Women Who Weld︱Marcelina Ortiz

Welcome to Season 3 of Middletown Strong: Looking Up with Russell Library! We are thrilled to kick off our new season during Women's History Month. Our guest today, Marcelina Ortiz, is an inspiration to anyone who has ever been told they couldn't do something. In 1977, Marcelina made the decision to train as a welder as a means of supporting her four young children. She never anticipated it taking 7 years to land a job in her chosen field. Marcelina's story reminds us that determination and perseverance can bring you to places you never imagined. She may have started her career being mocked by her peers, but Marcelina ultimately became a highly-respected, award-winning professional. Thank you, Marcelina, for sharing your story  and thank you all for listening!

Book Recommendations

Stitchin' and Pullin' a Gees Bend Quilt by Pat McKissack
https://artsandculture.google.com/story/gee-39-s-bend-work-clothes-quilts-souls-grown-deep-foundation/qAWhldzBANgbzg?hl=en
I'm Glad my Mom Died by Jeanette McCurdy.
Circling the Sun by Paula McLain
West With the Night by Beryl Markham

This podcast uses music by Ashutosh, under a creative commons license:
Time by ASHUTOSH | https://soundcloud.com/grandakt
Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US

Transcript

Cate: [00:00:00] Welcome to Middletown Strong. Looking up with Russell Library. I'm Cate Tsahalis here with my cohosts, Shannon Barillari and Christy Billings, and we are kicking off season three with a very exciting guest, Marcelina Marcie Ortiz. Marcelina was a welder at Pratt and Whitney for 27 years, and she also happens to be the mother of one of our wonderful coworkers, Andres Ortiz.

We are very excited to have this conversation with you, especially during Women's History Month, so thank you so much for being here 

Marcelina: well, thank you for having me. 

Cate: So we have a ton to cover so we're gonna dive right in. Um, cuz I have a feeling this conversation could go a long time. So Marcelina, I did a little bit of research on female welders in the us.

And it looks like currently there are about five to 7% of welders that are women, but I [00:01:00] imagine that was even less when you started. So can you tell us when you entered the field and what motivated you to do so? 

Marcelina: I entered the field in 1977. Uh, the class that I was in, I was the only female. And I had no idea what welding was.

It kind of like fell on my lap and I was ready to do something with my life. I had just had my daughter, she was three months old, and I was ready and I decided, you know what? I'm gonna try this because I do want to learn a trade where I could make enough money to take care of my children. And so I just dove right into it blindly.

Cate: How old were your other kids? Cuz you said your daughter was three months old, 

that you had other children. 

Marcelina: My daughter was three years old. I mean three months old. Excuse me. My son Andre was just entering [00:02:00] kindergarten. Mm-hmm. And then I had, my son, Randy was like eight years old. And Michael was nine. Wow.

Wow. Superstar. Yeah. They were little. 

Yeah. And when we 

Cate: talked on the phone, you had mentioned that a friend had come to the house and was trying to get, he was trying 

Marcelina: to get my husband, my ex-husband, To become a welder, to, to learn the, the welding trade. And he wasn't interested. And I was in the background listening to this and I said, I'm interested.

Wow. Let me go, let me try it. Mm-hmm. And he said, sure. He never stopped me, you know, whenever I wanted to do something, he's like, go right ahead. Wow. And I, sure enough, start, you know, went to the, to the class and I enjoyed it. I fell in love with it. That's 

Christy: really cool. Yeah, that's really cool. You knew right away that this was something that you wanted to do?

Marcelina: Uh, [00:03:00] not really. I was a little skeptical. I'm like, I had no idea what welding was, but I wanted, it was a challenge and I was ready to take it on. So was 

Christy: it the financial side that sort of appealed more than, uh, than the. Like what the skills were gonna be that you were gonna have to learn. At first, 

Marcelina: it was the financial sign.

It definitely was, but it was also the drive in me. I was ready to go out there and do something and this just happened to fall my lap. And I said, I'm taking it. It's like all cap. I'm ready to fly. Yeah, I'm ready to fly. Gotta get outta here. 

Cate: And what kind of We're, sorry, I'm, we're jumping. We have, we have our questions, but I have a feeling this is gonna happen a lot.

We'll have, we'll have follow up questions. What were you doing at the time? What kind of work were you doing before you got into welding or before you got into the program? It was a mom. 

Marcelina: Okay. Stay home, mom. Wow. Yeah. That's why I was ready after four kids. Mm-hmm. [00:04:00] I'm, I'm ready to go. I'm doing this. That's understandable.

Cate: And you, you also mentioned on the phone that you didn't have a car at the time, but you managed to get these classes? 

Marcelina: I had no vehicle. 

I had no idea how I was gonna get from Portland. I lived to Portland at the time and I had no idea I was gonna get from Portland to Hartford. Wow. And I said, you know what?

I'm gonna do this, but I'll figure it out. I love that. And come to find out, my neighbor decided to take the same class too, so there was my ride. Wow. It 

Shannon: was all meant to be like, everything all lined, all the stars and whatnot 

Marcelina: Yeah. For you to do this. So I ended up getting, uh, my, uh, my certificate. At the end of finishing the course, I got a, a gold seal for never being laid or absent.

With no car. Wow. That's so huge. That's huge. 

Cate: That's really hard to do. 

Shannon: That's pretty amazing. Um, so for those who are unfamiliar with welding, uh, can you [00:05:00] describe the nature of the work and the types of welding you were trained to do? 

Marcelina: Well, the, the, as far as the welding goes, I did a lot of TIG welding and the way that I can explain TIG welding.

Okay. TIG welding is the fusing of two pieces of metal using a TIG torch with a very sharp tungsten. The tungsten generates the heat and it's shielded by argon, which protects your well bead from becoming contaminated. The wellbeing is the molten metal in which you feed a metal rod, and it has to be consistent.

The weldment with your, the welder, the parts that you're welding together. All right. I'm 

Cate: trying to visualize that, what that even 

Shannon: fire at one point. And I just see like this torch, there's, and like the [00:06:00] face masks . There's no fire. Oh, I 

saw, 

Shannon: I was hoping for 

Marcelina: that. Unless you're doing arc welding and then you do get sparks.

You do, okay. Yeah. With arc welding, you're, you're welding large. Pieces of steel. Mm-hmm. That's more for bridge bridges or large buildings. And uh, I did certify that too. Wow. I got qualified in that and I remember when I was taking a, a practice test, I could smell smoke in the booth I was in. Okay. And I had bell bottom pants and the, the flames that were already close to my knees.

Oh no. 

Christy: Oh wow. 

Shannon: That's scary. It's 

Cate: fashion. It's dangerous. It's it's dangerous. 

Christy: It really is. I think traditionally that's what people think of is the arc welding when they think of welding, not the TIG welding. Yeah. With 

Marcelina: our welding you get a lot of spark, but with TIG welding, it's a very nice clean. Okay.

Very, very nice and clean and smooth. 

Cate: So I imagine [00:07:00] that takes a very steady hand. 

Marcelina: You have to have a very steady hand. Yeah. And, and your vision has to be very, very sharp. Yeah. 

Christy: So there should be more women doing this. 

Cate: Yeah, I know, right? I don't have either of those 

Marcelina: skills. Absolutely. It's an art. It's an art.

Cate: Yeah. Absolutely. So 

Christy: after all this time when you finished, well, how long did it take you to, to do, to go to your classes? 

Marcelina: It was like a three month course.

Christy: Three months. Okay. 

Yes. Wow, that's amazing 

Marcelina: that it was quick. It was something that they, you go through it very, very quickly and in between we were, take was hands. For half of the day and the rest of the day you were actually learning blueprint, so, which I knew nothing about either. So it was all day you would go.

So it was an all day course. 

Cate: So read like reading 

Marcelina: blueprints. Yes. God, yeah. 

Cate: I guess that makes sense, that you would have to know how to do that. You would 

Marcelina: have to the blueprints because Yeah, a lot of people were, you know, a lot of jobs required you to [00:08:00] build things. Yeah. And I wasn't interested in building.

I wanted to learn how to weld. Yeah. So that I could work at Prat and Whitney mm-hmm. And do repair work. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I already had that in 

Cate: mind. Yeah. But you still needed that background to be able to complete the program background. 

Marcelina: Okay. So 

Christy: after you had finished the, the classes and you had your certificate, were you, um, were people looking to hire you?

Was it difficult to find work? 

Marcelina: It was very d. Because I was so excited when I got my certificate, I said, yes, now I can really go get a job, start making good money, take care of my children. But unfortunately, I didn't have the experience that they were looking for. And back then, in 1977, women didn't have the opportunities that we have now.

We've come a long way. Yeah. Mm-hmm. We've come a real long way compared to back. It was very hard to break [00:09:00] into this field because this was mainly a man's thing. Mm-hmm. 

Christy: Yeah. Very dominant. Male dominated. Yeah. Yes. 

Cate: So how long did it take before you were able to get that, that first job? 

Marcelina: Seven years. 

Christy: Oh my goodness.

Tell us more about that. So you were persistent. 

Marcelina: I was. How did? I was very proud. I was very proud of what I did and I really wanted to do. I went to school for this, I got qualified, I got my certificates, and it's like, I really wanna do something with this. And the fact too, that I, I enjoyed doing it and I wanted to do it and, and make money with it.

So yeah, I was, I, I was persistent about getting a job doing this and, but, I also had a hard time with my children because they, I have four little kids that I have to take care of, and working eight hours in [00:10:00] a shop was gonna be very hard. Absolutely. So, I, I went into, I started waitressing. Mm-hmm. But always in the back of my head, I knew that this is what I wanted to.

Christy: So tell us about your first position. How did that happen? 

Marcelina: My, in welding? Yes. My first position in welding, I had a very good friend of mine and I, she asked me, why aren't you welding? And I said, I've gone a million times, then they won't hire me. And she said she used to work there too, and she said, I'm gonna get you in.

And she put in a good word for me. And I got in networking at its best. Yeah. She got me in and I, you know, I was so excited. I'm like, I'm finally gonna get to do what I, you know what I, my trade, here I am. But unfortunately, when I, they gave me my first job, first I had to go to [00:11:00] school and get qualified again through Pratt and Whitney.

Mm-hmm. And so that was ano. I had to take the course all over again. Oh no. Oh, all over again. 

Cate: Because too much time 

Marcelina: had gone by or because they wanted? No, because in order for you to work their parts, you have to go through their, their training. Oh, training. You have to get their, you have to qualify also again.

Wow. And also with welding, you have to qualify every two. Geez. 

Christy: So I had no 

Shannon: idea. No. Pratt and Whitney's military as well. Yes. So they go above and beyond. Yeah. A couple of my friends work at Pratt and Whitney and got them certified through them. And then we're saying, you what? If you wanna go finish your degree, cuz they, how their certificate was done is they ended up with an associate at the end of the day.

So this was only like five, six years ago. But um, if they wanted to continue, they could make that a four, four year degree, but it had to be aligned with what they were doing at Pratt. Oh, interesting. And [00:12:00] Pratt would pay for it. I don't know if they still do that now. Yes, they do. They do. Oh, that's great.

And were you at the East Hartford location? 

Marcelina: I was started out in Middletown. You did? Okay. Yeah, I started out in Middletown and I was working on on small burner cans. What's that? But when I, small burner cans, it's like, it's, it's, it's part of the engine and I really can't explain it because I really did, didn't get into it.

I had a hard time with it when I first started because it was my first experience. Welding military parts, real parts, and I'm like, I was terrified. Right? 

Christy: Had to be real specific, 

Marcelina: real. And it, and. Bombed Dad. It so bad. It was so bad that my lead man called me aside one day and he goes, listen, my child likes to eat.

In other words, you're gonna make me lose my job here. Cause I'm really working hard with you and you're not getting it. Yeah. And the [00:13:00] problem was that I, it wasn't that I didn't know my craft, the problem was that I terrified myself. Yeah, right. You got in your own head. I was so scared. Yeah. To even put a bead on the part, I thought I was just gonna melt the whole part away.

I'm like, let's just, I don't wanna mess up this part. Yeah. I was terrified. And then one day I said, you know what? After he spoke to me like that, I said, you know what? I said, if I mess this up, can you fix it? Mm-hmm. He goes, I can fix it. At least try. I said, I got this. When I started welding those parts, they were coming out beautiful.

He, he's like, why weren't you doing this all this before? 

Cate: This is amazing. Sweating 

Marcelina: out. He said, look at this. This is a gorgeous Yeah. And I said, I don't, I was scared. 

Cate: So it sounds [00:14:00] like he was, he was very supportive, but how, how were you treated by other of your coworkers when you first started? 

Marcelina: Well, when I started in that building, to be honest with you, there were a lot of women.

Really? Oh, yes. That's awesome. There were women and we, we worked very, very well together. It was after I left there, because now they were laying on people. Okay. And I was very low in the, in. On the totem pole. Yeah, on the totem pole. So they told me, they said, you're gonna have to go to the building next door.

Mm-hmm. And go look at this job. And it's either you're gonna take it or you gotta go. And I was terrified. I said, oh God, that's not a great choice. No, that wasn't a good choice. I have four kids at home. I gotta take care of 'em. So when I went across, across to the other building and I saw the ginormous dinosaur parts, I swallowed hard.[00:15:00] 

Yeah. And I kept my tears back and I said, I will take it. I'll take. 

Shannon: Now, were other women offered that position that you worked with? No. 

Marcelina: Okay. No. And if they did, they said no. They said 

Cate: no. Now, when we were on the phone, you said the you, I don't know if it must have been at that job where 

Marcelina: you walked into that.

That was the second part of that story was, mm-hmm. On my first day. Walking into that, that job, I had a friend that gave me a toolbox cuz he retired and this toolbox was about six feet long. About 

Christy: four feet 

Cate: tall. And you're how tall Marcie? Four 11. 

Marcelina: Four 11. And he made this toolbox and he's like, here, this is a gift to you.

I'm 

Christy: like, well can you 

Cate: put it over there for, 

Marcelina: put it on wheels outta. Toolbox. You don't understand. This thing was gorgeous steel. 

Christy: That's lovely. 

Marcelina: That's really cool. I [00:16:00] walked in there a Monday morning and all the guys are sitting at a table having their coffee with their feet up on the table, and I'm pushing this big monster in and you can hardly see me behind.

And when they finally did see me, one of them started laughing and pointing at me. He goes, look at her. Mm. And I saw it and I, you know, and that gave me the courage to say, I'm gonna, I'm gonna let you know what I can do. And I walked up to him, I like him, and I said, I have to stand up to these guys. Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Because if I show fear mm-hmm. They're going to eat me up alive. Yep. Yep. And I need this job. Yeah. So I walked up to this guy, the bull, the biggest bully in the group, and I asked him, why are you laughing? And he goes, well look at you. Oh my goodness. Ugh. Look at you. [00:17:00] You should say, look at 

you. 

Marcelina: Oh no.

He goes, you really plan on working these parts. These were ginormous, massive massive. Yes. And in my head I'm saying, I'm probably gonna die trying, but I'm gonna try. Mm-hmm. So I said to him, well, you work. And he goes, yeah, but I got all these qualifications. And I opened up the door to my toolbox and I said, well, look at this.

I got 'em too. And then he got me so angry that I stood up to him and I said, I'm gonna end up repairing your garbage. I love that. Yes.

And 

Cate: you did. And I did 

Marcelina: you, I love that. Oh, 

Cate: that's so good. 

