Women Changing Look of Rubber Industry, Interview with Rubber & Plastics News
To view the full article, visit https://www.rubbernews.com/women-tire-rubber/women-changing-look-rubber-industry
The article, which was published in the Rubber & Plastics News, states:
"History is preserved in moments. It's images frozen in time, printed in color—sometimes in black-and-white—and tucked into archives with records, memos, artifacts and letters.
The ACS Rubber Division has bits of history just like that: photographs of the events, people and moments that helped to shape the industry. Step back far enough into that history and you'll notice a trend. The people in the pictures, most of them anyway, are male. And nearly all of them are white.
The thing about history though, is that its story evolves. It changes as time moves forward and experiences shape the moments that define it. The rubber industry's history is no different. Its story is evolving.
And WCCO Belting Inc. is proof of that.
WCCO, a 66-year-old company tucked into the southeast corner of North Dakota, where it manufactures belting and other rubber products for the agricultural and light industrial applications, has some photos of its own. Taken in more recent years, more recent days, the images show a different kind of work force, a different kind of industry—one comprising almost as many women as men.
WCCO employs about 200 across its organization. And of those working on the shop floor, more than 45 percent are female. It's a statistic that feels a bit like an anomaly, even today. Especially in manufacturing, a sector that traditionally has been geared toward males.
But this gender balance in the workplace wasn't something WCCO set out to do.
"We don't have a specific strategy or target to make women a big part of the work force," said Jean Voorhees, WCCO vice president of business development.
Instead, she said, the company focused on something else: Standing out. As a company. As an employer. As a community partner.
To continue reading and learn more about how WCCO Belting is standing out, visit the Rubber & Plastics News website.