Disrupt | Empower | Innovate

Challenging the status quo through positive disruption, empowerment and innovation

G&W North America

G&W North America celebrated International Women’s Day (IWD) on Wednesday, March 8, with a special virtual event featuring a panel of eight women employees from across G&W North America who shared their experiences working in the rail industry and a keynote presentation from Laurie Voss, executive coach and team development facilitator. The event’s theme, “Disrupt, Empower, Innovate,” invited women to share their experiences challenging the status quo through positive disruption, empowerment and innovation.

The panel included Colleen Conway, manager of service design and measurement; Katia Drouin, general manager of St. Lawrence & Atlantic Railroad (SLR)/St. Lawrence & Atlantic Railroad Quebec (SLQ); Anita Horton, director of sales and marketing, Missouri & Northern Arkansas Railroad (MNA) Nadine Kasuske, office manager for Rapid City, Pierre & Eastern Railroad (RCPE); Catherine Moher, trainmaster, Huron Central Railway (HCRY); Tanis Peterson, general manager of Western Labrador Rail Services (WLRS) and Knob Lake & Timmins Railway (KLTR); Jennifer Rera, director of business systems; and Ann Waters, director of planning and support. The panel was facilitated by the G&W International Women’s Day Planning Committee: Jessica Farinaro, senior human resources manager, Canada Division; Fabienne Julien, assistant vice president of human resources, Canada Division; Elina Kokorotsis, director of HR technology; Kathi Maness, former vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion; and Laurie Nivison, director of communications.

Conway, who has worked in the rail industry for 15 years, described how she landed her first job on the railroad and fell in love with railroading – but it wasn’t without its challenges being a woman in a male-dominated industry.

“When I first started, I wanted to be a trainmaster,” she said. “But I was a girl, and I wore a lot of pink, and the company I worked for thought that I was better suited to be the customer service manager. So I took the job, not wanting it, and kept pushing to be out in the field with the guys to be a trainmaster.”

She would use her days off and vacation time to learn all about the business – riding along with train crews and visiting customers. In her first 10 years, Conway worked as a yardmaster, dispatcher, customer service manager and train operations manager, and had to navigate stereotypes as a woman in those positions.

“Early in my career as a yardmaster, I gave instructions to a train crew to bring a train into the yard and how to yard it, and the conductor got on the radio for everyone to hear and said to me that my ‘job was to sit in the tower and look pretty, and they knew how to yard a train,’” she said. “Due to situations like that early in my career I chose to go only by my last name. Our email addresses were our first initial and last name, so everything I signed was C. Conway. So I chose that as a path to avoid stereotyping until I got to the point where someone obviously had to meet me face-to-face and they were shocked to know that Conway was a girl!”

For Catherine Moher, her experience as a woman on the front line has been positive. She joined Canadian Pacific in 1989 and retired in 2020 after 31 years. She started as an operator and worked as dispatcher, chief dispatcher and finally terminal coordinator. She joined HCRY in 2021.

“There are so many opportunities in the field for women,” she said. “You have to have tough skin. I don’t think we as women know our worth and our capabilities when we’re younger. We need to understand that we’re stronger than we think and that will help us move forward.”

Jennifer Rera has been with G&W for just over 20 years. When she started with G&W, there were just eight employees on the IT team with two of them women, and now there are six women on of a team of 50.

“Even though G&W is a male-dominated company and I work in a male-dominated department, I’ve been lucky in that I’ve had the support from my peers and leaders through the years,” she said. “I’ve had opportunities that I’ve been able to take and run with. That isn’t to say it’s been sunshine and rainbows all the time

- it’s been challenging at times. I’ve been in situations where I haven’t felt like my voice was heard, or had to repeat myself, only to be talked over or dismissed. That’s where the help of other women and male allies has come in to play. I’ve built that trust among my peers, and we help each other out in those situations.”

“For women, it’s difficult to disrupt alone,” Rera said. “But if we work together, we’ll have a better chance. We should cheer each other on and celebrate our wins, no matter how big or small they are. For men, you can be an ally at the table and let our voices be heard, and if you witness something like gender bias occurring, speak up and support that woman – and cheer them on, too.”

Ann Waters empowered participants in the virtual event to lead.