Marcelina: That is so good. I did, I really, I really not to brag, I became a shining star in that department. Well, we're gonna, 

Cate: we're gonna ask you about that specifically. Yeah, but I'll, I'll hold off cuz I think [00:18:00] it's Shannon, right? You're at It is my turn. 

Shannon: I do have a que.

So when you got to this, um, to the new job with like the big, were there other women or you were the 

Cate: only 

Marcelina: woman? I was the only woman and they told me there hasn't been a woman that has lasted here a week. Okay. 

Shannon: How long did you last? 

Marcelina: I lasted there until I, I was, uh, moved over to overhaul Repair in East Hartford.

Okay. And I can't remember how many years it might have been 10 years. Yeah. Well, there you go. 

Christy: Certainly was longer than a week. 

Cate: Lot longer than a week. Certainly longer than a week. 

Shannon: Okay. So what type of welding jobs were you doing, which we kind of did discuss, but if you want to go further, we can. And did you need any accommodations considering your size? 

Marcelina: Yes. When I started welding these, uh, the large parts, I couldn't really reach the w the, the, the area that I had to weld.

So they had to make a platform for me, a wooden platform. Oh, [00:19:00] 

Cate: Christie, you would need one too. 

Marcelina: I totally understand. I needed a wooden platform. Wow. And another thing too, another problem that I ran into. That they played games with me. The guys, some of the guys played games with me. Like I had a guy that was supposed to train me and he said, you have to learn to weld with your right and your left.

What? Oh, God. And I did 

Cate: take that, Mr. Bully. That's why you were so good. 

Marcelina: That's what I have to do. Oh my God. That's what I'm gonna do. Yeah. Well, 

Cate: it kind of came back to them because then you wound up getting so good at it. So Yeah. 

Shannon: Did you play games back? Oh, sorry, Christy. No, go ahead. Yeah, yeah. Did you play any games back to show them?

Marcelina: No. Oh, 

Cate: she was too busy working. I know, 

Shannon: I know. You guys are good. I should, I I would play games back. 

Marcelina: I, I do have to tell you a little story and you can edit it out if you want. No, go for it. Oh, no. Yes. But I came into work [00:20:00] one day and the foreman made us form a circle around this part that just came back from X-ray.

Mm-hmm. Because our parts were all x-rayed and. He said, I want you guys to look at this part because this is the worst thing I have ever seen. This is horrible, and if I ever see this happen again, this person's gonna be in a lot of trouble. And then he pointed at me and he said, this is your junk. Go fix it.

Oh. So I wanted to cry, but I held my tears in. Mm-hmm. And I brought the part over, but then something a little bird said to me, Check the paperwork against the part. Yeah. You didn't do this because the paperwork has to go coincide with the part. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And when I checked the paperwork against the part, guess what?

It wasn't mine. Ah, no 

Christy: surprise there. Yeah. Not no surprise to us. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Marcelina: I never got an apology. Ah, unbelievable. And he never, you know, he never fixed [00:21:00] it by telling everybody it's not, it wasn't hers. So everyone still thought, 

Cate: so. Everybody thought that it was you. 

Christy: And you still had to fix it? 

Marcelina: No. 

Christy: Oh, okay.

Okay. Good. Thank God. Wow. So 

how long did it take for them to come around and or did they come around? 

Marcelina: Uh, I had a few that did come around, but I had a few that were always trying to, you know, amplify anything that wasn't to par. They would really make it like bigger than it really. That they wouldn't have done the same time period.

Right. If they had done the same thing, they would just let it go by like nothing but it. When it was me, it was a problem. And when you asked about the parts that I did mm-hmm. Let me tell you, and, and I had to climb up 10 feet. Oh my goodness. I had to, I had to lift this part with a hoist. Oh my God. I had to put it on a fixture that was 10 feet up off the ground.[00:22:00] 

I had to climb up into the part. And I had to tighten all the balls and get that part tightened so it wouldn't fall off the fixture, because when I was done doing that, I had to climb back down. Mm-hmm. And I had to bring that fixture at a 90 degree angle towards me. It was very dangerous. 

