Episode 26: Tana L. Utley

Tana L. Utley, Chief Technology Officer and Vice President at Caterpillar Inc., as the face of Caterpillar's 9,000 member technical community, oversees Caterpillar's research and development budget of approximately $1.98 billion per year. Her focus: sustaining Caterpillar's global technology leadership. Tana, one of three female members of the 38-person Executive Management Team, joined Caterpillar in 1986 - the year the space shuttle Challenger, disintegrated and lost, among others, a school teacher, Christa McAuliffe -- as a member of its College Graduate Training Program. Before joining Caterpillar, Tana received her mechanical engineering degree, cum laude, from Bradley University. At Bradley, she was the President of Tau Beta Pi Honor Society and participated in the wind ensemble, band, and clarinet choir. Tana's family - her father, Jan Allen, is a mechanical engineer, her two sisters are mechanical engineers and her spouse, Kent is a mechanical engineer -- focuses on "problem solving". Tana discussed the correlation between music - her first interest - and math.