Marathon Petroleum's Amanda Inskeep aims to inspire girls in engineering and STEM fields

When Amanda Inskeep was hired as operations manager at Marathon Petroleum in January, she was told the job “was a stretch” for her as a woman in a male-dominated field.

She’s tasked with overseeing the oil and gas producer’s Permian Basin operations from its hub in Carlsbad, after years of experience with Marathon and Pioneer Natural Resources – another major oil and gas producer in the region.

This year, she joined the Carlsbad 40 Under 40 as part of its 2023 class, honored as one of the city’s rising young professionals.

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Throughout her career Inskeep, 36, said she’s experienced similar comments and microaggressions from her peers but hasn’t let that stop her from pursuing and advancing a career in the industry.

“I move on from them,” she said. “You don’t let them get to you because you know who you are as a person. I’ve proven myself.”

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Inskeep said she's done that by continually finding success in building relationships, and mediating.

She said when she first started working as an engineer, she took a different approach than most.

“I was not your stereotypical engineer who comes in and says, 'I’m the engineer,’” Inskeep said. “It was more ‘Teach me.’ I approached my relationships that way. I made some good ones.”

It all started in Aurora, Colorado, where Inskeep grew up with her parents, also both petroleum engineers.

She said she was always strong in math and science, but wanted to do something different from her parents, initially opting to study geology at the University of Colorado Boulder just down to the road from her hometown.

“I wanted to rebel against that,” she said of her parents’ professions. “I didn’t want to do what they did.”

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It was a study-abroad trip in Australia where Inskeep said she found her calling in the very field she’d been avoiding.

She said it was the first time she’d been far away from home for an extended amount of time, meeting new people and gaining a different perspective on her life and what she wanted to be.

“Australia was really the first time I felt on my own,” Inskeep said. “I had already done just what was expected. I figured out who I was without my parents and family.”

She was drawn to petroleum engineering, Inskeep said, because it affords her the ability to ensure energy development occurs safely.

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“It’s going to happen regardless of whether I’m involved or not,” Inskeep said. “I know I’m going to make it safe. The people who turn the valves and wrenches are going to go home safe.”

A stint teaching sixth grade math during a downturn in oil and gas also helped Inskeep learn to better manage people, and she found many of the lessons she learned in the classroom from students readily applied to a professional setting.

“I was amazed by how much of teaching isn’t teaching, but classroom management,” she said. “It taught me patience and setting clear expectations.”

She also hopes to use her role to inspire interested teenaged girls to pursue science and technology-based fields, while working for more female representation in the workforce both in leadership roles and the oilfield itself.

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Inskeep leads a network of female employees at Marathon, covering topics related to gender roles and empowerment in the workplace.

She said this is intended to drive up diversity in the company and ensure the female half of the world’s population is well represented.

A report from the Society of Women Engineers showed women make up about 34% of workers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) careers in 2019.

Women were about 35% of U.S. environmental engineers, the report read, while they represented just 9% of mechanical engineers.

Inskeep said there has been some progress in recent years to increase the number of women in the oil and gas industry and in STEM fields, but there is more work to do.

“I’m very proud of having the engineering background,” Inskeep said. “I want girls to see that they can do it. I have females that are operators too. I think it’s an important step.”

That penchant for leadership led her husband Jerrod Inskeep to nominate Inskeep for 40 Under 40, she said.

And she’s beginning to see it for herself.

“I think he wants me to see my value,” she said of her husband. “We want to stay humble but also recognize that there’s a lot I’ve achieved that’s rare. I’m starting to see that more and more.”

Adrian Hedden can be reached at 575-628-5516, achedden@currentargus.com or @AdrianHedden on X, formerly known as Twitter.

This article originally appeared on Carlsbad Current-Argus: Amanda Inskeep aims to inspire girls in engineering and STEM fields