January
2008
Women in Engineering
A few of my clients at work are in the oil & gas and energy fields, so I know first-hand that women play a minor role in this industry. Why do you think this is? Why are so many women underrepresented in so many careers? Here’s another question the below article raised: Why don’t men struggle with balancing a career with family life? Why aren’t they expected to put just as much emphasis on family as they do their job? And I see the covers of these women’s magazines “How does the busy mom do it?” “Women, Work and Family: A Balancing Act”. I like what the article said - men need to be at home with their family too.
Here’s a recent article I found in the Beaumont Enterprise:
ExxonMobil’s Vander Laan Part of Growing Group of Women in Leadership Roles in Petrochemical Industry
Beaumont Enterprise - January 12, 2008
Lisa Vander Laan, manager of ExxonMobil Corp.’s polyethylene plant for almost a year, is seeing more women in leadership roles in the petrochemical industry, which once - like many manufacturing jobs - were almost exclusively male-dominated.
“It certainly has been,” Vander Laan said of who traditionally has led industrial workforce. “But it’s changing. When I started in engineering, there were very few (female) supervisors and managers were even harder to find.”
ExxonMobil also broke the local mold by bringing in Lori Ryerkerk for a tour as Beaumont refinery manager. She is now at corporate headquarters in Irving.
Vander Laan, 40, a Lake Charles, La., native who graduated from Louisiana State University in 1989 with a degree in chemical engineering, spent her first decade with ExxonMobil in Baton Rouge in manufacturing and the next seven years at the corporation’s Houston headquarters for chemicals before she took over at the polyethylene plant, 11432 U.S. 90.
The plant produces the polymer that is sold to other companies that make end-user products such as plastic film that holds together a package of water bottles, for example, or plastic dry-cleaner bags, or the plastics sacks that hold groceries.
The material for it comes through an ethylene pipeline from the ExxonMobil chemical plant next to the Beaumont refinery.
Like the other ExxonMobil plants in Beaumont, the polyethylene plant is designated as a Star Site by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which means it has attained a high level of safe operations through programs developed by labor and management.
It’s a designation the polyethylene plant must recertify in 2009, and it’s the kind of thing that Vander Laan said suits her well.
“I tend to be more inclusive and teamwork-driven,” she said of her own management style. “I got lucky. This is one of my favorite jobs. It’s a big responsibility. The people are my favorite part of the job. They talk about their can-do attitude.”
It came as no surprise to Vander Laan that she would become a chemical engineer. It seems to run in the family.
“My dad is a chemical engineer. I have an older sister and younger sister who are chemical engineers. And all the girls married ExxonMobil guys,” she said.
Chemical engineering at Lamar University draws more women than any other engineering specialty, said Jack Hopper, dean of the College of Engineering.
Since 2002, Hopper said women averaged 41 percent of the graduates in chemical engineering, and that trend is holding.
“Females identify more with chemistry more than they do with physics,” Hopper said, drawing on more than 40 years of experience in tracking the trends.
An emphasis in physics would lead engineering graduates into electrical, mechanical and civil engineering, Hopper said.
All aspects of engineering, including chemical engineering, require mathematics, “and women are excellent mathematicians,” Hopper said.
Vander Laan agrees that there are “significantly more women” in chemical engineering than in the other engineering disciplines. She said ExxonMobil encourages girls to get into math and science.
“We have an ‘Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day,’ ” Vander Laan said. It’s in the spring, she said.
Her own daughters are 10 and 12, and she has no idea whether they are headed for chemical engineering like she and her sisters, who “love math,” she said.
Even though the responsibilities of plant manager are a challenge, Vander Laan said ExxonMobil also is supportive of what she calls a “work-family balance.”
“It’s not just being female, but it’s also family,” she said. “It’s not just women who need to get home and be with the kids, but men need to get home and be with the kids, too.”
From U.S. News & World Report:
