When your car breaks down it can feel like defeat, and shopping for a car without the right knowledge can be overwhelming. That’s why today’s guest has created a safe space to help the average consumer learn how to better buy and understand their vehicle investment. At Mechanic Shop Femme, car education is empowerment, and today we welcome the Founder, Chaya Milchtein. Chaya is also a style influencer, writer, speaker, and automotive educator, writing about a variety of topics, including plus-si...
Mar 09, 2021•31 min•Season 2Ep. 1
The construction industry is one of the best industries for women to gain parity and is a sector with one of the smallest gender pay gaps. This does not mean there is not still a great deal of work to be done in the space. Rita Brown is a passionate and proven advocate for the advancement of women in construction. She is an award-winning writer, entrepreneur, and construction industry professional with over 25 years of experience. Wearing many hats, Rita is the CEO of BCC+, which covers the nich...
Mar 02, 2021•31 min•Season 2Ep. 7
There is something so transformative and powerful, especially for young women, when your own hard work and skills are out in the world, being utilized for good by other people. Today’s guest is Emily Pilloton, the Founder and Executive Director of Girls Garage, a non-profit that has taught thousands of young girls how to use power tools, weld, and builds projects for their communities. Emily holds a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture from the University of California Berkeley, and a Master of Fine...
Feb 23, 2021•29 min•Season 2Ep. 6
Just because you may work in a field dominated by men doesn’t mean you can’t be glamorous. Scientists and engineers can look however they want to look, all the while doing some really awesome stuff. Today’s guest is a rocket scientist by day and an editor in chief by night. Having graduated from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University with a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering in 2018, Caeley Looney now works full time as a Mission Analyst for L3Harris Technologies, where she supports their small satelli...
Feb 16, 2021•29 min•Season 2Ep. 5
Transitioning from one male-dominated industry to another is not easy, but it is something today’s guest, Jhanel Wilson, has managed to do successfully. Jhanel is a Philadelphia-based chemical engineer turned real estate investor with a portfolio of over 10 million dollars. Her strategy focuses on small multifamily buy-and-hold, and she now teaches others in STEM jobs how to generate wealth through real estate. In this episode, we hear about Jhanel’s experience as a chemical engineer and what ul...
Feb 09, 2021•24 min•Season 2Ep. 4
Welcome back to part two of this interview with businesswoman, author, and a master storyteller, Mitzi Perdue. As the past president of the 40,000 member American Agri-Women, the widow of chicken magnate Frank Perdue, and the daughter of Sheraton Hotels Founder Ernest Henderson, Mitzi has been deeply involved in some highly successful U.S. family businesses. She has also forged her own path, creating a lasting legacy in her own business ventures. She has authored 22 books, is a syndicated column...
Feb 02, 2021•16 min•Season 2Ep. 1
Today’s guest is Mitzi Perdue, a businesswoman, author, and a master storyteller. She is the past president of the 40,000 member American Agri-Women, the nation’s largest coalition of women in farming and agribusiness. She is also the widow of chicken magnate, Frank Perdue, and has been deeply involved in the Perdue family businesses for many years, from agriculture to trucking, which is a major division of Perdue Farms. Over her long and illustrious career she has authored 22 books, is a syndic...
Jan 26, 2021•29 min•Season 2Ep. 2
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 associa...
Jan 12, 2021•25 min•Season 2Ep. 1
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 ...
Dec 15, 2020•27 min•Season 1Ep. 23
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...
Dec 01, 2020•23 min•Season 1Ep. 22
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, t...
Nov 24, 2020•27 min•Season 1Ep. 21
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 large...
Nov 17, 2020•34 min•Season 1Ep. 20
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....
Nov 10, 2020•31 min•Season 1Ep. 19
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! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Nov 03, 2020•34 min•Season 1Ep. 18
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...
Oct 27, 2020•28 min•Season 1Ep. 17
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 mana...
Oct 20, 2020•37 min•Season 1Ep. 16
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 syste...
Oct 13, 2020•28 min•Season 1Ep. 15
There is a persistent gender gap in STEM careers across the world. This gap begins in education, fueled by gender stereotypes and expectations regarding “women’s work,” but one woman in STEM is looking to stomp out those stereotypes! Today’s guest Chloe Gharios, a Civil Engineer working in the power industry in Los Angeles. She has a passion for giving back to the community and taking part in educating the next generation, especially females and young students in disadvantaged schools, in the op...
Sep 22, 2020•27 min•Season 1Ep. 13
In this episode of the WAM Podcast, your host Emily Soloby speaks to Charli K. Matthews, the founder and CEO of Empowering Brands and also the founder of Empowering Pumps & Equipment, and Empowering Women in Industry. Charli is a truly dynamic individual who has had a fascinating career path, from working in the pumps and equipment industry to the creation of her brands. For her, it’s necessary to look beyond the equipment to the people manufacturing and using it, because without the people,...
