DURBAN - MARIETTE Smit has shattered the glass ceiling, proving that women can excel in the engineering field.
From the day she entered the engineering field 26 years, ago Smit has conquered the male dominated industry and now in her role as the Test and Evaluation Manager (Commissioning) at SanDock Austral Shipyards (SAS), she has proven her worth in the maritime sector where she manages, leads and co-ordinates, develops and creates the Testing and Commissioning Procedures, Harbour and Sea Trials for a new military vessel being built by the Durban based shipbuilding and repair firm.
It is at SanDock Austral Shipyards where Smith says she has flourished as an engineer and is now encouraging girls to pursue a career in the maritime sector.
“We need women at all levels, including the top, to change the dynamic, reshape the conversation, to make sure women’s voices are heard and heeded, not overlooked and ignored,” she said.
Smit started her career in the male-dominated Petrochemical Industry some 26 years ago where she was the only woman to join a Commissioning and Handover Team for a big company and remained the only woman in that sector for many years.
While working her way up in the field, Smit held the title of Lead Turnover and Commissioning Engineer position for large scale projects worth billions of rands.
Despite this, she found herself having to explain her presence in the room constantly as a woman and even had to take on more “masculine” traits to find acceptance, she said.
Smit said that a few years into her career she was invited to attend the World Summit for Commissioning and Handover Engineers hosted in Germany and thought at the time that she would be finally embraced by peers across the world who would see past the fact that she was female.
At the conference, she says that she was the only woman out of 450 delegates and when she arrived she was automatically perceived as not “part” of the summit and was there to perform “coffee-lady” duties.
“I was asked by one of the participants to get coffee, to which I looked at the participant, waiting for him to finish his request, I stood tall, proud and powerful, said to him ‘Oh yes, I would love a cup of coffee, milk, no sugar thank you’ and proceeded to take a seat in the auditorium.
“It was from that very moment I knew that women would face many obstacles and challenges to fit into an industry that is male-dominated,” she said.
By the end of the summit, Smit had proven her presence on merit and was awarded the top Turnover and Commissioning Engineer award.
Over the next few years, she went on to work on various big projects around the world before joining Sandock Austral Shipyard where she was bitten by the maritime bug which she says “gripped” her.
“It’s an industry with such diverse opportunities and possibilities, it is an industry that is not afraid of welcoming women, giving women the opportunity to work in a unique and ever-changing environment,” she says.
“We need to promote the maritime profession to women and show them that a career in maritime can be both rewarding and exciting. Cultural differences, gender differences are the most difficult to manage, but, getting women in the industry as ambassadors will get the message out there and this is the strongest method of promoting the industry to women,” she said.
Working in the maritime sector has also been very rewarding for Smit and no more so than when after completing a project for the SA Navy, her name was mounted in Brass to the Port Main Engine of the F145 Amatola.
“There’s no question that the maritime industry needs more women to represent a demographic of people who have been historically under-utilised. Getting women to participate in the maritime industry empowers women to harness their development, knowledge and power which reduces vulnerability amongst women.
“The women in South Africa are waiting to release their strength and ability to prove they can work in the ‘male’ dominated maritime industry. There’s something so special about a woman who dominates in a man’s world. It takes a certain grace, strength, intelligence, fearlessness, and the nerve to never take no for an answer,” Smit concluded.
IOL