Alumni
Engineering
Portland Magazine
February 22, 2019
J’reyesha “Jay” Brannon ’15 was featured on NBC News Learn. This particular episode, which focuses on women in engineering fields, follows Brannon on a recent Bureau of Environmental Services project in Portland’s own Forest Park. As construction manager, she was overseeing the installation of culvert pipes, which help convey water through the natural stream channels of the park and prevent erosion on the trails. “I come in at the final phase,” Brannon says. “I like to say I facilitate success.”
Since shooting this footage, Brannon has moved into a new construction manager position with the Portland Water Bureau, which focuses on metro-area drinking water. Upcoming projects include some improvements of Portland’s reservoirs and filtration plant.
Brannon has been interested in engineering since high school, where she was on the robotics team (she was also voted Cleveland High School’s Rose Festival Princess). But when she came to UP, she realized that her engineering interests were broader in scope than robotics; she wanted to solve problems that would connect her to people. So she started in UP’s civil and environmental engineering programs, and it then made perfect sense for her to begin working in the public sector. “It’s about giving back. People call us public servants, and I like that. I like to be in the know about my city.”
She also gives back by tutoring youth through a grassroots program called the Flying University in which volunteers offer after-school help in homes and neighborhood youth centers (to work against inequities that crop up when kids can’t get to mentoring resources). She also realized she wanted to make room for more women of color in the engineering field, so she is trying to reboot Portland’s chapter of National Society for Black Engineers.
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