welcome to bets on the future where we highlight the various career paths and the electrifying Metals World from the vehicle you ride in to the bridge holding it up metals are everywhere why not in your career too I’m Jennifer Betts a Metals industry veteran with almost 20 years experience here to highlight these incredible career paths As Told by the women who are living them all right I know everybody’s eating lunch but you guys might want to listen to this because I’ve heard about 15 people bitched today already that they’re having labor issues having trouble finding people I’m here to tell you that you could be realistically overlooking probably half the population people that could actually support and be a big part of your business so today I’m here with four strong women um I was talking to my wife before I came up to this show and she was saying well what are you going to do there and I said I’m going to have two two conversations once I want to talk about growing your business and the other one I’m going to sit on a panel with uh Four Strong women and

I think my wife just smiled and said she wouldn’t she wouldn’t have it any other way I had a strong Mom I had a strong grandma and so I appreciate having a strong wife and I appreciate the opportunity to sit down with four strong women that I think provide a lot of value to this industry so I’m just going to give everybody a quick background a quick bio on each of them and uh we’ll go from there so to my right Autumn Barnes Autumn’s the vice president of trade for United Metal Solutions group I like that name by the way based out of New Jersey her career started in New York City where one of her first assignments was to help sell steel scrap from the World Trade Center sites she immediately knew this would be a lifelong career after spending over 20 years at SIMS Autumn is well versed and well-traveled in Ferris and non-ferrous World Markets a United Metal Solutions group she runs a global book of business that’s pretty impressive autumn next to her is Sean hair Sean is the executive director of sourcing and procurement as Simcoe resources

in Illinois her career started answered a blind ad for a small family-owned recycling company for three locations over the next 12 years she gained experience from the ground up from operations to commercial roles during the past three years as Simcoe resources she’s run operations buys and sells for many of Simcoe yards including is responsible for local and Industrial accounts as well as purchases from scrap recycling dealers Nationwide and sells materials to foundries and steel mills Baya Landa I got it Baya you got it Bay is the vice president of metal procurement and recycling for novellis North America at novellas baya’s career started as a semi-pro soccer player and tax lawyer in Spain she earned her MBA in the U.S and joined a strategy consulting company for a couple years before finding her passion for manufacturing at novellas Bea has been with novellas for 12 years in a variety of functions including running the Greensboro Georgia recycling plant at novellas band started the women in novellas a Grassroots employee Resource Group to create an even playing field for women especially at the plants last but not least Jennifer Betts Jennifer is the

CEO of recycled media Magner metals and scrap Trader she brings almost two yet Decades of experience working with Ferris non-ferrous and Pharaoh Ally medals including movement via scrap yards steel mills and trading companies her experience moves through the full metal supply chain with companies like DJJ AK Steel Magner Metals Argus media and flat Global medals at recycled media she’s empowering the recycled materials industry to deploy up-to-date media techniques and strategies to Spotlight opportunities and underscore the significance of metal recycling as you can see I’m sitting up on stage with some women that are not only contributing daily but are holding big roles in big companies and small companies alike so we do have the question and answer we do on the app there is the ability to ask questions so before I kind of get into uh the questions that we prepared if you have any questions or you have any thoughts or ideas that you’d like to ask then feel free and I’ll get it here on my phone and I will I will make sure that they get into this a session so a little bit of background on

me I grew up in a small family-owned scrapyard my grandmother run the truck scale so I grew up you know watching her deal with truck drivers and people selling scrap every day one of my best stories that my dad tells is my mom running the handles on a car crusher crushing cars out in the mud so he could load scrap and haul it to the West Coast later on she’d move in the office and become our CFO so I I only know how to surround myself with strong people and I only know women that have kind of have some Drive so my question to you is there has to be something that each one of you have in common that has pushed you and propelled you in this industry in one fashion or another and I’d like each of you to touch on kind of what you think has brought you to this point or has allowed you to create the success you have and don’t all go at once go ahead so I would say we all have in common just a passion for the industry whether it’s you know being on

