GCU Today April Digital Issue 2018

1 Why the auto industry, and what did you specialize in? In Detroit, you pretty much never thought of doing something else. I was at General Motors and they were doing big downsizing. I took a buyout and went to TRW Automotive during the expansion of airbags and seatbelts. I said, “Ugh, I’m never going to leave Detroit!” The next week I went from my moaning and complaining to an offer to move to England. I was there for five years. Ford was designing a car for the world market, and TRW Worldwide had all the seatbelt and airbag content. 2 How did you end up in Phoenix? My job (in London) moved back to Detroit. I didn’t want to go back to Detroit and ended up in Arizona to work with TRW here at the time. I worked with TRW in a job share with another woman engineer. We split a job working two days one week and three days the next and trading. We shared the same nanny. The nanny worked full time either at my house or her house, so it worked really well. It was a way to not have to work full time but still be in the game. 3 Why did you want to become a city councilwoman? I was active on zoning cases in Mesa, like neighborhood stuff. Once you volunteer for these things the city says, “Hey, you’re really involved. Would you like to be on this advisory board?” And so, “Sure!” I ended up being on the board of adjustment, which is a board that looks at variance requests. They made me the chair in my first six months, which was really funny. From there, I saw that a council seat was opening and I thought, “Yeah. I’ve got to get involved.” I was on the Mesa City Council for five years and am contemplating running in the summer for the fall. The city of Mesa had never had an elected engineer — ever. I was the first one. 4 How did serving as a city councilwoman enrich your life? I was just able to do lots of stuff. We started a women’s homeless program. It’s called IHELP (Interfaith Homeless Emergency Lodging Plan), and it’s for women without kids. We didn’t have a shelter for them. It’s a program where there are different churches enrolled in the program. A van takes them to whatever church is on for the night and they spend the night in the church. Local services come to them, like if they need help finding their paperwork, birth certificates, drivers’ licenses. I am also on the board of directors for Sunshine Acres Children’s Home. There are big houses where 10 foster kids live with a set of parents. The parents take them to sporting events, concerts, parent-teacher meetings. The kids never get kicked out at a certain age; it is their home. Through the GCU Foundation, the University has offered seven full-ride scholarships every year to students who qualify. There are so many things you can learn. 5 How did you get into welding and metal sculptures? The short story is I wanted a coffee table. I went to countless stores and could not find one. Then I found one, and it sold for $3,000. That’s a lot of money for a coffee table. I said, “I’m going to go to Mesa Community College and learn how to weld for myself.” So that’s what I did. — Lana Sweeten-Shults 5 on5 5 Q U E S T I ON S W I T H Dina Higgins Mechanical Engineering Technology Professor B ecause she’s from Motown, it seemed like a given that Dina Higgins would jumpstart a career in the auto industry. She has worked not only in Detroit but for five years in London, where her two sons were born. It was the auto industry that brought her to the Phoenix area, where she also has served as a Mesa city councilwoman and worked for wastewater management firms (she can talk water as well as she can talk cars). But she also was the carpool mom for a while, helped start a women’s homeless program and is a metal sculptor. She has been at GCU since 2016. Outside the classroom, she loves golf and proudly tackles GCU boot camp twice a week. “When it comes to planks, I’m occasionally the last one standing,” she said. GCU MAGAZ I NE • 5