Weekly Round Up (April 18th)

So ladies I have decided to do a weekly round up of inspiring articles and events! I know its the middle of the week but I am just so excited. So last week was the STEP Ahead awards in Washington DC and I never knew these existed until I started doing some research. There was some amazing women honored and some inspiring talks happening.  I have shared the link below talking about some of these women.

https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2018/04/11/1468653/0/en/AK-Steel-Women-in-Manufacturing-Honored-for-Leadership-by-the-Manufacturing-Institute.html

https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2018/04/18/1480960/0/en/BASF-and-The-Manufacturing-Institute-honor-outstanding-women-in-manufacturing.html

The event was held on April 10th by the Manufacturing Institute in Washington DC. Go check out the website about the awards and the women honored.

http://www.themanufacturinginstitute.org/Initiatives/Women-in-Manufacturing/STEP-Awards.aspx

Also talking about women in tech here is an interesting article about women at IBM:

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/16/ibms-blockchain-team-is-led-by-women.html

Last but not least these ladies have been leading the way for  women in the wine industry since the 80’s!

http://www.theflorentine.net/food-wine/2018/04/the-women-of-wine/

Cheers ladies and happy Wednesday!

 

 

 

AIST Membership Cost Reduced

Here is the link I promised earlier today! This will take you directly to the membership site. Let me know if you have any questions about joining or the organization itself.

https://www.aist.org/membership/membership-application-philadelphia

Food and Travel

No matter if you are traveling for a day, a week or a whole month, traveling for work is hard on the body and it is even harder to eat healthy. I could drone on for hours about how hard it is to eat when you are away from home, but I would much rather talk about how to eat healthy when you are traveling.

1. Plan

You have to plan whether it is a days worth of travel ,or  weeks worth. Having a pretty good idea of when, where and who you will be going to eat with  is key. This helps you plan your meals around what you may or may not have access to. If it is a day trip plan where you will be eating and if you can pack your food for the day. I love carrying a cooler with at least one meal option in it. Air travel pack a lunch box  with some healthy options.

2. Pack Snacks and condiments.

Try to pack a variety so you don’t get bored. Some of my favorite options are listed below:

• Rx bars,
• Avocados,
• sliced veggies
• Epic bars
• Hardboiled eggs
• Coconut Secret Aminos single serving packets
• Fourth and Heart ghee-single serving packets
• Nutpods
• Protein Powder

3. Drink more….. WATER

It is hard when you have been traveling all day but carrying an empty water bottle that you can fill up anywhere is key.

4. Find a Grocery Store, if it has easily accessible healthy options even better.

Some of favorite options that have awesome hot food bars and food selection are:

• Whole Foods
• Wegmans
• Fresh Thyme
• Fresh Market
• Any Grocery store you can find a bag of veggies  , a piece of fruit or a can of tuna!

5.Eat those salads, with meat.

One of the easiest ways I find to eat a variety of vegetables with a reasonable portion of meat is by ordering a salad. I know this sounds cliché but many restaurants offer awesome Steak Salad options filled with veggies, and even some starches. We would recommend you go lite on the cheese, croutons, sugar laden pecans and the creamy dressings though.

6. Have fun with it and eat local!

What?!? Yes have fun finding healthy restaurants or local restaurants. If you are traveling to a coast look for fresh seafood and enjoy the local eats, if you are headed to the midwest find a great brunch restaurant that may be the locals favorite. Healthy eating doesn’t have to be boring so look for options outside of your chicken and eggs every meal!

Whether you are traveling near or far you can treat yourself but remember everything in moderation and that it is easier when you are making healthy choices most of the time!

 

Non-linear careers, why not?

About a month ago the Wall Street Journal posted an interesting article called ‘Why Women Are Rarely Serial Innovators’ by  Melissa Shilling.  She starts the article addressing why are there not more recognized women innovators in history and it becomes very clear throughout  the article for a few reasons. These include the gender battle over the decades and also the our need take care of our families. So what do we do to fix the deficit and Melissa states the following:

“The politically correct thing to say at this point is that expanding the roster of future innovators to include more women will require certain obvious changes in how we handle family life: Men and women should have more equal child-care responsibilities, and businesses (or governments) should make affordable, quality child care more accessible. But I don’t think it is as simple as that.”

I would have to agree with her response to the above statement that maybe it it isn’t that simple. Maybe  that even if you can afford more child care, maybe we don’t want too. Maybe we want to raise our children and  not relinquish it to others, but instead of going to the extreme end of giving up everything to raise to family, why can’t there be a middle ground? Why don’t we think we could have a career that flows with peaks and valleys? She presents the unconventional idea of non-linear career, which means that our careers may play out differently than the culture norm of a linear career. I think this should be something many of us would embrace if we could still hold the respect in our industries after slowing  for a few years to raise our children.

Like Melissa explores in the article ,this  should be a topic of discussion with  women in the industry. Many women have worked hard for where they are at today but may have given up so many other things to get there. Now I am not stating whether this is good or bad but can’t there be another option?  As women working in industry we have so many opportunities to mold the future for ourselves and for the the next generation and give the opportunities to fulfill the need to care for our families and be successful in our careers.  We should take this a call to action to start the discussion on how we can learn to respect those who may chose a non-linear career path in order to present their best self in all stages of life.

 

To read the whole article please explore the following link:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-women-are-rarely-innovators-1517585411

 

Hello!

Hello and welcome to “From Heels To Steel”.  First I am not going to claim to be the best writer, but I wanted to create a space on the web that has been severely neglected for women in industry. My inspiration came from having another one of those late night searches trying to find an answer to the age old question:   “What does business casual actually mean for this event?” For our male counterparts this is a fairly  simple  question, that most of the time the boss can answer. For us women that questions isn’t as easy and usually ends up with some half ass answer that ends with I’m not sure. Now  I don’t want this blog to be all about what to wear but a place where we can answer those age old questions that we search for on the internet before every big event, trade show, first customer call, or interview.  I am hoping I can help shed some light on questions from ‘for where is the best place to get resume information, to which steel toes are the most comfortable, to how do I  find a mentor,  and all the way to what does business casual actually mean for women! I know I may not have all the answers  but hopefully a few years in industry, a lot of help from women  working in  industry, and a little help from the  men too we can create a resource for sharing information for all those unanswered questions. So stay along for the ride as well explore everything from Heels to Steel!

For the love of manufacturing

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