the ground like you know like Baya has been or Sean has been or Jennifer has been you know we have this understanding together of how the business works and we’ve been in the business long enough to know that it’s something we want other women to try as well and we’re focused on supporting other women to do this it’s not just us you know I’m learning about so many other women who are out there doing these jobs and Recycling and it’s just absolutely incredible and we shouldn’t limit ourselves you know it’s like I was talking to Brett earlier we have to be accountable for our actions as well it’s not just this you know women’s group let’s rah-rah talk about women let’s really get involved let’s form these groups and say hey you know what we love what we do we’ve been in the industry for 20 something years because we’re passionate about recycling we’re all we’re also passionate about bringing on other women into the industry and saying hey you know what we make great livings I mean I make great money you know and that’s one incentive to bring more women in

is to pay them recognize their value and say say okay these are your core strengths how can I train you to be better so I was very lucky in that aspect I had a lot of people who supported me during my career especially when I got started it was an accident I didn’t really intend to do this you know I was right out of school out of business school and I said I need a job and somebody offered me a job and I one of my first assignments was World Trade Center Scrap I went down to the yard and saw these beams and I said to myself my God this is amazing this is something that I want to do the rest of my life I want to be involved with this and so that’s really what drives me it’s just the passion for it the knowing that there’s so much opportunity and growth out there and you know just really giving a lot of thanks to Jen for you know doing what she does on LinkedIn and you know really having a voice for us where we were just before kind of like

all right we’re doing this we’re kind of hiding but you know here we are today so thanks Jen I kind of want to go ahead and piggyback on what Autumn said is the thing that pulls us all together here and when I was talking with Brett of who I know in the industry would be really great on this panel there are a lot of really successful women that also come from family Generations where you obviously have a family connection what we wanted to do here was very interesting a different approach to Showcase that women outside the industry outside a family connection outside a friend Connection could take a look at our industry and say yeah like have you ever seen a car shredded have you ever seen a steel mill ever charge a furnace and be like yes I absolutely want to do that so all four of us had no family connection we all more or less fell into it right all every everybody’s a first generation here sitting on this stage other than myself yes absolutely I’m I’m your DJJ kid you know corn fed midwesterns playing sports and I got pulled

into this industry by a career fair I I was a bit naive I didn’t know what I was signing up for at all I just heard company car expense account I get to travel yes east side of St Louis sure south side of Chicago yep let’s do this and it was supposed to be six months and I’d reassess I have a finance degree I shouldn’t be here but meeting the individuals in the in this industry how are we not screaming from the rooftops about how awesome our industry is the people that are in it to help recruit and encourage more people to come and join us but I want to I want to hear your take yeah I mean I don’t know if it’s a it’s a kind of Courage thick skin stubbornness uh but I think you know it’s it’s hard to be a female in this industry many times we are the only women in the rooms and and and you know having opposing views uh but that’s part of if you’re looking for somebody that is going to get their hands dirty is gonna voice is going to be active it’s

going to step up and put a position there then I think a lot of females that are attracted to this this industry is the right are the right candidates that you’re looking for and I’d say all of us have those characteristics Sean yeah definitely thick skin for sure yeah and just determination and not to take no for an answer just just want to just keep plotting through and and get to the bottom of it you know always wanted to know how things work do you think there’s value in I mean we were talking about this ahead of time and there’s there’s value in you guys also recruiting I mean it’s one thing for me to say yeah I’ve found value in finding strong females to come on board and be a part of our business but do you guys hold some responsibility yourselves to also encourage other females to whether it’s I know you’ve started your own team at novelles and Bay you could probably speak to this but I think is it I think one of the things that I’d like for you guys to touch on is your willingness or ability to

encourage more females to look at it versus say someone like myself saying yeah we should be looking out go ahead autumn so like I said before I absolutely encourage more women to come and I think that it takes a lot of courage to do some of the things that we do I’m not going to get on any kind of soapbox or anything and it’s not what this is about it’s really about encouraging women to come into the industry and yes people like us on this panel we have to do our job to encourage those women to come out and do more for the industry so whether that be more involved with Israeli because once you see and you lead by example I do believe you’ll see more come out and of course like I touched on before the incentive is always you know a very good career and very good compensation so career driven a career driven female is definitely someone that could to make it make a big difference right someone that sees a potential ladder absolutely I saw that as I started you know there was so much potential I saw um

