HAZARD GIRLS

As women in construction, planning to change the dynamic of our industry seems feeble if our meetups, retreats, and gatherings consist solely of women talking to women about how great women are and how to get more women on job sites. Today we welcome Kristina Mahler, a marketing-minded, small business strategist who has found her passion in heavy equipment, dirt moving, and growing the construction workforce. In her early career, Kristina spent time in fine jewelry, event management, and association leadership until recently starting Steel Toe Consulting. Steel Toe is equal parts business consulting and marketing agency with an eye towards shaking things up in construction and related industries. She is also the founder of the construction workforce development, a non-profit that has been dominating social media lately called CREW Collaborative. Kristina has also been pursuing welding on the side as a passion project. She is a motivational executive with over 20 years of experience in team leading, marketing strategy, sales innovation, business development, content creation, and operations know-how within the construction industry. She is a strong collaborator with a successful track record of forming powerful relationships, managing budgets, discovering and capitalizing on opportunities, increasing profits, and promoting brands. Kristina is truly passionate about unique guerrilla marketing tactics, and is professionally and personally driven to make a positive impact in the world. So tune in today as we hear all this and more from Kristina Mahler.

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Amanda Allred is a professional licensed land surveyor in six Western states, and she joins us today to talk about the educational and career journey that got her to where she is today. Amanda has owned and operated her own surveying firm and is the district land surveyor for the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) in the Walla Walla District, where she oversees all land surveying activities for the development of water resources projects on the Colombia and Snake rivers. She has also worked for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in Alaska and New Mexico and is the vice president of the National Society of Professional Surveyors (NSPS), having also served in the past as the president and director of her state NSPS. Additionally, she has served on the national executive board of directors and as the chair of the NSPS Western States Director’s Council. In this episode, she describes the lack of awareness about the benefits of a career in land surveying, emphasizing the financial advantages as well as the perks of being outdoors and traveling all over the world, should it be something that appeals to you. After giving listeners a sense of what the tasks and responsibilities of a land surveyor involve, our guest gets into the important role of mentorship, the need for greater diversity in the industry, and the relationship between niching down and being happy with what you do.  

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This week we welcome Melissa Gaglione, the president of Safety4Her, a women’s safety and work gear brand aimed at supplying women with personal protective equipment (PPE). In this episode, she joins Emily to talk about her experiences as a woman in a male-dominated industry. Melissa also works in the trucking industry, running operations with her fiancé for two family-owned towing companies and two family-owned trucking companies in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Most impressively, this mother of five is also a former real estate consultant, sits on the board of several real estate organizations, and was recently named Women in Trucking Member of the Month by the Women in Trucking Association. Joining in, listeners will hear Melissa talk about what drew her to the industry in the first place, what kind of challenges she faced early on, and how she responds to negative comments online. Melissa discusses the motivation behind starting a safety workwear brand for women and gets into all the wonderful products they offer for ladies everywhere. Tune in today!

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Today on the podcast, we speak with Joan Melendez-Misner, a rocket scientist, science communicator, and influencer who has 14,000 followers on Instagram. When she is not making waves with her TikTok videos, Joan is a Mission Integration Systems Engineer at NASA, where she works for the Launch Services Program, managing space and aeronautical flight systems for all non-crewed and scientific missions. She works on design and operational requirements definition, hardware and software development, testing, and verification. Joan shares with Emily how she sees her role as a science communicator, how she is making STEM more accessible to people through her fun yet educational videos, and what she is hoping to communicate to others who might believe that they aren’t smart enough to be in the field. Listeners will also hear how she eventually got a job offer from NASA, what it was like starting on the team during the pandemic, and why she decided against medicine in her first year of college. Being the first one in her family to get a college degree, Joan also shares how her mom encouraged her to pursue formal education to make a better life for herself, and she emphasizes the importance of women pulling tougher and hyping each other up to break the negative stereotypes they face in male-dominated industries.

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Today’s guests are four women who make up an all-female geologist crew in Montana in the United States, in one of the world’s largest platinum mines. The mine they work in is part of a leading international precious metals mining company with a diverse portfolio of platinum group metal operations, known as PGM in the United States and Southern Africa, Gold Operations and Projects in South Africa, and Copper, Gold, and PGM Exploration Properties in North and South America. It is the world’s largest primary producer of platinum and rhodium, the second largest primary producer of palladium, and a top tier gold producer. The geologists on today’s episode are Jessica Scanlan, Rachel Toler, Alicia Randall, and Christa Loucks. All four are grade control geologists, which means they work underground everyday, directly with miners. Their job is to determine the grade of the rock they’re seeing, and determine whether it is ore or waste. In this episode, Christa shares a day in the life of a geologist working in a mine, and Rachel and Alicia explain what it’s like being a team of women working in a male-dominated industry. They all share their path to mining, where their interest in rocks comes from, and Rachel speaks about the difference between working in an open pit mine versus underground, while Jessica shares some advice for girls and young women looking to get into the mining industry: reach out and get as much advice, experience, and connections as possible. Rachel closes the show with the power of women supporting women, so make sure to tune in today to hear from this incredible crew!

