(Photos courtesy Seattle Public Utilities)
By Keri DeTore
Reporting for West Seattle Blog
March 2nd was the last day of a 30-year career for a West Seattle woman who has been called a “trailblazer” and a “pioneer.” In the beginning, though, the names she was called weren’t so complimentary.
Kerry Copeland has just retired from Seattle Public Utilities, where she was one of the first female water-line workers hired in the 1980s.
Being a water-line worker is being “on the front line.” It’s hard work, with lots of digging, often in difficult weather conditions. When SPU started recruiting women, Copeland was interested because she’s always been very physical and attracted to non-traditional jobs. “One of our tests was digging a 2×2 trench within a certain amount of time. We went to the West Seattle Reservoir to do it, and the place looked like a graveyard because so many groups of people had been digging trenches!”
Copeland passed the test and became one of the first women on the “front line.”
Using battle terminology isn’t entirely off base: Every day was a challenge, and according to Copeland, there were men who regularly said, “We don’t want women here and we’re not going to make it easy for you.”
Because information was regularly shared in the men’s locker room, or the “bull pen,” it was difficult for the women to get information about assignments and work changes. Copeland says, “It was like walking into a man cave.”
Copeland recalls a question she was asked in her first interview, which would be mind-boggling to anyone today: “If a man who doesn’t like women in the workforce is approaching you with a crowbar, what do you do?” Copeland says she didn’t answer this question immediately, not sure it was for real.
So what kept her going? “I knew I could do the job. I would do my best and trusted that there were good people. I had to be able to handle pressing through injustice — it was the right thing to do. I wasn’t going to go away and you take a lot of hits doing that. You have to be able to be uncomfortable physically and emotionally and push through. You have to figure out how to make changes, it’s a lot of responsibility.”
Copeland and the seven other women also joined together for support and information sharing. The women’s locker room became “a safe refuge. It’s how we would survive, vent, bond.” This female support and camaraderie was absolutely necessary in the environment at the time, “You’re setting the tone and breaking rules. Nothing you do is wanted or respected and you had to push back. Being on the front end, we had ourselves, and we’d band together when something needed to change.”
What Copeland began to notice after time was a “balancing” of the work force, and relationship building through commonalities, which she says “women are very good at.” She adds, “we were humanizing the work force. We’d have pancake breakfasts and community picnics. They began to accept the ‘femaleness’ once there was the human element.”
While attitudes at SPU began to change – and Copeland points out that she had a very supportive boss who told her to “show ‘em how it’s done” – that wasn’t always the case when she went to a construction site or project meeting. “I’d be the only woman, and they asked me to be the note-taker. So I did — and then I took the notes with me!” Copeland was also part of a two-woman truck team (unprecedented at that time), and when she and her partner would arrive at a job, they were asked, “When is the person in charge getting here?”
Copeland eventually moved from the front lines into training and was part of SPU’s first leadership and diversity committees.
She’s proud of being a “go-to” person, and having people know that if something unjust was brought to her attention, something would be done about it. She says, “What I did was important and it changed things … I feel good about being used as a reference point.” She also points out that, “My success was due to the folks above me who saw that I could be a change agent. We’ve done some good things.”
While Copeland feels the industry as a whole has made great strides in incorporating and training women as part of the overall work force, she has a concern.
Fewer women are coming into the trades these days, and she’s concerned the “energy level” may shift back to a more negative environment for women.
Though she’s now retired, Copeland still focuses on empowerment for women, teaching martial arts and focusing on personal safety. Looking back, she says that her work experience “was a gift. At the end of the day I knew I was working hard, being sharp and analytical.” In her biography she writes: “I’ve enjoyed these 30 years of cultivating meaningful relationships with remarkable and inspiring co-workers from many walks of life. It has been a richly rewarding experience.”
| 20 COMMENTS