the value in it and I knew that this guy was the limit let me add to that so we always talk about attraction retention and promotion if you spend a lot of time attracting and you don’t take care of retention and promotion you’re going to lose a lot of people so it’s not only about bringing women in it’s about seeing women in top positions it’s about putting female bathrooms it’s about putting you know creating the conditions where females feel valued respected have a voice Etc so I think it’s it’s not only us absolutely working to bring people in but it’s women in but it’s also the companies making sure this is the right place for me and I feel represented and I feel like I have a voice here so regardless male or female people need to see a ladder right which has always been like my drive to grow the only way I knew to grow our business was I had to create a ladder of people that could see like I could do something different I could grow into another role which is whether it’s male or female like that’s an important

piece it’s not just attraction but it’s also like where can I grow and what what positions am I actually capable of holding so where does The Challenge present itself in like within the company like for you Jennifer I mean you you’ve had experience with this I mean have you faced challenges looking for growth opportunities yes I I started off with David J Joseph they’re owned by Nucor now but when I first started with them they were owned by they were independent and then new core acquired them um a few years later I don’t work there anymore I I worked there for seven years I was on the non-ferrous team and then also on the ferris side of things helping run some of the raw material programs for several new core meals and when I was looking at where was I going to go from there there was no path for me and even to this day the path that could have happened for me still does not exist at that company there are not women in leadership roles at that company on the career directory that I was on and so I no

longer work there and to be very Frank and confident that’s their loss right so when you’re thinking about that when you’re taking a look at really rock star individuals you want them to see a path hiring women into executive roles helps encourage retention what Bayo was talking about is if an employee does not see a path for themselves they’re not going to stay there one of the really big draws for me when I went to AK Steel was seeing women in a variety of executive and management roles and honestly if I didn’t have another opportunity elsewhere I’d probably still be there it’s really quite important from a development of talent and retention to have those individuals in management positions to help encourage retention of talent Sean share a little bit I mean share a little bit of the challenges that you faced I mean just starting from calling just a call AD right because I have a similar type story with Amy who now runs two of our facilities and runs a region for us she’s basically just her husband encouraged her to take a job at an office as an office position inside

of a small really small scrap yard and then she just kind of was that’s where she started I ended up recruiting her I said hey like you’ve got potential to be more than just somebody in the office right but explain some of the you know a challenge or an opportunity that you saw that kind of made you drive to keep keep pushing it as far as you have because you started in a similar fashion yeah I I started um just a bookkeeper office manager position and it was a blind dad because nobody wants to say it’s at the scrap yard or the you know recycling center so when I first started now even my dad was like oh you work at a junkyard I’m like no I work at a recycling facility yeah I I’m not it’s not it’s not like that right and I’m making I’m making good money so and then just it it just gets in your blood it you just want to learn more it’s like well why why is that what what do you mean there’s more than two different kinds of brass in in just learning and and

wanting to know how things work and um I’ve never been a real girly girl anyway so first chance I had to learn how to run a machine I was there right show me how to do it and you know and just you know the latitude to to be able to go to the yard and run the newest run the new excavator so there’s a certain amount of like just internal like show me how to do it I’m willing to do it that has to that the person that you’re looking to hire female or male they got to have that in them right because that’s truly how you’re gonna grow within a company yeah and this industry it has so many different areas and and aspects that I mean you can really I mean you can focus on one thing or you can just you know and if you don’t like it there’s another part you can stay within that company and just do something a little bit different you know you don’t want to run a machine you don’t want to deal with people there’s plenty of other things that we have you know

in this industry so I would think that and I want each one of you I would like to see each one of you discuss this it had to be somebody within the company you started that was a mentor or somebody you that saw you doing being able to do more right would each one of you speak to somebody that you saw either inside your existing company or outside you’re like there is opportunity here is there a mentor or somebody that that each one of you would like to speak to yeah I mean I had a couple I was really um very very very I don’t know if you’re going to say uh in a good spot at the perfect time or just very lucky um but I also had a lot of drive and ambition and I knew how far this could go um but I I really owe a lot of my career to Bill schneidel who worked at Hugo new and he gave me a chance and I knew nothing at the time and I had to work really hard to learn but I was under his wing for many many years

and I just started taking responsibility I’m like I can do that wait you have your you have your hands full you have so much to do let me just do that I will take care of that trade and I just do it I did it and he was like you’re crazy he’s like there’s no way George Adams is gonna let me let you do this and I said well why not you know he knows you’re busy and I don’t think he’s going to have a problem doing it and you know what he didn’t and so then George kind of came on board with it and he was a big supporter of me him and Bill another person I mean I’m going back now Blake Kelly he was another one he was a VP at the time and these guys had so much knowledge and I was so fortunate to be able to sit in a room and listen to them Market scrap to like new core to you know guys from you know Korea you know these huge steel mills Bao steel China things like that and I just learned and I mean I

had many many years under them but I also took a lot of initiative to do it I took stuff away I didn’t ask permission I said you know what I’m doing it you don’t have a choice or I’m gonna about it how about you Sean any uh mentors that come to mind that some people that saw more in you than maybe even maybe you saw in yourself probably Kelly Eaton at Rochester she’s always been a big cheerleader of mine um probably um our CEO John groleski he’s um always teaching me always giving me more knowledge encouraging me to just go and do whatever I want to do yeah I would say um mentors I think mentors sponsors and coaches I think those three figures are super important the sponsors are the ones that promote you when you’re not in the room the coach allows you to ask questions and see situations differently than you would see with your own lens and then the mentors are the ones that really share that experience and for me my mentors really the big impact they had is when I felt what I doubted myself they were the

ones that said you can do it of course you can do it let me see you let me explain how I see you through my eyes and then you’ll start seeing yourself through my eyes and that’s huge I struggled to find Mentor or mentors in in my career to be honest and it’s only been relatively recent um in the in the past handful of years where I’ve been able to to meet other individuals that have been cheerleaders that have been really willing to share their experience because up until that point it was very much for me I had to take career of my control I had to do this it was it was more on my own and so it’s been really wonderful in the past handful of years to to meet other really successful driven women that I could learn from other allies from leadership roles I had a boss at flat Global medals Keith Shuttlesworth that was fantastic he was really knowledgeable and willing to share that knowledge and also to make introductions to other really successful people in the industry and it’s it was it played a really key key part

in in my mind set shift that happened over the past year so Bea I know you mentioned like your ability to attract employees and as a big part of you know it obviously the second layer is retention being able to keep them and promote them but what can you know your small medium-sized operator do to attract more female employees to where they might say yeah that’s a job I’d be willing to take a look at that’s a job I I think I could do I mean what what does that look like to you yeah I think there’s there’s probably three categories here it’s it’s the basics right it’s yes I have bathrooms that are specific for my gender I have uniforms I have just the the basic hygiene of a job that’s a safe job that attracts both men and women I think that’s not different I think the second piece is my voice is heard and that’s super important it’s not hey you know we’re checking the Box we’re bringing women in no we care about what you have to say because at the end of the day the diversity of thinking

leads to better results and this is factual this is proven so it doesn’t you know if you’re in the room with and I’m not picking it it’ll sound like I’m picking but I’m not like three men that pretty much think basically the same because they have the same experience then you’re not adding a ton you bring your wife into that mix yes it you might take longer to get to a result that might be a more difficult conversation but you will get to a better result and this again this is factual and I think the third one is you know if you can show somebody in a leadership role and say hey come on in look at that woman she’s leading she’s the CEO she’s a CFO she’s leading this business dream then somebody says oh I see myself here I can I I belong here and belonging is a huge feeling 100 any of you the other three like to touch on that topic Brett and I have had many a conversation uh it actually as a as a random fun fact Brett and I met each other 15 years ago um he

probably wasn’t such a fan of me from my DJJ he was always trying to uh I always say you’re always trying to screw me I was trying to subscribe cheaper than it was than I thought it was worth but that’s what that’s always my experience with DJJ we’re a special breed so you know I’m on the other side so now he likes me uh we’re in full disclosure we’re business partners I appreciate what a strong female brings to the table and you’re good at what you do so keep going I I didn’t like you as much then but I’ve grown fond of you lately that’s a really good point on uh he’s been able to identify people that maybe he didn’t initially like because maybe he was on the other side of the negotiating table he actually has a few former uh colleagues of mine you know in a variety of uh business ventures and I think that’s really key here is identifying those key talents and taking that next step or giving somebody even just the opportunity one of the big things that I’ve been driving if you’ve seen a few videos of

