Tips to Succeed as an Engineering Consultant
by Nancy Giges, ASME.org
Friday, May 22, 2015
Stuart B. Brown, founder and managing principal of consulting firm Veryst Engineering, Needham, MA, likes to say that to be a successful engineering consultant, you have to be bipolar.
But as might be expected, his definition of bipolar is not the traditional one. “You have to be an expert,” he says. “And then you have to be able to do everything else.”
He’s learned over the years that clients hire a consultant for his or her expertise but after assessing the situation, consultants often recognize that the clients’ problems require a totally different skill set. Consultants must develop the ability to understand clients’ problems, empathize with their pain, and find solutions, he advises.
