very well in terms of mentoring, and making sure that the students that are coming out of both the colleges and the universities, that they are able to communicate and have an open door policy with the society and make sure that we can communicate with them. We also have a couple of events throughout the year where the students could actually give back so we have like Mathcounts what is still Lincoln volunteer and actually work with the students that are like in middle school. These kids are actually so Some were sixth, seventh and eighth grade during college level mathematics. And so the students, the college students get exposed to that. We also have, where they get to do community services. So we have them go out with us to like, give the kids the world and do a lot of various different things. So we can give back, you know, to the community. So they get exposed a lot of stuff, some of those things that if they were just in a classroom, and not having that extra curricular, these are things that I think Florida Engineering Society does a great job of.
Sam Yates:Now, as we talked about Florida Engineering Society, I completely have not zeroed in on your role and the past activities as well as future activities for the society. Tell us about that.
Dr. Charles Davis:So currently, right now, my my current role is, I am the Vice President of Finance. The way that works out is that you go in progression from Vice President of Finance to President Elect, which does come in summer, I will be basically sworn in as president of the LEC. And then in the 2425. Year, I'll be sworn in as president for the society.
Sam Yates:And again, ladies and gentlemen, you know, I can do that little pause. So I can say grinning from ear to ear, you know, and I can feel the happiness that that you have in knowing that President Elect is just around the corner. So I want to give you an advance congratulations on that. Thank you, colleges and universities. Now one of the things that I like to contemplate is how they are turning out great leaders are we still meeting that challenge of of generating great leaders from our engineering schools, in particular,
Dr. Charles Davis:the program, the rigor of the program, the curriculum is definitely structured in a way that we want to make sure that the students are getting the courses that they need, especially the technical side of things. But then the extracurricular piece of that. And this is what I mentioned earlier, students kind of working outside of the classroom, joining clubs, joining leadership groups where they could actually get that exposure. So you actually have honor societies that they can join Phi Theta Kappa, various different groups out there that students could get exposed to leadership. The other piece of it is, is that when students are either doing internships or coops, they have the opportunity to work alongside other engineers in the street, but then also may, they may obtain leadership role as well, working on that internship or Co Op. I'm definitely an advocate for those students that I asked to join the clubs at Valencia and I'm also going to be starting up some of those clubs at Embry Riddle as well. Get those students that aspire to be leaders. So always, always, always looking for those individuals that want to step up and become leaders? And my engineering management communications class and also in my other class, my quality assurance class? I specifically asked that question. The question is, do you think people are either born to be leaders or along the way trained as leaders, and you'd be surprised the amount of comments and our debate that I get from that most of students tend to think that most people are trying to become leaders, and those that are born to be leaders. It's, it's something I always have to go back to you there. You know, a prince, a prince becomes a king, you know, those type of things, right? So it's like destined for you, but those people that are trained or trained to become leaders, again, going back to that whole thing of servant leader.
Sam Yates:Now, you know, after hearing that, I'm going to have to pose the question to you that you ask the students born leader or gained along the way,
Dr. Charles Davis:gained along the way. And I gained along the way I I always felt like what my family that and they would always tell me that I was the rock of the family. In the middle. I'm the middle child. But I also felt like because my father passed away when I was young, that at some point, I needed to kind of step up and become that leader of my siblings and my mom. So along the way, gain that leadership, but then also basically centering myself around other people that I aspired that were leaders that I saw in them.
Sam Yates:Well, I have to say thank you for being on the program today. Dr. Charles Davis engine Dear author, and leader, it has been my pleasure to have you on the program and one question that I must ask, Will you come back for another program in the future? Most definitely. And I asked that question because there are so many other topics that we can touch upon you and I have had offline conversations on some of them. And I thought it most appropriate not to get into all of those areas. Because, like we say in the business, we'd like to leave you with something to stay tuned to listen for. So Dr. Davidson, thank you for being here with us on the program today. Thank you, sir. I appreciate it. That's going to wrap up this edition of the Florida engineering society's podcast called engineering Florida. I'm your host, Sam Yates. Until our next episode, have a great day, everybody. Thanks for listening to another informative episode of the engineering Florida podcast. Our goal is to help educate and inform everyone who listens to our podcast about our members and topics of interest to the Florida Engineering Society. On behalf of the Florida Engineering Society, and the Engineering Florida podcast, have a great day everybody