LEEA celebrates Int. Women’s Day
International Women's Day (March 8) is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity. Events are organised worldwide as groups come together to celebrate women's achievements or rally for women's equality under this year’s theme #InspireInclusion.
To celebrate this year’s event, LEEA members; Amanda Gardiner, MD, Durham Lifting; Leonore Van Wijngaarden, VP, Corporate Supply Chain Management, Royal Van Beest; Emma Stonehouse, sales manager, Durham Lifting; Gisela Balderas, data scientist, Alatas Crane Services Worldwide; Brendan Forbes, technical director, Alatas Crane Services Worldwide and Tessa Aindow, marketing manager, Modulift UK all took part in a voxpop to share their thoughts.
Durham Lifting has been designing and building lifting equipment for the last 35 years.
“I first joined the organisation when I was 14/15 year’s old and have a huge passion for anything lifting – cranes, beams, testing, I love the oil & gas and offshore wind industry. I’m very much in a senior position in the organisation and there aren’t many of us in senior roles in the UK, if I am brutally honest. I enjoy the challenges, competitiveness and love the fact we have quality products we put out there in the marketplace that keep people safe,” said Gardiner.
Van Wijngaarden said diversity leads to better problem solving and a better result overall, and people from different backgrounds have different ways of thinking and approaching issues, which gives a more dynamic environment.
“While we have a lot to celebrate on the position of women nowadays, I think there is also a long way to go. I’m proud to be a woman in the industry and I’m committed to a future where equality strives,” she said.
Stonehouse, who also works at Durham Lifting, says what she loves about the industry is the diverse range of clients that they work with, different sectors, products and the fact that every day is different. She said she has seen some exciting changes in the industry over the years and the innovation is amazing, she’s seeing things are getting bigger, more complex lifts and the design and engineering that goes into that is fantastic.
“I’m very proud to be a woman in the industry and fortunate to work in a team of strong accomplished women and it’s wonderful to see not only women in management positions but STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) engineers as well,” she added.
Balderas has worked for Alatas for six years, originally starting in their office in Mexico, before studying a Master’s degree in Data Science and re-joining the company in the UK. Her background is oil & gas engineering.
“Even though it’s a male dominated industry, my advice would be to not be afraid as we can bring a lot to the table. We have the knowledge and we are on the same page as men. I am proud of myself because I learnt a lot of programming languages in a very short amount of time and I consider myself to be fully immersed in the industry,” she said.
Forbes, also from Alatas, said he was delighted to see his colleague Gisela representing the company in celebrating International Women’s Day and that she has a unique journey coming from one of their overseas entities to the UK, doing a prominent role in the data science service of the business.
“We do find it difficult to recruit females in the local Aberdeen market, it is buoyant and there are a lot of people competing for jobs so I’m glad to see we’ve got some coming through into the company, doing exceptionally well and we just need to look at how we can get more visibility for others to come and join us,” he said.
Aindow said: “It might not seem like the most glamorous industry, but for me, working for a company that actually manufactures what we sell, is really quite impressive when you see these huge spreader beams being shipped out of our factory, sent to all different parts of the world to lift a wind turbine or a boat or part of a building.
“If you are a woman thinking of getting into the lifting industry, I wouldn’t be scared by the fact that its male dominated, if anything, as a woman, you bring a bit of a fresh perspective. Lifting affects so much of every part of our lives, from the car you drive, to the food you’re eating, all of that is going to have some kind of lifting element, at some point in its journey before it gets to you and that in itself is amazing.”
Click HERE to watch the video on LEEA YouTube.
