A great engineer doesn’t naturally become a great engineering leader. As Joel Smith, vice president of engineering at Kohler Co., says, much of the company’s success rides on teaching people to be great at both.
“Too often we assume engineering leadership happens by osmosis, but that’s just not the case,” Smith says. “It takes hard work, mentorship, training and teaching to bring that out.”
Kohler has long had leadership development programs for its employees, but the company recognized a few years ago that it lacked opportunities specific to the needs of engineers. Although Kohler already had fruitful, thriving partnerships with academic units across Marquette University, after learning about E-Lead, an Opus College of Engineering-led leadership program for undergraduates, Kohler began exploring the idea of having partners from the college develop a similar program in-house for its own engineers.
That was the genesis of the Kohler Engineering Leadership Development Program, which launched in 2022 with 18 Kohler engineers learning to effectively lead people and fuel innovation within the organization. Each of the program’s four units includes multiday in-person experiences for up to 25 participants at Marquette and at Kohler headquarters near Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Marquette facilitators lead the first and third units, while Kohler leaders manage the second and fourth units.
“The content is engaging and the training team’s energy and passion are easily recognizable, which builds an environment of learning and collaboration.”
Jodi Gilliam, product data management manager
Today, the partnership is planning for its fourth cohort to launch in fall 2025.
A team of facilitators from the Opus College of Engineering led by Kate Trevey — the Nana Fotsch Director at the Fotsch Innovation and Engineering Leadership Development (FIELD) Center — developed the curriculum for the Marquette-based units. Those units develop participants’ capacity to lead people and innovation, and lead technology and innovation. Andrea Minkley and Jenny Benjamin, both associate directors of engineering and innovation leadership development, and Dr. Kristina Ropella, Opus Dean of the Opus College of Engineering and professor of biomedical engineering, are key contributors to the effort.
Trevey has spent 13 of her 18 years at Marquette building the E-Lead program, the innovation-focused undergraduate leadership development program that inspired the Kohler effort. (With its focus on developing values-driven innovation leaders for cross-disciplinary collaboration, E-Lead at the undergraduate level brings together students from across all colleges and majors.) The success of E-Lead inspired the development of similar programming for professionals and led to the creation of the FIELD Center, which now serves as a hub for undergraduate and professional engineering and innovation leadership development programs at Marquette.
For Trevey, her involvement is also personal. She earned a bachelor’s degree in finance at Marquette and worked at Kohler as a financial analyst after graduation. She says it helps that she understands the company’s needs, its corporate lingo and its history of innovation in kitchen, bath and home products. Trevey’s focus on developing leaders has also garnered praise outside Marquette, including recently being named one of 30 people shaping Milwaukee’s future by BizTimes Milwaukee.
“What we hear from companies and why they come to us is we have this deep understanding of what’s required to lead innovation,” Trevey says. “A lot of people think it’s just about technology. That’s a piece of it, but companies don’t innovate. Technology doesn’t innovate. People innovate.”
Leading with intention
Kohler selects the participants for each cohort, most of whom work as engineering supervisors with direct reports. They include engineers in the company’s kitchen and bath business, technical center and other areas. Some members of the earlier cohorts came from the power business, which has since spun off into a separate company, Rehlko.
Before the engineers arrive in Milwaukee, they meet virtually to learn more about one another and what to expect when they get to Marquette. Once on campus, they’re quickly guided through exercises and content designed to help them develop the mindset needed for innovation — and thinking bigger than their day-to-day task list.
“One exercise emphasizes this idea that sometimes we create a box for ourselves where we think something’s off limits, or that it’s not within us or within our teams to seek, to do, to be curious or push boundaries,” says Sarah Lichtie, Kohler human resources director. “Sometimes, it’s just a matter of giving yourself permission to do that.”
Or it can be about knowing how to ask the right questions. Craig Kohn, Grad ’03, an engineering manager in the kitchen and bath group, earned an MBA from Marquette early in his career. Supplementing that background in leadership training, Kohn says, the Engineering Leadership Development Program focuses more on the technical details he encounters daily. “From an engineering leadership perspective, we’re trying to figure out how we get the right people, the right systems and the right mindset to solve the right problems for our customers,” Kohn says. “This program helps us foster innovation so we can keep developing great products that meet our customers’ needs.”
Jodi Gilliam, a product data management manager currently completing the program, says the experience has encouraged her to lead with intention in her work and seek new opportunities for career leadership and growth. “The Marquette facilitators are a dynamic group with a breadth of knowledge and creative knack to deliver meaningful content,” Gilliam says. “The content is engaging and the training team’s energy and passion are easily recognizable, which builds an environment of learning and collaboration.”
Because participants hail from around the world — past participants came from the U.S., Mexico, Italy, France, the United Kingdom, India and China — the program also offers opportunities for cross-cultural collaboration and learning.
“It was a very amazing and memorable experience for me to travel to the Marquette campus, as this was my first time visiting any university campus in the USA and outside India,” says Sandeep Pawar, a senior manager at Kohler’s India Technical Center currently enrolled in the program. “This program has absolutely enhanced my career journey by providing insights on developing critical leadership skills, helped to build a strong network within the organization, and opened doors to more challenging and impactful leadership roles.”
FIELD Center experts are ready to design and deliver custom leadership development programs for companies from a full range of industry sectors. Contact Kate Trevey at katherine.trevey@marquette.edu to learn about partnering to develop innovation leaders in your workplace.
While Smith says the Marquette team’s ability to deliver the material in an exciting, engaging way has been a big part of the program’s success, Trevey said having champions in Smith and Lichtie at Kohler has been beneficial for Marquette’s involvement as well.
“It’s been a true partnership, and we’re grateful for their belief in our work and what we do – and helping us make sure we’re delivering the material so it will be received well in their context,” Trevey says. “The word ‘partnership’ in this scenario is not hollow — it’s not just a partnership, it’s a relationship.”
