Female leader in local manufacturing

Jennifer Nixon started working as a parts picker at the Marine Travelift warehouse in Sturgeon Bay five years ago and is now a warehouse manager. Photo by Rachel Lucas.

Manufacturing month: Made in Door County

When Jennifer Nixon first set foot on the Marine Travellift five years ago, she was overwhelmed by the sheer size and orderly hustle and bustle of the assembly plant.

“Everything was so big and everything was moving so fast,” she said. “It was very overwhelming to see what we could actually do.”

Based in Sturgeon Bay, Marine Travelift manufactures marina boat handling equipment, from mobile boat hoists to marine forklifts to hydraulic transporters. Nixon now serves as a warehouse manager there. It’s a role I won last November after starting out as a parts picker in a warehouse and then moving to receiving.

On a typical day, Nixon sets up teams for daily operations, loading and unloading trucks, cleaning and organizing assembly plants, and checking in with other departments to ensure productivity. She is no longer intimidated by the production process, which she finds satisfying.

“Now that we know more about the whole process, it’s really nice to see it all come together,” Nixon said.

I am fully aware that manufacturing is often thought of as “a man’s job,” but she is not the only woman in the workplace. Instead, from the factory floor to the manager’s office, there’s a fairly even gender distribution at Travellift, she reported.

Other female leaders in Sturgeon Bay’s manufacturing industry, including Hatco Corporation’s Becky Ash and Tina Rogers, shared this view. of a new industry.

Hatco Assistant Team Leader Ash said: Most workers on the NEW factory floor are men, but Rogers, vice president of finance and administration, said women hold many other positions.

Despite the high numbers of women in these companies, manufacturing as a whole remains a male-dominated sector. Women make up about 47% of the total workforce, according to the 2021 U.S. Census Bureau table, but she makes up only 30% in manufacturing. Also, she is only one in four of her manufacturing leaders.

A study by the American College Women’s Association found that many women working in manufacturing experience some form of gender discrimination. The survey found that 68.2% of her women of color and 62.6% of her white women reported experiencing workplaces that could be glass ceilings, pay disparities and outright harassment. I have.

Ash has been in manufacturing the longest of the three women. She said a lot has changed in her last 25 years. When she experienced gender discrimination at times, it took the form of male workers not respecting her authority because she was a woman.

“Some of the gentlemen who come to work here say, ‘You’re a lady. I’m not going to talk to you. I’m not going to listen to you,'” Ash said.

But that is changing. She said more and more employees are accustomed to seeing women in charge, while Rogers at New Industries and her colleague Christine Konlon, head of human resources at Manufacturing. said he never experienced sexism in his career.

“I feel completely respected and fully recognized for my contributions,” said Rogers. “I feel taken seriously.”

Despite an increasing number of women in manufacturing, Rogers said he believes manufacturing is still seen as largely male-dominated.

And research shows otherwise. The U.S. Census reports that women have been increasingly included in manufacturing jobs since 2010, with the pandemic slowing the overall rate of increase.

When Nixon joined manufacturing, she wasn’t sure it was for her.

“I couldn’t imagine leaving this now,” she said.