When asked if he was currently in his “dream job” as vice president and chief R&D officer for Valvoline, Roger England’s response says it all:
“Heck yeah. I have a great time. I enjoy going to work,” Roger shares with Bill Babcox in the most recent episode of the AMN Drivetime podcast. “I was hired into Cummings Technical Center after high school as a janitor. No one in my family really went to college. My high school advisors told me that I wasn’t smart enough to go to college, that I needed to get my butt to trade school. And at the time, that was a union position to be a janitor there and paid pretty good money. My dad ran a garage, so I kind of grew up working in the garage, and there were a lot of guys who were engineers at Cummins that would work the second shift at the garage for my dad. They were really smart guys and I thought, ‘You know, hanging out at someplace like that with a lot of smart people is not a bad idea.’”
Turns out it was not a very bad idea at all. As Roger shares, he walked into Cummins with a high school diploma and walked out with a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering. “When I left, I was leading intellectual property, advanced manufacturing and materials engineering for the corporation. I spent a lot time working – most of my time – working at the R&D Technical Center in Columbus, Indiana.”
In this latest AMN Drivetime podcast, Bill and Roger dive into a number of other interesting topics, including:
- 1:37: How Roger landed his dream job at Valvoline;
- 2:36: Fun experiences pursuing his other passion – racing;
- 4:49: The scoop on Valvoline’s sale of its global products business to Aramco;
- 8:15: Valvoline’s approach to the EV market and Roger’s take on the market as an “Internal Combustion” guy;
- 11:56: Valvoline’s growth strategy, including expanding into the heavy-duty segment;
- 15:03: What it’s like to hold 13 patents;
- 16:49: The best career advice Roger ever received from his grandfather
- 18:31 The always popular lightning round!
