BS: Today, you work together at Forsythe and Long Engineering. How does that work?
Margaret: Well, we quit being tennis partners.
Phillip: It takes effort; it is not for the average couple. Our personalities are so different, it works well actually. We have developed a few spin-off companies and work with everything from fertilizer, to automotive and aluminum plants, to paper mills and mining. We tag team well.
Margaret: We are so busy and there is so much to do. Phillip does a lot of the interacting with clients and I do a lot of the office work. We also have about 40 employees. We both understand the demands of owning a business.
BS: OK, two engineers at the office and two engineers at home. Is that a challenge?
Phillip: We are both detail-oriented. We get that about each other. And we balance each other.
Margaret: We complement each other very well, and we have similar interests. For Phillip, things have to be done right, not just OK. I can appreciate that.
BS: Besides engineering fundamentals, what is one thing you learned at Auburn that has impacted your professional life?
Margaret: That the details are important. In my chem labs and ME labs, details were very important to the descriptions of our experiments and our lab reports. That is what we want people to hire us for – our attention to detail.
Phillip: To have an open mind and be creative. This is so important to so much of what we do. I had a colleague who had a professor that asked the class, “What are you going to do to
change or impact the world?” That has really stuck with me, and it is one of our goals. What are we going to do professionally to impact the food we grow, the cars we drive, the metals we use?
BS: What Auburn Engineering experiences have changed you?
Margaret: My professors were very encouraging to me as a woman – especially in mechanical engineering. There were not many of us. Usually, there were two or three in a class and we all sat in the front row. I got this advice early on from one of my ME professors, “It is not good enough for you to do just as well as the men, you must do more.” They always made me believe that I could.
Phillip: There were people at Auburn who encouraged us, and dozens who have mentored us during the course of our careers. I look back and see the influence they had on us. We want to do the same thing for new engineers and professionals, so we try to use our company to hire young people and give them experience.
BS: Why have you chosen to be involved with Auburn Engineering and support the college financially?
Phillip: A lot of good people have mentored us in our careers and it has made a difference in our lives. Auburn changed our perspective on what and how much we could accomplish. It is important to us to see that current and future generations of students have equal or better opportunities than we did.
Margaret: Neither of our parents had the opportunity to attend college. Auburn did a great job of preparing us for our careers, and Phillip and I asked, “How can we give back the gift that was given to us?” Even though we give back to Auburn, it continues
to give back to us. It is an honor for us.
