Toured the plants and spoke with engineers
The students toured Vanderhorst Brothers Manufacturing in Simi Valley and Haas Automation in Oxnard on Oct. 2 to learn about career opportunities that they might not have considered before as options for women.
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The group of 24—four girls from each of Simi Valley Unified School District’s six middle and high schools—toured the plants and spoke with engineers, plant managers, human resource professionals and a college professor.
Marybeth Jacobsen, president of the Simi Valley Chamber of Commerce Workforce Education Coalition, said the STEM-Equity tours aim to guide interested students into careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—or STEM.
The tours, started in March 2013, are generally open to both boys and girls. But when organizers realized that girls were not attending the events, the coalition organized the first female STEM-Equity tour to encourage girls to participate.
“We decided that we needed to have a STEM-Equity tour for girls to familiarize them with the opportunities available to them in the manufacturing sector,” Jacobsen said.
During the girls’ visit to Vanderhorst Brothers, Brian O’Rell, owner of the precision machine shop in Simi Valley, gave a tour and showed his machinists hard at work.
“It was (the students’) first time really seeing a manufacturing plant. I genuinely think girls aren’t offered that opportunity very often,” O’Rell said. “As much trouble as we’re having in our industry to find guys to do these jobs, there’s no (other) reason we shouldn’t open it up to the other half of the population.”