The Women in NDT Committee has organized a set of leadership and development sessions at ASNT’s 2020 Annual Conference. These valuable sessions, including “Leading Through Change,” “Salary Negotiation Tips,” and more, will be held Wednesday, 11 November 2020 beginning at 10:00 a.m. EST.
The idea for this track came from members of the committee who asked for sessions that would help their professional development, address challenges they face, and provide strategies to meet those challenges.
“The topics were in response to specific requests having to do with leading a team, interviewing, and communications skills,” said Marybeth Miceli, co-chair of the committee along with Brenda Collins. “We hope each session will help attendees hone their skills so that they can more effectively communicate their ideas—whether through presentations to customers or to people on their team—to help everyone do their job more effectively.”
“Leading Through Change,” a three-part session, will be presented by Karen Smith, president of Olympus Scientific Solutions Americas. The presentation will cover things Smith learned through personal experience as well as general information on leading through change. “I felt it was a good topic for me because of my many years of leadership experience and many large changes I have had to help lead our business through,” Smith said.
Smith feels leadership training is important for anyone, but especially women. “There is often a lot of training provided on how to do a specific job or task in an organization, but leadership training is so often overlooked.” Smith added that she wanted to help women in their careers and thought it could be interesting to explore an area where formal training is not always provided.
This type of session track is new to ASNT. “I am very excited to have the Women in NDT Committee engaged in this year’s conference,” said Barry Schieferstein, ASNT director of meetings and conferences. “We hope to expand this model in future years, allowing us to appeal to a broader range of attendees with content beyond our standard technical program.”
The sessions and the committee are not limited to women—everyone interested in the leadership topics is welcome. “We encourage everyone to participate in this track, not just women or those on the committee,” said Miceli.
Initially the committee had planned more activities for an in-person conference, but when the pandemic forced a virtual experience, those plans have been pushed to the future. In addition to these innovative sessions, the committee is involved with mentoring, mock interviews, an annual reception, collaborating with similar groups in other societies, and contributing to the Women in NDT articles published in Materials Evaluation.
The Women in NDT Committee met for the first time at the 2018 ASNT Annual Conference in Houston. The committee’s goal is to provide support for women in the industry, have a forum to discuss the challenges of being underrepresented in the industry, provide mentoring, and plan programs that help women thrive in the NDT industry. Currently, the committee has 18 members.
For more information about the Women in NDT Committee, contact Heather Cowles, director, membership and engagement, hcowles@asnt.org.
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Cindi Leeman, editor, ASNT Pulse; cleeman@asnt.org.