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Although women are contributing to the transformation of public transport, they frequently remain less visible and their role in making transit safer, more inclusive, and sustainable is not always acknowledged. Today’s guest is Inessa M. Vitko, the Chief Operations Officer of CTRAN in Vancouver, Washington. Inessa leads C-TRAN’s largest department, which includes all fixed-route and paratransit operators, plus dispatchers, field supervisors, customer service representatives, and other employees. She has spent more than a decade in the transit industry, and her previous experience includes work in budgeting and grants, operations, and customer communications. For the better part of 2020, Inessa has been primarily concerned with navigating her team through the pandemic and readying them for C-TRAN’s second BRT (Bus Rapid Transit Line), major technology upgrades, and internal restructuring. In her 14 years in the industry, one of the things that Inessa is most proud of has been the strong relationships she has built with the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 757, which allows them to make changes collaboratively, including protecting jobs through the current crisis. In this episode, Inessa shares what a typical day as a COO looks like, why she chose the transit industry, and how being a woman in the transit industry has affected her. We also dive into the importance of standing up to sexism, the state of diversity in the industry, and how COVID has affected her as a woman in a position of leadership. Tune in today!

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Today we welcome Angela Cacace to Hazard Girls - a woman who has continuously inspired women throughout her career. From being a barber, to a business-owner, to founding the viral hashtag "#MoveOverBob," Angela has had a profound impact on the way that women take on non-traditional fields. Listen to Angela's inspiring story!

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Many factors prevent women from being represented in the trades, one of these being the perfectionism a lot of girls feel very early on in their lives. Not only does this stop them from trying new things, but it also makes them believe that being skilled should come naturally. One non-profit, Girls Build, is looking to overcome this by building curiosity and confidence in girls through introducing them to the world of building. Joining us today is Founder Katie Hughes, who shares her own journey to becoming a carpenter. We learn more about the summer camp program the organization runs and why they introduce girls to numerous trades. Katie also shares how they ensure inclusivity by reaching a wide spectrum of girls. While the camps teach practical skills, Katie talks about how trades get girls to embrace failure, think creatively, and work in a team. Although getting girls into the world of building is a desirable outcome, the confidence they gain to expand their horizons is what’s ultimately most important. We also hear about Katie’s new book, Girls Who Build, the inspiration behind it, and the story of how it came together. To hear more about this inspiring project, be sure to tune in today!

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Often times, as women, we are forced to be more thoughtful and intuitive about how other people respond to us in these specifically male-dominant fields. We then have to sometimes alter our own behavior based on how we think someone else is going to respond. Our guest today is Richelle Moreno, a single mother of two, a business owner, Latina-female, and runaway who has overcome many gender-based obstacles as she climbed her way to the top of her industry and field. Richelle is the owner and manager of two sister companies in the Chicago area; BRT Electric, which handles residential, commercial, and industrial electrical work, and Axiom Contractors, which is a general construction company. She was recently featured in Negocios Now, in the Latino’s in Business Section of the Spanish newspaper from the Chicago area, for her work on her companies and her role as one the few Latino women owning and operating her own electrical and contracting companies. She values education and continues to expand her knowledge in her field while leading in a way that helps and encourages her employees. Stay tuned for an insightful conversation as we hear from one of the female, Latina leaders in the construction industry.

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Learning something new is always a challenge, especially when it involves a trade. Getting your certification and qualification as a trades-person is a journey often filled with failure and in such a process, it is important not to let the moment of failure negate the longevity of success. Our guest today is Deila Ray. Deila is a certified combo-coded vessel welder. Over the past six years, Deila has traveled the US with her husband and her three Dachshunds, fabricating and building piping systems for compressor stations, refineries, water-treatment facilities, and waste-water treatment facilities. Deila has honed her skills as a tradeswoman, getting her certifications in Gas Tungsten Arc Welding and Shielded Metal Arc Welding. She is also the recipient of the 2020 Tradeswoman of the Year Award. Aside from everything that has happened over 2020, Deila and her husband decided to become business owners themselves. Deila is the co-founder of the company she and her husband own called Alpha Duo — a pipe welding company. They do metal fabrication, coded vessel welding, metal art, woodwork, leatherwork, and more! Stay tuned for today’s episode of Hazard Girls to hear more from this amazing woman working in a real-life non-traditional role!

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