Celebrating Women’s History Month: Meet Shea Kerwin
At Avangrid, Diversity and Inclusion in the workplace matters to us. During Women’s History Month, we honor women’s contributions to history, culture, and society. Throughout this month, we’re spotlighting employees of our WomENergy Business Resource Group. Meet Shea Kerwin.
Where do you get your internal energy from?
The societal pressure that women, and more specifically queer women, cannot just be mediocre. If I, a lesbian woman, did the bare minimum at my job I would be the poster person for “this is why we don’t hire queer and female engineers”. I wouldn’t be an individual who is poor at my job, the narrative is spun that I am poor at my job because I am queer, or female compared to the “great men” who came before me. Men in stem have their individual identity rather than representing the whole of a group. So, I have a drive to go above and beyond because if I didn’t, I am letting down the communities who didn’t have access to my job position a mere couple of years ago.
A woman you admire is…
I imagine this question was aimed at me providing someone well known or semi know, someone with a Wikipedia page at least. So, the readers could go look up my idol and be inspired themselves by an iconic woman. However, I am more inspired by the hardworking women around me, who day after day endure endless micro aggressions and have to cope with the weight of simply being a member of a different gender than one upon which our society has been catering to, these women are everywhere. So, to pick just one would be an injustice but I would like to highlight to the following.
Lexi Fuetz, Emily Lawson-Bulten, Kendra Zeman, and Rachael Nagelkirk. These women are engineers whom I met at the USDA NRCS office in Michigan. They are the bravest, most compassionate, and truly inspiring group I could have ever imagined having met. They uplift me daily and constantly surprise me with all their professional and personal accomplishments. In a field (agricultural AND engineering) dominated by men, these women rose to the top and excelled.
What do you like most about your job?
The ability to promote and work on projects that push sustainability and decarbonization. Protecting and rehabilitating the environment has always been something I wanted to focus my career on, every kWh and CCF I save go to reducing the GHG emissions to provide a cleaner future for all.
A challenge you have faced and an accomplishment you got is…
A challenge I face daily is being dressing in business professional attire that I am comfortable in. Outside of work, I dress rather androgynous and never realized how gendered office outfits were until I started going in to work as an intern.
A recent accomplishment for me has been presenting my work at conferences. I get nervous speaking in front of crowds; however, I have been able to get through my presentations/panels while maintaining a relatively calm presence.
Describe one unique quality that you think women bring to the workplace.
Community. I have worked on teams with an all-female cast and an all-male cast (minus myself), the disparity between the two was jarring for many reasons but one I want to highlight was I felt that on the female team although we were all working in individual projects at different sites, I felt like a member of a team working towards a unified goal. The team I have worked with where I am the only female engineer, has a distinct focus on individual persistence. When working for the USDA NRCS, I designed sustainable solutions for farmers, only one engineer was working on one site at a time. There were checks and balances for the calculations and drawings but a project had a sole owner. This set up could have made it very easy to isolate, clocking in at 8am, working, and clocking out at 5pm, while barely exchanging pleasantries with coworkers. But the women I worked created a community of learning and engagement, if I was working on a grassed waterway in one county and another engineer was working on one 2 counties over, we would sit down and do our projects together. This ability to proactively engaging is vital creating a welcoming work environment.
A piece of advice you would give to young people who initiate a career is…
I would tell a young person starting their career not to compare themselves to others. Everyone today has access to hundreds of thousands of people’s lives, carefully curated, edited, and posted. Never have we ever had this much information on so many people. It is very easy to get down on yourself, looking at the great successes of others, feeling you are not capable of such. But there is no one path, or timeline everyone should be following. Everyone is doing the best they can, any failures or accomplishments, should be learned from and celebrated as a part of your individual experience here on earth. It’s everyone’s first life they’re living, you should be gentle and grateful for all you have and will do.
What cliche about women would you like to eliminate? That you think women bring to the workplace.
“Happy wife, Happy life”
This cliché is implying that women need to be catered to and are unreasonable monsters if they don’t get what they want. As if, they aren’t capable of creating their own happiness and contentment and will take others down with them in their misery. This puts the entirety of the relationship’s success on the woman by assuming unless she is experiencing complete fulfillment, she will bring down her partner’s wellbeing.
Name a wish you would make for your future…
A villa in Mochlos, Greece. I love the sun, the sea, the food, the people, the language. If a genie popped out of a bottle and said I could have a wish for my future, I am wishing for a villa in Greece 10/10 times, sorry world peace.
