SUCCESS STORIES: U.S. ARMY PROPELS CAREERS FOR WOMEN IN STEM

It’s crucial for youth to see themselves represented in success stories from the fields which interest them. This year, the U.S. Army partnered with the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) for the first time, and the partnership has already been hailed as a positive opportunity for young women from around the country to see how the Army supports women closing the gender gap in STEM fields.

From Oct. 26-28, more than 14,000 SWE attendees – all in various stages of their engineering careers – gathered in Austin, TX, to learn about career opportunities available in engineering fields. During the conference, First Lieutenant (1st Lt.) Katherine Branham led a Lightning Talk session titled, “Blasting Through Space: How The Army Rocketed My Engineering Career.”

1st Lt. Branham is a Reserve Soldier with two careers – she’s an aerospace engineer for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) at Kennedy Space Center in her civilian job, and she’s a combat engineer for the U.S. Army. Her talk focused on how her military training has equipped her to navigate difficult leadership situations in her civilian career, and she spotlighted some of her unique military engineering experiences – namely that she led a United Nations peacekeeping mission in Nepal.

1st Lt. Branham was a great success story for the women at the conference to see – but youth don’t have to attend national conferences to see these types of examples.

If you have a group of students or youth interested in seeing success stories from other fields – law, medicine, etc. – contact your local recruiting station. Recruiters are able to assist with requests to have Army specialists visit schools and explain how the Army supported them in their education and training to get to where they are, and these visits are free for your school or organization.

To learn where your nearest recruiting office is, click here.