Powerful reasons why STEM careers can be a woman’s world

While there has been steady progress made across the global corporation in recent times in terms of gender equality, economic empowerment and return-to-work opportunities, Cummins Distribution in Europe acknowledges there is room for improvement in attracting women into the ‘nuts and bolts’ part of its business – the network of skilled service technicians whose job is to provide the essential back-up for customers across a swathe of industrial sectors.

It’s a challenge that is being readily accepted by Ann-Kristin de Verdier, Executive Managing Director - Distribution Business Europe, who says she has been thinking about the imbalance of men and women in technology for a long time, in fact for the 35 years since she left Chalmers University of Technology.

"Looking back, women made up only 10 to 15 per cent of the students on my course, and the needle has barely moved in fields such as Computer Science which I studied. It's disappointing and frustrating that women, who have so much to offer, are not more involved in helping shape the future careers in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics).”

Ann-Kristin joined Cummins in 1998 and has steered important strategic programmes across the organisation, in Europe and North America. Prior to taking up her current role, she was Executive Director - Energy Management within the Cummins Power Systems business, looking at the potential for the shift to natural gas and hydrogen.

Ann-Kristin believes career opportunities for women in Cummins' service business have never looked so appealing. "These jobs are well paid, they're secure and they are exciting because they are at the leading edge of energy technology.

“There is also the potential to transition with roles, from being field-based to office-based, technician to analyst to customer-facing role, so the flexibility is there to match the work-life balance that’s required.”

One young woman who has seized the chance to shine with Cummins is 26-year-old Field Service Technician Alexandra Andersson. Alexandra has been surrounded by machinery and engines all her young life. As a child, there were the tractors and various different types of mechanical equipment dotted around her parents' farm in Varberg on Sweden's west coast. Then, as a teenager, it was cars.

At college, Alexandra studied to be a car mechanic and landed a job in the workshop of a car dealership in the port town of Halmstad. In her spare time, she helped a colleague prepare his car for racing in the Thunder Car series at weekends.

Today, Alexandra is based in Gallivare, up in the northernmost part of her homeland and the site of Europe's largest open-pit copper mines. Alexandra is responsible for keeping some of the most powerful machines on the planet in working order: Gigantic mining trucks and wheel loaders, some as tall as houses.

“I just love being around these giant machines – they’re so cool,” says Alexandra, who has been carving a reputation for herself as one of the finest young service technicians in the vast Cummins’ service network which extends across Europe.

Alexandra has always been fascinated with engine technology and having got to grips with those V8 'Thundercars', she yearned to work on bigger, more complex power units. "I had an idea that it might be fun to work in the industrial world. I found a job being advertised by Cummins and I submitted my CV.

"The only thing I knew about Cummins at that time was that it provided the 6.7-litre turbodiesel engine for the Dodge RAM pick-up. I went for an interview with Janne Valmari and I was excited about the potential for working with them as I knew I would learn a lot."

Janne Valmari is Project Manager Service Mining at Cummins, and he was certainly impressed by Alexandra's abilities and attitude. "The HR manager and I went through her CV and loved the fact she had good experience on hydraulics. She was by far the outstanding candidate and we were delighted to take her on."

Janne says Alexandra is too modest to talk about her achievements in the 18 months she has been working in the mines “but she spent eight weeks in the summer holidays of 2021 effectively running the site service for Cummins on her own”.

Alexandra spends a great deal of her time working on the mighty Cummins QSK60 engine “my pet engine, I love it!”. This is one of the most technically demanding engines in the world to service but one which is beloved of mining operators thanks to its incredible robustness.

There is no reason why there should not be more women like Alexandra entering the world of engine servicing. The industry is consistently changing and evolving thanks to significant investment in digital tools, health and safety and advances in cleaner engine technology.

"With all the digital diagnostics, there's less reliance on physical strength working with engines, so there really is nothing to stop more women coming into my line of work," says Alexandra. "Like I said, it's cool."

Ann-Kristin de Verdier says she is proud of Alexandra’s stellar progress and agrees there should be more women considering the world of engine servicing as a career.

"We have to look more closely at what's working in other industries and other parts of the world. We also need to work out how early we as a business start sowing the seeds.

"When my 11-year-old daughter attended a graduation event, pupils were asked what they wanted to be when they left school. Not one of the girls said anything about wanting to be an engineer.

"We need to be lighting up their thoughts in the early years, and perhaps we can leverage off some of the great work Cummins does in communities and through our long-established volunteer and community grants programmes where education is a key priority. They say you can't be what you can't see, so we need to be presenting more female role models, people like Alexandra."

Ann-Kristin believes there are tremendous opportunities to be grasped by women in the transition to Destination Zero.

We can break the bias by showing that working at the forefront of the energy transition is good for the world and women from all backgrounds can benefit from these opportunities. I'd love it if Alexandra's story can inspire others to join her and Cummins in this quest!"