How to Have a Successful Career in the Field Services Industry

On this episode of Field Focus, a podcast by MSI Data, host Mike Pandl, Vice President of Marketing of MSI Data, talked with Jay McFadyen, Chief Services Officer at Fairbanks Morse Defense and President at Fairbanks Morse. The duo spoke about field service leadership from a career perspective, the skills required to be successful, career paths to lead someone to field service leadership, and several other topics on this subject.

Fairbanks Morse manufactures and delivers high-quality engines and power systems for military and commercial-class vessels designed to perform under the most rigorous operating conditions. They build diesel, dual fuel and gas engines to meet a wide range of applications. They recently underwent a rebranding to highlight their focus on supporting the Navy and the Coast Guard.

When it comes to making a career in field services leadership, McFadyen found himself in a leadership position after stints as an engineer at General Electric. There, he would have to explain the results of product acceptance testing to customers. He also worked as a design engineer for another company, and it was here that he knew he had a passion for working with customers and solving challenging problems.

“My path led me through different roles in program management, operations and general management, but the assignment that kind of created that senior leadership opportunity was a program management role, where I spent a significant amount of time working alongside our field service engineers to overcome late delivery of equipment,” McFadyen said. “It was during that time that I realized how much of our company’s reputation relied on the customer’s perception of the field service team.”

Follow us on social media for the latest updates in B2B!

Twitter – @MarketScale
Facebook – facebook.com/marketscale
LinkedIn – linkedin.com/company/marketscale

Follow us on social media for the latest updates in B2B!

Image

Latest

Doable
Rethinking Leadership: Why “Doable” Might Be the Most Powerful Strategy in Education Today
April 3, 2026

At a time when educator burnout is rising and schools across the U.S. are facing ongoing teacher shortages, leaders are being forced to rethink what sustainable success actually looks like. Research shows that teacher attrition is closely tied to working conditions, job-related stress, and workload demands. As districts push for innovation, data-driven instruction, and…

Read More
Casey Brown
From Poverty to Pricing Power | Why Great Companies Undercharge
April 2, 2026

Casey Brown didn’t grow up thinking she would become an entrepreneur. She grew up in a blue-collar family where money was always tight — close enough to the edge that the fear of poverty shaped many of her early decisions. That fear led her into engineering, into corporate America, and eventually into a moment…

Read More
Nightingales Summit: Empowering the Next Generation of Nigerian Nurses
Nightingales Summit: Empowering the Next Generation of Nigerian Nurses
April 2, 2026

In this episode of Care Anywhere, host Lea Sims sits down with Nigerian nurse entrepreneur and advocate Obafemi Arowosegbe to discuss leadership, mentorship, and the future of nursing in Africa. While still a nursing student, Obafemi founded the Nightingale Summit, a growing conference designed to empower nursing students and early-career nurses with leadership skills,…

Read More
Oncology
From Denial to Access: Rethinking Oncology Care Through AI, Clinical Trials, and Patient-Centered Innovation
April 1, 2026

The rapid expansion of precision medicine, biologics, and targeted cancer therapies is transforming oncology—but it’s also overwhelming a system not built to keep pace. In the U.S., cancer drugs now account for some of the highest-cost treatments in healthcare, and with that has come a surge in prior authorization requirements and denials. Studies suggest physicians…

Read More