Young girls should not create barriers for themselves when it comes to careers

In her work with Ervia, the parent company of Irish Water,April Mangan straddles two careers – as an engineer and as a public relations expert. She shares her thoughts on work, family and International Women's Day with Dan Buckley

International Women's Day is a focal point in the movement for women's rights, among them the right to pursue a career of choice. Engineer and communications expert April Mangan is the very embodiment of that choice.

In her work with Ervia, the parent company of Irish Water, she straddles two careers – as an engineer and as a public relations expert. She shares her thoughts on work, family and International Women's Day with Dan Buckley

April Mangan doesn’t do ‘normal days’.

Not that there’s anything particularly abnormal about them, it’s just that her job for Ervia, the parent company of Irish Water, involves mixing her skills as a civil engineer with her work as lead communicator dealing with some of the biggest infrastructure projects in the country.

Every working day is different and she likes it that way.

A proud Kerry woman from Killorglin, she is based in Cork city and has more than 20 years’ experience working in design and construction, primarily in the area of water supply. From road construction and water mains laying on Foster’s Avenue in Dublin, to Cairo — working on the construction of the Four Seasons Hotel — she settled in Cork and worked in an engineering consultancy for 18 years. After years on the design side, she began to work on the communication of infrastructure development, which led to her current role in Major Projects — a perfect blend of her knowledge of infrastructure development and communication skills.

April chose University College Dublin to do her primary degree, graduating in 1993. At first, she was unsure which career to study.

“I was always attracted to both communications and engineering but unsure which way to go, so I put them both into a hat and out came engineering,” she says.

A general introduction to the discipline in the first year allowed her to decide between chemical and civil as a career.

“I opted for civil and have never regretted it,” says April who then went on to do a Masters in water engineering.

Whether studying or working, she has always taken the scenic route: From Killorglin, to Killarney, to Dublin on to Cairo, and finally to Cork, where she now works and lives with her husband, Henry Smith, and their three children, aged 10, 13, and 15.

“My first job was in the development of Beaufort Golf Course in Killarney,” she says. “It was designed by Arthur Spring but it was a farm when we got it. The work was very much about moving materials around to get it from farmland to a golf course. I left before it was finished in order to do my Masters at UCD.”

After that, it was Cairo calling — at least for Henry, who is a mechanical engineer.

My husband likes to say that it was through an opportunity he got at work that brought us to Cairo,” says April. “I was working in Dublin at the time and he was with an international company and the choice was Cairo or Nairobi. We chose Cairo.

She soon got a job with a British company in Cairo, working on the construction of the Four Seasons Hotel in the vast city of more than 20 million people and they quickly settled in, taking classes in Arabic and engaging with locals.

It was, however, a dangerous time in Egypt, during which 62 people — mostly tourists — were massacred in the ancient city of Luxor. Egypt’s tourist industry was all but wiped out overnight. They also visited the famous Aswan dam and saw the famous Nile river boats tied up at their moorings.

“It was mad to see all those houseboats parked up,” says April. “It was scary.”

They never made it to Luxor and after two years, April and Henry came home to Ireland in 1999: “Two years was enough.”

Back home, April is now responsible for project communications for the Cork Lower Harbour Main Drainage Project which, on completion, will end the discharge of raw sewage into the harbour. The equivalent of 40,000 wheelie bins of raw sewage was being discharged into the harbour every day before this project got underway. This will be reduced to zero by 2021.

It isn’t all about work, though. With three children, family life is busy but she and Henry try to get to Killorglin as much as possible to visit her parents, grandmother, and five siblings. Living in Ballincollig makes for an easy enough journey.

“We always go down for Easter and for Puck Fair, of course,” says April. “It’s only an hour and 20 minutes, door to door.”

Other forms of recreation keep her on her toes, literally.

“We do set dancing with Comhaltas in Ballincollig and a few days ago, we did salsa,” she says.

“I am doing a zumba class on Mondays. I was never a big fan of aerobics but this involves exercising in dance so it doesn’t feel like exercise.”

Like tens of thousands of Irish women, April will be celebrating International Women’s Day. “It is important to celebrate the achievements of women,” she says. “It is equally important that girls do not create barriers for themselves and don’t shut the door on careers like engineering.”

She has her foot in two camps, with a BE and Masters in engineering and a Higher Diploma in public relations.

I have come back to communications via engineering, so I can explain the issues from both perspectives,” says April. “I can talk to engineers and also explain to everyone concerned what we are doing.

She would recommend becoming an engineer to anyone, particularly girls, and says the prospect of wearing hard hats and getting down and dirty shouldn’t put them off.

“The notion of wearing hard hats and spending days on end on site might put some girls off from becoming an engineer, but the reality is that a lot of work goes on in the office and you can be as office-based as you like,” she says. “My sister is a computer engineer and she has never worn a hard hat in her life.”