El viaje de una mujer en ingeniería y confiabilidad

If I had to distill my life to one quote, it would be one by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian specializing in early America and the history of women. The quote is, “Well-behaved women seldom make history.” From socio-economic and collegiate challenges to challenges I’ve faced for being a woman in a male-dominated field, I’ve always been pushing and breaking the molds that my parents, employers, and colleagues have tried to place on me. 

My dream has always been to make a positive impact in this world. For me, this means being authentic to who I am while working hard to help facilities drive toward better reliability and maintenance practices. 

I chose to be a mechanical engineer to use my passion for math and science in an applicable way. While all engineering fields have earning potential, I picked mechanical engineering because of my continual interest in learning not just how a machine works but why it works. Why does the lubrication on a bearing have to be a certain viscosity? Why is a machine designed using one method and not another? As early as I can remember, I would ask the adults in my life these questions and they never had the answers. I wanted to find the answers. 

I know there are other women out there that have the drive to become engineers for the same reasons. I hope by telling this story, other women going through a similar struggle can be empowered by knowing there is a path up the mountain that does not have to be conquered alone. 

Engineering Then and Now

When I graduated high school in 2005, only 5.8% of mechanical engineers were women working in the field. Now, I’m proud to say that statistic has risen to 16% women in the field. However, there is still a lot of room for growth and development. The challenges from 20 years ago are still the same challenges I, and many engineers like me, face today. Women are still not seen as being suitable for such a “masculine” job by some, and this is a mindset we all need to work together to change. 

For many women, there are assumptions made about us, like what we’re capable of or what we’re interested in, that can make us look less desirable to the managers who determine what opportunities and promotions will be offered to us. However, this predicament can be remedied from both sides. Women in engineering need to be more assertive and ask to be included in emails and meetings where they may not otherwise be invited. And men need to better understand that not all women need or want to be taken care of or sheltered from the harsh realities work can bring. 

Engineers in the manufacturing industry are problem solvers and process creators trying to make things safer and more intrinsically sound for the facilities they help manage and improve. There is nothing more satisfying than fixing a historical problem with a bad actor, or being supported through implementing a systematic change that is known will make a process more consistent and reliable. Why should men have all the fun when women are willing to put in the time and effort?

Rising Above Assumptions

There have been many examples of stereotyping in my career, starting as early as college. To prove the stereotypes inaccurate, I had to work harder and be more committed than many of my male counterparts. Fellow students saw me as being aggressive because I was dedicated and determined to learn how to be a good engineer. I was also stereotyped as being no fun because I consistently had to work. While my classmates were able to live on campus or with parents, I had to work so I could live on my own, which led to later nights and longer weekends.

I couldn’t afford the dorms, and living at home had its own set of challenges. Neither of my parents went to college, so they didn’t understand the dedication needed to be successful, especially for the rigorous coursework I was required to take. It broke my heart when my mother once told me she “wanted her daughter back.” I was working to better myself, and my work ethic was making her feel like I loved her less because I didn’t have the time I used to. This, of course, was never my intention.

Both of my parents were also concerned I would earn this degree and never be able to use it because they had heard similar stories about other college graduates in their lives. This doubt became another obstacle I needed to overcome, but it would take time and support to earn my degree and become an engineer. Patience was not always plentiful in this endeavor and I knew I could not succeed entirely alone. I was able to find encouragement and support through good friends, various study groups, and small victories on the way to earning my degree. Once I graduated, I then used this network, as well as job recruiting websites, to secure my first job in Metropolis, IL. 

Many men I’ve crossed paths with over the years have had the misconception that because I’m a female, and therefore a minority in the field of mechanical engineering, that I will never and have never had a fear of being unemployed. 

When I was giving a tour of my college campus, which was a requirement to keep one of my scholarships, a father in the group told me, “You will never have to worry about being unemployed because you are a girl.” This is just not true. There are many undertones to a statement like that, a predominant one being that even though I was earning my degree, employers would only be interested in how I could help them reach a diversity quota. These types of assumptions hurt; no one wants to be just another number. 