mine on the Internet is I come to these events I’ve been in the industry many years and I’ve I’ve had business dealings with a variety of really successful women and yet when I go online I don’t see them when I go to conferences I don’t see them on stages and I think that’s a really key point for those in the audience to to keep in mind is when you’re going to those events when you’re going uh to post something online is it truly representative of our industry because we have a lot more successful women in our industry than what we showcase online and if we want to retain them if we want to grow them if we want to expand our industry we have to also show them online or on conference stages like this Sean you good so I mean what are we I mean I think the the main answer is obvious like what do we miss as an industry if we aren’t taking a hard look at at bringing females into our businesses we’re basically look missing out on potentially half the population right I mean we’re discounting our half the

population and we’re saying um and then we’re gonna on the other hand complain that we don’t have enough workers we don’t have enough help to get everything done right so when I I sit there and think about that question I mean from your guys’s perspective what else do we miss I know Baya said diversity of thought which is crucial and I think that that’s one thing that I’ve always looked at is trying to find people that think a little bit differently than me like I’m Idaho redneck like I think a certain way but I’m always like I need to figure out people around me that can like give me another perspective so like we talk about politics and we see things very differently my wife’s a school teacher we see things very differently but I like that because it makes me kind of it challenged me to think about it and that maybe either sometimes I’m not always right even though I think most of the time I am but how would you overcome and when you start at a new a new job how do you overcome and how do you present yourself

in a way that that is going to be I mean applicable to the to the environment wait what do you have to do to you know to convince people that you are there to stay and you want to see a career out of it I mean everybody’s a little bit different but what have you guys done to to push forward I can talk so I’ve had a pretty long corporate career and then I took a plant manager role at one of our recycling facilities at Greensboro um and so the culture at the plant was actually uh folks were pretty disengaged it was just not a very good culture and honestly I didn’t know any better so I came in you know just being who I am and and sat down for lunches and talked to people and was just curious about what are people’s stories uh what were we doing well at the plant and what could we do better and you know giving people a voice and learning from folks that are working the machines 24 hours a day and hearing their ideas and their Solutions and just being you know giving access

to people something I think the leadership style that women bring just more listening nurturing empathetic willing to collaborate and find these this Common Ground transform the plant to be the plant that has the best culture right now so I think what we can bring is a ton and I think it’s just I think to what Jennifer said identifying those strengths and making sure we’re not missing out because we’re missing out not only on a warm body we’re missing out on a lot of additional leadership skills and and many other things that is super important for the world today in my view and it’s almost a proven fact but women are better at multitasking than men so I think a lot of Google that Sean I believe you go ahead I’m just saying I agree with you I’m just saying I’ve seen it at Live In Living Color I I think that that we’re better at you know managing 50 things at once so I think as far as an operation standpoint I think women probably could Excel more um and I’ve I’ve even talked to some women that are like oh you run an

excavator and I’m like yeah I said it’s I mean it’s really not that hard you know it’s just intimidating so I think it’s just putting them in a machine showing them how to do it because we’re giving them the opportunity if they want to be in a machine right like I think that’s part of it like some some women might be like I want no part of that machine but I’m super interested in XYZ what’s going on over here I want to like dive into that and it’s like probably but yeah if you have interest in being encouraging them to try it because I tell you the first time I got in an excavator I’m like I want to stay here I don’t want to go back to the office yeah I want to do this all day but I had to go back to the office so and it’s just learning how to run those different machines some things he has not my cup of tea but you gotta try it I think and and I think that there’s a lot of people out there that are just too afraid to try it

they’re afraid they’re gonna screw something up and you just you can’t have that attitude you just gotta Force push people out of their comfort zone a little bit and I think that we’ll be able to get more people in the industry I think it’s it comes from the leadership whether it’s the female or the male I think it has to come from giving people the ability or the bandwidth to try to try new things and that just speaks to like any of your um any of the people working on your team like you just got to give them the ability to hey I know you’re in the office go sit in that excavator because it will give you an appreciation for the guy that runs the excavator all day and the guy that runs the excavator go sit in a scale house and see how many things you have to do at one time you have to answer the phone you gotta have great scrap you have to pay customers like there is that cross training that’s involved that just just let everybody kind of try it if they would like to and just

