BUSINESS CLIMATE: Times have changed

More women find careers in technology

Mayri Hebert trained with the Women's Army Corps only for it to be absorbed into the United States Army just as she began her 3 1/2-year stint. She worked in the technology field where it wasn't strange to see her surrounded by all male co-workers on the job.

Times have changed for Hebert. Now a project manager with IT Strategies, she helps businesses and utility companies comfortably co-exist with technology. The firm provides data services and supplemental staffing to clients along with system recommendations, computer programming and technical writing.

"We were making history," Hebert said. "I felt like I had to prove myself. I don't feel like I have that situation in technology. You just want to do a good job."

Hebert is a part of the 40 percent female employment base at IT Strategies. Data entry, technical writing and secretarial jobs used to be the norm for women in the technology field, but women like Hebert and her co-worker Nina Rasmussen are holding higher-level jobs. Rasmussen is the firm's technical recruiter.

She started in the field in the 1970s. Even then, she said, you would see women as programmers, analysts and technical writers. Then, a large reason for the male domination in the field was due to the physical labor involved in carrying the large tapes and equipment.

Today, the field is a good place for single mothers to earn enough money to comfortably raise their families, Rasmussen said.

"Now, anybody, regardless of their sex, can do it," Rasmussen said. "It's not gender based anymore. Anyone can do it who has the brain power."

Rasmussen has been a technical recruiter since 1990. Women and men interested in computers have more technology classes available to them through education, from elementary school through college, than generations prior. Technology isn't as scary as it used to be, she said.

"It's all based on education and what you're exposed to as a child," Rasmussen said. She said it's also about the culture of the city you live in. "It wouldn't just be in IT. It would be in any field."

"The good thing about technology in general terms is everybody uses it. It doesn't have to be a sophisticated computer system. It's become really convenient for everybody," Hebert said. "Housewives, they do home banking. Just think five years from now there will be something better, something faster."

"Try next month," Rasmussen added.

Rasmussen predicts in the next 10 years, the number at her company, along with technology across the board, will even out between the sexes. But there are still places for improvement, Rasmussen and Hebert agree.

"My husband and I go into a store to buy a computer for him. They talk to him, and he doesn't know anything," said Rasmussen, laughing. "It's craziness. I finally just told him to stay home."

Getting the word out about women in technology-based careers helps change opinions.

"The more women who get publicity in our business, the more people won't think it's strange that women know about it," Rasmussen said.

"Technology has opened more doors for women," Hebert said. "It's made it more accessible to women."


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