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Today marked the 14th annual Introduce A Girl To Engineering Day. This year's theme, "There’s a Little Bit of Engineer in Every Girl," was celebrated on social media with the hashtag #BringItOut. Businesses, universities, libraries and others offered workshops, tours and discussion sessions to reach girls across the country and introduce them to careers in engineering. Here's a video about the campaign and this year's events:

Earlier this month, WiM Director Allison Grealis was profiled in Crain's Cleveland Business as part of their "Who to Watch in Nonprofits" series. The profile piece describes Allison's early leadership experience in high school, college, and her first job as an organizer for the Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group. Asked about her roles at PMA and WiM, Allison said that finds her job "rewarding."  And she adds that she "finds inspiration in the people with whom she works, as well as in the successful, self-made manufacturers and the women in the industry she represents." “I want to impact things to be different and more inclusive for women in years to come,” she said in the article. Read the full article here .

This week, 24/7 Wall Street, released a list of the worst paying jobs for women. The rundown includes 10 professions across industries from truck drivers and bartenders to financial managers and real estate brokers. One sector not on the list?  Manufacturing.   Manufacturing has consistently offered high salaries for workers. This week, in an interview with Manufacturing.Net , Advanced Technology Services President Jeff Owens discussed salaries in the manufacturing sector.  "Perception drives many myths about manufacturing," he said.  "The largest one being that manufacturing jobs are not as professional or high paying as jobs that require a suit and tie.  Nothing could be further from the truth. Fact is, manufacturing salaries outpace retail jobs by a mile." Congressman Steny Hoyer (D-MD) recently made the same point about the strength and stability offered by manufacturing.  "I think manufacturing is critical, frankly," he said in an interview with The B...

WiM-Wisconsin has recently announced a new program, WiM empoWer. Milwaukee Business News reported on the program saying it's "the first-of-its-kind...to serve as a resource geared toward increasing interest and inspiration in manufacturing careers for women." The article notes that WiM empoWer works in three strategic ways: • Connect leaders to mentees to cultivate relationships and experience; • Partner with local schools to aid in program enhancement and education; Photo from recent WiM-Wisconsin event with Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch • Design events and programs to inspire women, students and professionals to become leaders through the diverse opportunities within manufacturing. Want to learn more? WiM-Wisconsin plans for future programs to continue its mission of engaging women to share perspectives, gain cutting-edge manufacturing information, improve leadership and communication skills, participate in sponsoring programs and network with industry peers.

Today, there a record 67.5 million American women in the workforce. And many of those women - a full four in 10 - are now either the sole or primary earner supporting their families. But, despite these changing workforce dynamics, most American women still clock in for a "second shift" when they leave work and return home.   Research shows that even women with partners at home shoulder more of the responsibility for housework and child care. These statistics are especially relevant for working mothers who, too often, are forced to make the difficult choice to stay home with a sick child and make the call (or send the email) informing bosses and colleagues that they won't be in the office. A recent survey from the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health showed that one-third of working parents with young children find it difficult to take time off from work to care for a sick child because they worry they may lose pay or lose their jobs. The Fa...

Late last month, WiM held two events at Midwest chapters. On January 22nd, we launched our professional chapter in Cleveland and held the group's first event - a tour of Lincoln Electric. An article about the new chapter ran in the Plain Dealer.  The article quotes Lisa Habe who is president and chairman of the board at Interlake Industries as well as a WiM board member. "We need people to come in at all levels and we need to appear more women-friendly," she says in the article.  "The concept is that you want to appear more women-friendly, because half of the workforce are women.  If it takes us to create an organization like this, then so be it. Obviously there's a need for it, because it took off." The article quotes several other WiM members as well as our director, Allison Grealis, who points out that WiM serves an important role, especially for small to midsize manufacturing companies who struggle to find the resources to dedicate to supporting women i...