After her junior year at Notre Dame, Rebecca Hainley interned at Xerox in the production systems group, working on the iGen3 — Xerox’s flagship product. Xerox recruited Hainley, a mechanical engineering major, during a visit to the campus.

As a member of Notre Dame’s Society of Women Engineers (SWE-ND), Hainley saw the internship as a great opportunity for a female undergraduate engineering major. She says SWE-ND — sponsored through the Women in Engineering program, the group that actually receives the Xerox scholarships — offers a strong support network, one that follows through at Xerox. “I definitely see women, diversity [at Xerox],” she says. “[B]oth my manager and my manager’s manager are female. It’s just good to see women in engineering succeed.”

While interning, Hainley had the opportunity to meet Notre Dame alumni working at Xerox. Annie Fitzpatrick, an engineer in Xerox production systems group, became a mentor for Hainley.

After working with the production systems group for three months over the summer of 2005, Hainley was offered a position to work at Xerox in Rochester after she graduated. Although she took time to think through the offer and balance other options, she ultimately returned to the same group she interned with as an engineer on the fuser subsystem for the iGen3. “I think having other Notre Dame people around, aside from the educational background, gives you a sense of familiarity,” Hainley says. Having that familiarity and a network certainly helped her decision.

Hainley says she sees endless opportunities at Xerox. Although she works on the process side of a technical group, she’s interested in working on design and structures someday.

In the meantime — to work toward her goal — Hainley is working on a master’s in mechanical engineering at the Rochester Institute of Technology through Xerox’s graduate studies program.

This article is the second in two-part series. Read the first part, “Building the Relationship.”

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