Ordinarily Extraordinary - Conversations with women in STEM
We’re Kathy Kale Nelson and Linda LaTourelle — co-hosts of Ordinarily Extraordinary: Conversations with Women in STEM.
Kathy, an electrical engineer, launched the podcast in 2020 to share real, unfiltered stories of women working across STEM disciplines. Now with over 130 episodes, the mission remains the same: to amplify the voices of ordinary women doing extraordinary work in science, technology, engineering, and math.
We’re deeply committed to:
- Normalizing the presence of women in STEM by making their stories visible
- Building community for women who may be the only ones like them in their workplace
- Educating listeners about the wide variety of STEM careers — and what they actually look like
- Empowering growth and retention by addressing the challenges behind the leaky pipeline
From early-career professionals to experienced leaders, our guests share how they got started, how they’ve grown, and what they’ve learned along the way. This podcast is a space where women in STEM can be seen, heard, and supported — because representation isn’t just powerful, it’s essential.
Ordinarily Extraordinary - Conversations with women in STEM
Relaunch Trailer - Introducing Co-Host Linda LaTourelle
Welcome back everybody to ordinarily extraordinary conversations with women in stem. As you may have noticed, I've been away for almost a year. For some very specific reasons. I had some other projects that are a little bit related to things that came about from this podcast that I wanted to work on. I've been working on learning a craft of writing manuscripts for children's books. I've been working on a project, a coloring book with my daughter that I'm collaborating on about women in stem, and I wanted some time to focus on those because I also have a day job. And I don't wanna say that I'm to the point that I have those things figured out.'cause those are also a very much a work in progress. But I have been, um, over the year that I've been away, I have been thinking about the podcast and really missing it and missing the community, missing the women in STEM and sharing those stories. So, decided to relaunch the podcast and wanted to bring in a co-host and a very good friend of mine, so I am excited to introduce to you Linda LaTourelle, who is going to be hosting Ordinarily extraordinary with me. I'm so excited to have her. We've known each other for I think, almost 30 years and have collaborated in work environments, and now we get to collaborate on this really, really fun project. We just came back from doing a photo shoot and talking about our podcast music, which we're gonna have some new podcast music that we're gonna be launching with this that's also created by a woman in stem. And so I'm just really, really excited to introduce Linda to you all and I'm really excited to relaunch the podcast. I'm gonna let Linda tell you a little bit about her herself, and then we will see you all in September when we kick off our podcast relaunch
Linda:Yeah. Thank you Kathy. I'm so happy to be here. I've enjoyed your podcast, over the years and. Uh, initially was one of your guests and just admired the work that you've done there and admire all the extraordinary women that you've had on to date. I'm super honored that you asked me to be here as your co-host and bring a little bit of technology side to that engineering brain of yours. I'm excited about this synergy that could create for the two of us. And then, with the addition of our guests of course. But, um, little bit about me. I've been in the electric utility space for, uh, quite a few years. Friend of mine always says a hundred years. I don't think it's quite that much, but sometimes it feels like that much. what's exciting for me is I've, always been excited about this industry that we work in the utility space. And I get a chance to reach out to other women in this space quite often, and with this I'll, get to reach out a little bit more. So that's, that's exciting. so yeah, um, I worked for a co-op for 25 years, and then I was working for a technology company that served the same industry. So I made a lot of friendships over the years and cherished all of them. I hope to have some of those folks on the show. I have to say I'm a little bit nervous. You've got a lot of experience. I think you five years, Kathy, that you've been doing
Kathy:Yeah. Weirdly,
Linda:Where did that time go
Kathy:know, right? This, it went the same place that my kids' lives went. It just like. Spun. Spun by ridiculously fast.
Linda:Yes. I. It has since then I've become a grandma. So that's been exciting in my life as well. Um, retired from the industry as long as we're, um, introducing myself here. retired, uh, 2022, so I guess we're going on three years of retirement
Kathy:that time go?
Linda:Yeah, I know, I know. I don't know where it went. And it is true. When people tell you that you are, you know, more busy in retirement life, it's very true. I find myself, my schedule full, but I think sometimes that's the kind of people we are too. Um, don't wanna sit still long. I think I get in trouble
Kathy:Well, and then people approach you and say, Hey, do you wanna co-host a podcast with me?
Linda:and I say yes, and then I think, oh my gosh, what did I do?
Kathy:And then you're busier.
Linda:Good. Busy though. The photo shoot was fun. can't wait to see what we do in the future with the podcast. love your ideas that you have and, I think the audience will love them too, and can't wait.
Kathy:let's, let's talk about that a little bit. So we are going to have a couple of new things on the podcast. Um, we're going to do a, I don't know, we haven't really decided what we're gonna call it yet and ask the not expert kind of advice segment. So if you have any questions about career advice, um, things that are happening, people that are annoying you at work, that you just wanna know how to handle them, we're not experts, but. We will try to provide our opinions from our 60 plus years of experience. We thought we'd also, um, have those on at the same time, we have our guests, so you can also get our guests perspective too. So if you, you know, want to either email those in to ordinarilyextraordinarypod@gmail.com or if you go to our website, which is www.ordinarily-extraordinary.com, there's actually going to be a way for you to leave a voicemail so you can even leave a voicemail. We will only use first name. So if you call in, please only leave your first name. If you don't want to have your name read on the air, you don't even want your first name out there, just tell us that you want it to be as anonymous. We'll make sure that it's anonymous. Um, and we will do our best to answer questions and provide advice. All right. Well, Linda, I am excited for us to start talking with our guests and thanks for sharing your background and thanks everyone for joining us, and we'll see you all in September.
Linda:See you then.
