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How I Work

I work inside the operation: facilities, labs, plants, and the systems that keep them safe and running. Engagements start with the physical plant and the people who operate it, then move to process, HSE, and the IT/OT that has to survive a real day of work.

 

I do not sell strategy decks, fundraising, or investment sourcing as the product, and I do not take work that I cannot defend with hands-on evidence. If the problem is not operational, I will say so and point you to a contact in my personal network.

Dr. Diana K. Grauer
My Story

Raised in the Flint Hills of Kansas, I am a third-generation engineer. I grew up around builders: garages, pump stations, and the habit of taking something apart to see why it failed. That is still the work.

 

I spent the next two decades in energy and industrial operations - laboratories, test facilities, manufacturing plants, and in the field - at Cameron, Schlumberger, TechnipFMC, Hoerbiger, Ocean Aero, NOV, and Idaho National Laboratory. The jobs were high-hazard and operational: utilities, HSE, commissioning, rotating machinery, budgets, and the teams that keep a facility running.

 

At INL, I met my husband while working on energy-infrastructure research. After years of moving for the work, we came home to Kansas to raise our children with the same grit and community that shaped me.

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I now work from Manhattan through Grauer Consulting, helping owners and operators stand up and run plants, laboratories, and energy assets. If the problem is whether the facility will actually operate, that is the conversation.

Education

2010

PhD
Mechanical & Nuclear Engineering
Kansas State University

  • Dissertation: "Simulation and optimization of non-isothermal compressible flow through large-bore two-stroke cycle natural gas transmission engines"

 

  • Graduate Research Assistant, National Gas Machinery Laboratory

 

  • Graduate Teaching Assistant, Thermodynamics 1 (ME 513)

 

  • Awarded "Outstanding Graduate Researcher" by the College of Engineering for Distinguished Research (2009)

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  • Awarded "Best Paper" at the Fall 2007 ASME Internal Combustion Engine Division Fall Technical Conference. Paper later published in the ASME Journal of Gas Turbines and Power (2008)

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  • Patent awarded for graduate research: US 8622045 B2 "Active Air Control" (2014)

2006

BS
Mechanical & Nuclear Engineering
Kansas State University

  • Mechanical & Nuclear Engineering Department class president (2005-2006)

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  • President of Mechanical & Nuclear Engineering student advisory committee, ABET accreditation (2005-2006)

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  • Founding member of Women in Mechanical & Nuclear Engineering (WoMNE).

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  • Compressor Plant Engineer, Kinder Morgan (Co-op 2006)

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  • Undergraduate Research Assistant, National Gas Machinery Laboratory (2004-2006)

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  • Power Plant Design Engineer, Kiewit Power (Intern 2003)

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  • Power Plant Piping Engineering, Kiewit Power (Intern 2002)

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  • Products Pipeline Engineering Intern, National Cooperative Refinery Association (2002)

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  • Member of Alpha Chi Omega sorority

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  • Played intramural basketball, softball, and flag football

2019

Executive Education
Venture Capital
University of California Berkeley

  • Haas School of Business, Executive Education in early stage Venture Capital investing

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  • Founding member of the TechnipFMC corporate venture capital practice

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  • Developed rationale, created business cases, and verified accuracy in growth targets

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  • Manage due diligence, pilot testing, and integration planning for targeted VC investments, on behalf of business units and operations

How do you lead large-scale operational change effectively?

"New initiatives need a proper framework, leadership and motivation, to prevent strain on an organization. The team must understand why the change is needed, why they should be involved, and what they can do. Implementing shared decision-making, responsibility and accountability within your team will affect change more quickly. Give your team incremental, but critical changes within the operation to champion. Reinforcing these small steps in multiple systems and processes, while empowering the team to implement how these changes are made, leads to ownership of the operational behaviors that will eventually become inherent in the organization."

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