I had visions of becoming an engineer of merit, who contributes to helping better programs, designs, or systems, and to make positive contributions to this world a little piece at a time. If you’re a man and have ever had a thought like the one earlier, I would encourage you to keep it to yourself. Dig deeper to realize condescending comments like that don’t help anyone. Everyone has a story and struggles, and humanity can benefit from the magic of engineering, so why let something we can’t choose like gender stand in the way of that progress?

Teamwork Is Essential in Progress

My journey didn’t get easier as I tried to find employment in 2010. The economy had not overcome the economic recession, and I was in competition with far more experienced engineers for available roles. I applied to 30 or more jobs a week for nine months before I finally started to get callbacks. The interview process is supposed to be a mutual sales pitch for the candidate and employer, so I wanted to make sure to present my best self in every interview. I wasn’t afraid to get dirty or step out of my comfort zone; in fact, I craved it. My ambition, however, was met with a staggering blow in a job interview. 

During the interview, a male senior engineer asked me verbatim, “Why do you want to work here? I wouldn’t want my daughter to work here.” This man didn’t feel like this “manly” role should be filled by a woman. 

Challenge accepted. 

I made sure to articulate that I could not be so easily deterred from my dream of becoming an engineer and making a difference. I wanted to be an engineer that helps make things within her scope a little better, one fact-based judgment at a time. Nor was I afraid of hard work, whether it be physical or mental. I understood then that the best way for me to make a difference was to prove that women can do the work deemed to be a “man’s” job, and I set out to do it better.

Men and women have different strengths, and many of these strengths compliment each other. If a team is just made up of one kind of person, there will be things missed and chances not taken that could negatively impact progress. Diverse collaboration is where truly beautiful things are born and can happen to help a company bloom into the best version of itself. 

Empathy Has a Place in Engineering

Fast forward to today where I’ve been able to work in the industry for 10 years. I’ve earned my API 510 and 580 certifications, as well as my CMRP certification. However, even with these standard-abiding qualifications, I still have struggles with my male colleagues seeing beyond my gender and treating me as an equal. While they make analogies with each other for programs and improvement opportunities regarding mechanical situations they’ve experienced in the past, they try to be relatable to me by using examples of pregnancy and dating boys. It makes for a lot of difficult conversations. 

My biggest hope in dealing with these challenging situations, and even writing this piece, is to be involved with educating those who don’t know what is and what isn’t appropriate when speaking with their female coworkers. 

Hopefully, if a leader in the industry reads this, it encourages him or her to ensure sensitivity training is robust, so teams can see real examples and truths of how we should be treating one another. I would like for the engineering world to become more inclusive so solutions are reached with a sound understanding of all perspectives, open to new ways of thought, and ultimately, more welcoming to people of all genders, races, and creeds. 

I thoroughly appreciate the female engineers of the past who played their part in the creation of opportunities available to me, and I hope to play my part in paying it forward for the women coming up behind me who want to be in the STEM field and who will not take no for an answer. I encourage each and every one of them to take that drive and vigor and get their degrees. There are a lot of things you can have taken away from you in this world, but the knowledge and abilities you get from education will always be yours.

Author Bio:

Anna Goodman is a Maintenance and Reliability Engineer with Pilot Chemical Company. She received her bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Cincinnati in 2010 and began working in the nuclear industry in 2011. In the past, she has worked in other industries as well. These include food, plastics, and petrochemical. The primary focus in each being to work with teams of various disciplines at the facilities to improve the reliability and mechanical integrity of the equipment.

Her work over the past five years can be summarized as covering the following: the design and evaluation of inspection and maintenance programs; managed and led crews to perform repairs and replacements for equipment that didn't have good equipment health or integrity; led and performed FMEAs and RCAs for failed or frequently failing equipment; trained other maintenance professionals about mechanical integrity and reliability principles; earned a certification in being a Certified Maintenance and Reliability Professional, API 510, and API 580.