Sep 15, 2020•30 min•Season 1Ep. 12
Camaraderie and a support system are an important part of what makes a job welcoming. For women in construction, who find themselves in this male-dominated space, reaching out isn’t always so simple. This is what prompted today’s guest, Kathryn Hart, to create the online community, Space to Build, where women in the sector can access various resources from educational material to social networks. As a construction superintendent, Kathryn knows how difficult being a woman in the space can be, and...
Sep 08, 2020•23 min•Season 1Ep. 11
Remy Drabkin is a pioneering winemaker who impacts her industry as a top producer of non-traditional grape varieties. From an early age, Remy was inspired to preserve and promote the spirit of Oregon’s winemakers, designing her first wine label in 5th grade. Today, she is the owner of the renowned Remy Wines, Three Wives Wines, and the newly released Black Heart by Remy. In this episode, she gets candid about her experience as a gay woman in a male-dominated industry, sharing the various forms o...
Sep 01, 2020•27 min•Season 1Ep. 10
Engineering is a typical example of a field that has been traditionally male-dominated. Our guest today, Amy Kaur, and her online community Engineering Gals, are doing a great job in trying to disrupt this status quo. Amy is a civil engineer in training, employed in the water industry. She is a graduate of California State University Long Beach, where she received a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering. In our conversation, we get to hear how the hours spent with her father, fixing up old ca...
Aug 24, 2020•23 min•Season 1Ep. 9
Maritime engineering is a very male-dominant field, often with only one or two women aboard a ship at a time. Our guest on today’s episode of Hazard Girls is Serena Webber-Bey, a United States Coast Guard licensed Chief Engineer of Steam and Diesel Unlimited Horsepower Vessels. She has been sailing with the Maritime Engineers Beneficial Association since she graduated from SUNY Maritime College in 2004, where she earned a Third Assistant Engineer License, as well as a Bachelor’s Degree of Engine...
Aug 18, 2020•28 min•Season 1Ep. 8
Today on the show we welcome Skyler Mapes, a native of Oakland, California. Skyler is the co-founder of EXAU Olive Oil, which she founded in 2017 alongside her husband, Giuseppe. Prior to starting out in the olive oil business, Skyler worked in both the design and wine industries. She became interested in olive oil after meeting Giuseppe and learning about olive trees. In 2017 she made the move to Calabria in Italy to learn all she could about the olive oil industry where she harvested, pressed,...
Aug 11, 2020•33 min•Season 1Ep. 7
Architecture is well-known for being a male-dominated field. However, a new kind of architect is rising through the ranks in search of community and support rather than competition. Joann Lui is one of these architects, and she is doing great work to help women in the field thrive. As an associate at Gensler, a large architecture firm in New York, Joann has over eight years of experience. Along with this, she is the Founder of the Women Architects Collective, an online community dedicated to sup...
Aug 04, 2020•30 min•Season 1Ep. 6
As a feminist, entrepreneur, author, and speaker committed to social justice, today’s guest understands the value and beauty of humanity and wants to empower others to spread a message of inclusion and social change. Dr. Janelle Briggs is the CEO, co-founder, and business strategist for Stackhouse, a Tucson, Arizona-based container living company that specializes in elevated, eco-friendly living alternatives. In this episode, we talk about Stackhouse’s goal to democratize home ownership, and to ...
Jul 29, 2020•32 min•Season 1Ep. 5
Not everyone takes the same route to success in male-dominated fields. Today’s guest is Luticia Miller, an executive at an energy services company in Canada. She started out as field laborer and welding apprentice and worked her way up as one of the only women in her field, having no formal degree at the time, and as a single mom. Luticia has dedicated two decades to working in industrial construction, building pipelines for the energy industry, and looks forward to future gains of the sustainab...
Jul 21, 2020•23 min•Season 1Ep. 4
Architecture and design is a predominantly male-dominated field, with roughly only 17% of the leadership positions held by women. Today’s episode of the Hazard Girls podcast features an extremely driven, multi-talented, and philanthropic woman who also works in an architectural leadership role. Benita Cooper is the principal architect and owner of Benita Cooper Design, based out of Haddonfield, New Jersey. She holds a Master’s degree in Architecture from Harvard University and her work has been ...
Jul 14, 2020•30 min•Season 1Ep. 3
Our guest today, Taylor Luckett, is a project engineer at Holder Construction where she coordinates construction projects such as on-site trade management, material coordination, and cost management. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Construction Management from the University of Houston and is a member of the National Association of Black Women inConstruction (NABWIC). Tuning in to this episode, listeners will hear how Taylor’s mother, a former engineer, shaped her interest in construction and...
Jul 07, 2020•26 min•Season 1Ep. 2
According to the US Department of Agriculture, Americans waste more than $161 billion each year on food, with most of it ending up in landfills. Today’s guest, interviewed by host Emily Soloby of Juno Jones Shoes, is a creative problem solver on a mission to end this kind of household food waste. Chef Alison Mountford is the founder of ends+stems, a meal planning service designed to reduce food waste and stop the effects of climate change. Alison is a chef by training and a successful culinary e...
Jun 30, 2020•36 min•Season 1Ep. 1