get a feel it gives you another respect for for each each position so in your guys’s eyes what does the future look like for women in recycling I know you guys each of you have plans in your own way to push and I mean what do you see changing I mean where are the opportunities I want to give a quick fact on the manufacturing industry the manufacturing industry which I consider us to be a part of right we are the backbone to supporting Manufacturing in the United States in North America 30 percent of the industry is female currently 30 percent granted we make up half the population but thirty percent so we’ve got room to grow by 2030 35 of the manufacturing industry will be female so think about that if you are looking to grow your business if you were looking for employees for talent there’s going to be a five percent growth of females over the next five years let’s say so think about that in terms of the opportunity that you have if you started today in addressing some of the basics like bathrooms and uniforms all the way to management

positions and showcasing that there is leadership opportunities down the road there really is a huge opportunity for you to grow your business in this in this way I’ll add to that I know you will I like it let’s go I think factual the companies that start adding more women again diversity of thought diversity of experiences overall a better result will end up on top on top of the competition ahead versus other companies and I think you know just from a pure talent math there’s going to be more women in in the workforce it’s up to each company to see how you really take advantage and leverage and put these women in in specific positions especially decision making positions to really end up on top Sean autumn how do you see how do you see the change I I see a change in the next five years where we don’t have to see her on this conversation anymore it’s a moot point right it the ratios start to work out the numbers work out more women come and we don’t have to have this conversation anymore that’s what that’s what I see and I see

that coming in the next five years we don’t have to have the I mean we just don’t have to sit here and say why what’s happening you know and beat our heads against the wall and see what we have we have our work cut out for us yeah but I think we’re leading a way to improve this so that’s what I see Sean how do you see it did you see it say The Way It Is What do you see yeah how would you like how would you like to see it I think we’re gonna grow I think it’s I think it’s gonna you know part of me doesn’t want to say oh well you know girl power you know it’s just about doing the job you know it’s not really about being a woman or a man it’s it’s the fact that I can outperform you it’s a confidence thing right I mean are you talking about promote you know promote the confidence right so you have to look for people that are confident or that are willing to sit in the room and say I’m not leaving like when we were talking

to Marissa earlier I really liked her statement like when she came in she’s like she heard us when we hired Marissa it wasn’t we didn’t hire to come in and do marketing we hired it for something else but she heard marketing and she’s like oh I’m in that room I want to be in that room because I think I can add value right and I think that’s the key the quote be so good they can’t ignore you exactly I can’t remember now who said that I think a lot of people have but but it’s true right yeah and I I want to add to it that I’m doing a session on how to grow your business in tomorrow and part of that session is just identifying good people right like if you want to grow your business you have to identify good people that can do tasks that either you’re doing or that that uh that that you need to add to your business right and I think that’s that’s part of it and I think you guys have an important role in like at least for now banging the loudspeaker and saying hey

like if you are a female in this industry and you are doing a good job and you are proud of what you bring to the table like be willing to stand up and say yeah I’m I’m here and I’m I’m ready to uh show you I can do the job just as well as anybody else here right as a quick plug for some of the resources that are available out there there are several associations within our industry that are open to both male and female members and they also have a lot of resources online uh check out women in manufacturing they’re very similar to Israel’s women in recycling and awmi which is the association of women in the metals industry they have local and National chapters as well as many resources online for businesses to learn and figure out how to to grow and and adapt in that way so we’re getting close um if if anybody has any questions please submit them through the app and I will I will ask them the questions but I I is there any parting shots anything that you guys would like to add that uh we

