DVIDS – News – NSWC Philadelphia Division Hosts “Introduce a Girl to Engineering” Event for National Engineers Week

&#13
Naval Surface area Warfare Middle, Philadelphia Division hosted an on the web occasion for girls from Abraham Lincoln Large School, Tiny Flower Catholic Large Faculty for Ladies, Philadelphia Substantial School for Women, and Danville Superior School as section of Nationwide Engineers Week on Feb. 23, 2023.

The function dubbed “Introduce a Woman to Engineering” brought attained women of all ages in a wide variety of engineering fields to share their encounters and supply direction to promising youthful gals from across the Philadelphia space.

NSWCPD Science, Technological know-how, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Outreach Software Manager Tristan Wolfe introduced Deputy Chief Engineer Dorothy Kraynik to give the event’s opening remarks for viewers via Microsoft Teams.

“Creating the Upcoming is the theme for Countrywide Engineers Week this yr and my hope is these women’s stories spark your desire in engineering and are the catalyst for you to start your path to this worthwhile industry. Of course, there will be issues, but I have no doubt that with enthusiasm in your coronary heart, you will be equipped to attain your ambitions just like the females you see in this article,” Kraynik explained.

Rhonda Hart, the main engineer for the Forward Deployed Regional Upkeep Middle (FDRMC), was the visitor speaker for the situation.

“When I was rising up, you did not see a lot of gals in technical fields…There was a full state of mind of what was girls’ matters to do and what was boys’ matters to do … For instance, if my father was out tinkering on the car or truck it was my brothers who had been out there holding the flashlight,” Hart mentioned. “It’s not that I wished to be out there holding the flashlight and getting my dad yelling at me that I wasn’t doing it right like he was performing to my brothers, it was more alongside the strains that I didn’t like getting informed I couldn’t do a thing simply because I was a woman. It didn’t sit right with me.”

Her father was apprehensive about Hart’s occupation option at very first, but his doubts have been promptly erased soon after being capable to see her skill firsthand as element of an elective university study course.

“The initially elective I took in higher education was a welding elective … my father was a welder, he wasn’t eager on this and he believed this was some minor experience and I would appear to my senses. When I took the elective and started off to weld beads on plated metallic, I would send samples to him and the initially time he saw the samples he was a convert, he was on my facet all the way,” Hart explained.

Profitable individuals about turned a topic for the Michigan native as she immediately attained the regard of her colleagues who then became advocates for her when she was wrongfully dismissed.

“Sometimes people would connect with you on the phone from the ship and say that they essential support … and they would retain repeating it not believing the woman on the line could assistance them. So I convert to the senior chief engineer who sat up coming to me and reported ‘he doesn’t want my assist he wishes yours,’” Hart stated.

She ongoing, “I tell this tale because when he picked up the telephone and the other dude would say once more that he required assistance, he claimed ‘the individual you want to chat to is Rhonda Hart’… that senior chief experienced my again, he believed in me, and he supported me. You come across assist no subject what the situation are in unpredicted spots. People want you to triumph and even when it doesn’t experience that way, people are in your corner.”

Hart designed confident to give the college students some words of encouragement as she shut her speech.

“There are engineers for all the things out there … If you want to save the planet and you want to go after environmental engineering or alternate vitality then that’s your pursuit … Adhere to your enthusiasm. It really is real that if you do a little something you adore it does not truly feel like get the job done,” Hart stated. “If I can tell the more youthful me what I know currently I would say ‘if I’m the only a single that appears to be like this in the room, then I belong.’”

There was also a Q&A session throughout the party with a panel that consisted of NSWCPD engineers Makayla Holt, Tania Teissonniere-Almodovar, Chelsea Kpodi, and Laura Loehle.

NSWCPD’s Propulsion, Power & Auxiliary Equipment Section Head Karen Dunlevy Miller offered the event’s closing remarks for the viewers loaded with the future era of women engineers.

“Be very pleased to stand out in the viewers. I came from an all-women high school so probably you’re heading to feel uncomfortable at initial in your college courses, being one particular of the handful of women of all ages, but I problem you to embrace that prospect to stand out … Enable Ms. Hart and our panel be shining examples that proficient, tricky-working ladies will conquer any obstacles and continue on breaking glass ceilings,” Dunlevy Miller stated.

NSWCPD employs somewhere around 2,800 civilian engineers, scientists, experts, and guidance personnel. The NSWCPD workforce does the study and development, exam and evaluation, acquisition assistance, and in-company and logistics engineering for the non-nuclear equipment, ship machinery techniques, and relevant devices and materials for Navy area ships and submarines. NSWCPD is also the guide group furnishing cybersecurity for all ship programs.