“Sometimes in large groups, general requests can go without ownership,” she said. “Specifically, I want to talk to leadership. People listen to what you say and watch what you do, but more importantly they hear what you don’t say and see what you don’t do. Here’s my ask of you – I want you to go tap someone on the shoulder and ask them to sit down, ask them what obstacles they’ve encountered and how you can help.”

“To people early in their career – take it upon yourselves,” Waters said. “Own your journey. Don’t hesitate to take the lead. Go knock on someone’s door and ask if you can talk to them, hear about their experiences and what they have to say, how they handled those situations you’ve been struggling with.”

“To the men that are listening today – there’s a lot of great men who have offered support, no qualms about it,” she said. “Continue to step up and support the women in your lives and do it openly – it will empower the other men to do the same. And if you’re a woman, and you’ve climbed the ladder, you’ve found your way around those obstacles. As a woman leader, we rely on you for your mentorship and support.”

Waters wrapped her segment emphasizing the importance of having support systems that can be relied upon throughout a person’s career.

“I think we all tell ourselves to work hard and you’ll get there,” she said. “For me personally, there have been times in my career I’ve lost faith in that approach. But that’s where my support system has picked me back up and said, ‘no, keep going.’ We may not be able to change what it means to be included and supported in the world, but I certainly think we can change what it means to be included and supported within the G&W walls. If we start there, I think we’re going to be really well off and a lot of people are going to say ‘wow, we want to be like them.’”

Keynote speaker Laurie Voss capped off the event by discussing tools in which women can look at new approaches to changing the status quo through creative thought processes and assessments.

G&W UK/Europe

On Wednesday, March 8, more than 50 women from across G&W’s UK/Europe operations, including Freightliner Poland, came together to celebrate International Women’s Day (IWD) 2023. This was the fourth IWD event for the UK/Europe Region, all done with the active participation and enthusiasm of female employees.

This year’s event was held at the London Transport Museum. During lunch, participants toured the museum.

The IWD theme this year was #EmbraceEquity, which aims to get the world talking about why equal opportunities aren’t enough. While equality is focused on ensuring everybody gets the same resources and opportunities, equity recognizes that individuals have different circumstances and aims to allocate resources and opportunities based on those circumstances to ensure all achieve an equal outcome. Focusing on the difference between equality versus equity was very much the theme of the day, and participants were treated to presentations from three fantastic guest speakers:

● Michelle Russell, National Skills Academy for Rail (NSAR), talked about how skills can influence equity, including a fun session learning balloon modeling skills!

● Arlene Dixon, Samaritans, shared information on her organization’s “Small Talk Saves Lives” campaign and how a simple question or intervention can be all it takes to interrupt someone’s suicidal thoughts and start them on the journey to recovery. As this year’s chosen charity, the UK/ Europe Region will donate £1,000 to Samaritans to thank them for the valuable work they do in supporting people in crisis as well as their work with the rail industry generally and to the Freightliner business. The training and development team recently shared details of managing suicidal contacts and trauma support training. These are programs provided free by Samaritans, either online or face-to-face, and are not specific to rail colleagues. However, G&W UK colleagues are invited to attend.

● Andrea Graham, Transpennine Route Upgrade, shared her career journey through various roles in British Rail, British Transport Police, the police force and criminal investigation department where she talked about her many experiences of prejudice as a woman in a male-dominated industry and how she overcame these barriers to reach the top of her chosen profession.

In a time-honored tradition, awards were given to the UK/Europe Region’s Shining Stars, who went over and above during 2022. Eight awards were given this year, showcasing the terrific work of female employees. The awards were:

● G&W 2022 Rising Star Award: Holly Fleming, Terminal & Road Analyst – IMU

● Outstanding Contribution Award 2022: Anjali Lakhani, Head of Rail Service & HH Finance

● Outstanding Commitment Award 2022: Helen Waller, Business Systems Analyst

● The face of G&W 2022: Steph Cooke, Shunt Driver, Crewe

● Customer Excellence Award 2022: Kali Sheridan, General Manager, Service Delivery

● 2022 Unsung Hero Award: Liz Empsall, IM Train Driver, Leeds

● 2022 Safety and Charitable Award: Justyna Wyka, HR Manager, Freightliner Poland

● 2022 Agent for Positive Change: Nikita Niven, Program Management Lead

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