A Conversation with Parnian
What is your current job? Please list the title and briefly describe what it involves
I am a Senior Consultant. Put simply, my work involves visiting a wide range of facilities, from industrial plants to residential buildings, with the goal of evaluating potential for fire, explosion, and other losses. Once a potential loss scenario has been identified, the anticipated damages are estimated, and a series of potential solutions are offered to reduce or eliminate the probability or severity of that loss.
What made you want to pursue a career in engineering?
I was exposed to engineering from a very young age, given that both my parents were engineers and my older brother pursued the same field. While as a teenager I struggled in vain to find another career path just to be different from my family, I decided that chemistry was beyond fascinating, and math was too much fun to give up. Apparently the best way to put those together is with a Chemical Engineering degree.
What’s your favourite part of your job?
When I was a teenager, my favourite TV Show was How it’s made on the Discovery Channel: “See how everything from hand-crafted to factory-made products is put together”. The best part of my job is that I get to live that show every single day. Because to evaluate the risks, I must first understand How it’s made.
How do you celebrate National Engineering Month?
I’m celebrating this National Engineering Month by working to bring awareness to all the great things women do, and to break stigmas about what a woman, or an engineer, must be. It sounds like work, but it is very liberating to speak up about an issue you care passionately about.
What advice do you have for young women who hope to pursue a career in your field?
Many people believe that if they pursue engineering, they will have to give up creativity, or their artistic aptitudes. Engineering can be anything you want it to be. Keep your mind and imagination open. Pursue all your passions. One day they may coincide into an incredible unexpected career path.
Parnian’s BiographyParnian Jadidian is a graduate of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry from University of Toronto. The fourth engineer in her family of four, Parnian currently works as a Senior Consultant at Global Risk Consultants. Her job involves identifying and evaluating fire and explosion potentials at industrial and commercial facilities, and estimating the potential loss that may incur as a result of the incident. The goal is not only to identify the exposure, but to identify and implement solutions that will mitigate or reduce the loss. Though focus is placed on preventing monetary costs, workplace safety is an inevitable outcome of most of her work.
Still in the early stages of her career, Parnian started out as a Junior Process Engineer, helping to develop engineering design documents for refineries and petrochemicals facilities. Inspired by the risk assessment component of her role, she moved to FM Global, an industrial and commercial insurance company with engineering expertise in risk management. She has been at GRC since 2014, gaining invaluable experience at high hazard occupancies, such as large industrial plans, and specializing in high hazard facilities such as petrochemical and fertilizer production sites.