were talking to small medium-sized operators right I mean there’s a few larger businesses out there but in generally speaking like that’s what I like about this show is it’s the Grassroots it’s it’s kind of How It’s where people start and to grow into these big large companies but this is where it starts you don’t start altar size you don’t start DJJ size you start here and then you work your way up just as all of you guys have through your career right I mean you’ve all started at what at a certain level and then have had to climb the ladder that existed within your company um so any parting shots to this group of how they can take a harder look or how what can they do to basically open up their eyes because there are I will say this like side sidebar a little bit there’s a lot of small medium-sized businesses that are employing females they just aren’t loudly saying we are employing all these great people right so speak everybody I want to just kind of hear your two your two cents on this crowd and kind of what

can they do to to grow their business with bringing females along train them they want to do the work we’re here to work you know and we have a lot of value a lot of things to add but training is absolutely necessary the women are out there it’s happening we’re going to bring more we have like I said we have our work cut out for us but it’s going to happen um but also women have to take responsibility too uh we have to have our voice out there and say Hey you know this is something I want to do and just get out there and and tell them what you want to do you just like I said the sky’s the limit you can do what it is that you want to do you just have to have your intentions and set out to do it that’s all from a recruitment standpoint think about when you’re hiring someone what’s the first thing that they’re going to do they’re going to Google you you’re they’re going to Google your company they’re going to look at your social media profiles and if they see absolutely zero

women do you think they’re going to apply show them the successful individuals that are at your company show them the cool things that they’re doing at that company and you’re going to open yourselves up to a wider talent pool and ultimately be more successful that’s a good point very similar Point get engaged I think this is not a women’s opportunity this is everyone’s opportunity so the more engaged you do you get and and you know having started women in novellis the first question is hey I’m completely 100 on board so what can I do and the easiest thing there was pick a champion there’s probably some female in or or male usually the females have more passion around this topic but who’s a champion who’s willing to lead it and then support 150 percent what she plans out the vision the resources having uh people that interview that are actually female would be great so just make put yourself in the women’s shoes interviewing for these positions and have them feel that they belong Sean okay I’ve got one question uh from the audience and this will get this this might be a good

one to end on so we talked about what can the operators do to encourage you know more uh you know more females to apply even apply but what advice would you give women who might be discouraged by their experience so far in the industry I would say that just because men are doesn’t mean that you can’t just say well no no great quote by the way I’m gonna follow that one yeah I’m clipping that this is great go ahead I knew I’d do something like that um you just gotta voice your opinion you just gotta say no I’m I want to do that show me how I speak up yeah I think I think you just yeah you have to speak up and um just not take no for an answer you just gotta just keep going and if you don’t like something speak up say it you know hey I don’t appreciate your tone you know how about you step back a notch okay on the operator side I would get more involved in your local community from a high school or Community Tech you know Technical College standpoint in high school I

took one of those uh exams pers aptitude tests do you know what it came back at Construction and I flipped the table and I was like no I’m going to college do you know how many years I wasted like the opportunity like I am fully back into this world I’m very excited to go outside and check out the equipment out there and yet we don’t even take a look at that there are many women out there that are just as excited about operating equipment because they’re Giant toys let’s be real right safely use them though uh there’s absolutely an opportunity for you to get involved showcase to men and women that are still in high school that there is this world of opportunity out there that could be really fun on a day-to-day basis I think for the operator question I would say make the company that you want you would want your daughter to work in and I think if if that’s your North Star you’ll make it happen and I think for uh women that maybe are getting discouraged there’s a lot of power in numbers right when you’re three

in the room or when you’re seven in the room it makes a difference so bring in a lot of women that can make a difference and not just the token female and I would say if if you’re a woman struggling at a company reach out to another woman and say hey have you ever experienced this how should I go about changing this narrative how can you help me get to that point don’t be afraid to move on it’s like anywhere you go if you if you’re not appreciated somebody will appreciate you it’s just it’s a matter of just being willing to move on you know I truly believe that so I’m going to end it I mean I I’m I think I’m the ultimate guys guy I mean I’ve always kind of like that’s just the way I am but at the end of the day you know growing up and watching strong females like my mom and my grandma do what they do I I realize that it’s an important piece of your business there’s a way to still be a guy’s guy talk in the office and and do what you’re going

to do in the right way and grow your business via opening your a cat what are they I would open your employee pool up by another 50 percent so don’t sit around and complain to me that you can’t find people if you’re not willing to hire females to do the jobs that’s all I’m going to say thank you guys for listening foreign