Cate: Yeah. Yeah. Did you have any injuries?

Marcelina: No. 

Cate: Okay. Good. 

Christy: I'm sure you were just as safety conscious as as, yeah. Yeah. As much as you were a, a welder. 

Marcelina: The only, the only, the only mishap that I had and all the time working in that department was that I forgot to, when it's time to take the part off the fix draft, if you've welded all the straws mm-hmm.

Now you have to climb back, put it back up in an upright position, climb back up there, loosen everything up. And take the part off the fixture. And I forgot to un to un tighten one bolt. And when I ever tried to pull that part off the [00:23:00] fixture, it just made the most horrific noise to the whole shop. Ah.

Can't hide that one. No. So I broke the fi, I broke the fixture and all you could hear through my department was all the guys clapping. Oh. So that made it even worse. 

Cate: Yeah. They wouldn't let that go. 

Christy: Oh man. 

Marcelina: Can 

Christy: you give us just sort of a, a sense of how long that would take? So start to finish. I'm sure this was like not something that was done in a few minutes.

It was loading the part, the whole, like your, would you come in and then you would start. Like start this process and it might take a day or how, just kind of sense, like a shift, more than a shift. 

Marcelina: Um, in an eight hour shift, you would put the center body on the fixture. You would actually put the center body on the picture, on the fixture, and then you would bring it up.[00:24:00] 

Hoist and you would tighten it, bring it down, and at a 90 degree angle, and then you would proceed to put all the struts in the right location. Mm-hmm. And then you would tack them, that would be an eight hour shift. Wow. So just getting, I could all that, I could do all that in, weld them in H in eight hours.

Cate: That's, I love it. I love it too. Wow. Oh. So, so Andre had mentioned that he came to work with you at one point and that's where he learned to paint. But he said he also, he had gotten flash burns in his eyes after he had welded and he, he said it was terrifying, but I don't know what flash burns are, cuz you described what that is.

Oh, 

Marcelina: it's horrific. Oh man. It's your eyes. It's the flash. It's like a, it's like a sunburn in your eyes. Oh. And when you blink, It's like someone put sandpaper in your eyes. Ah, it's very, very Is something in [00:25:00] in there? No, it's a sunburn in your ice actually. Okay. And what happened that day was, what happened was I got laid off from Prat and Whitney and I got a job in Merrit and I was building aboveground tanks.

That you could fit a car inside 

Cate: like you do, you know

Marcelina: and I told my son and I said, you know what, come work with me because they need a painter. Yeah, I've never done that. I said, you can learn, just come on.

And on that particular day, I had this humongous tank that I had to weld some legs to it, some beams. And I said, climb up here with me. And, you know, help me locate 'em. And, but you gotta wear your goggles. Yeah. Don't look at my, don't look at what I'm doing. Well, he didn't, he wanted to see what I was doing.

Yeah. And uh, he ended up getting a very bad flash burn. He ended up in the emergency room. That's [00:26:00] what he said. He 

Cate: said he called you in the middle of the night like, what happened? What's going on? Can't open my eyes. I can't, I can't see. Oh, that's so scary. But the painting worked because he is an but the 

Marcelina: incredible painter because.

One day they put 'em up to the tasks and they said, can you give us 36 tanks in one? And he did. Oh, 

Cate: that explains it. That 

Christy: explains, you're not surprised because he can't, he 

Cate: does. And it's, and his precision, I guess he got that from you. He loves 

Marcelina: it. He loves what he does. Yeah, he's beautiful. 

Cate: Yeah. I've painted a lot and not very well.

So when you see somebody that really knows exactly what they're doing, yeah, it's amazing. 

Marcelina: It also was very impressive for my son. He's, he's got a lot of respect for women. Yes. After what he saw what I was doing. Yeah. Well, 

Christy: your, your coworkers should have too, but it Yeah, absolutely. You were showing your family.

My 

Marcelina: son said, ma, I can't believe what you do, because I would tell him about welding, but he [00:27:00] really got a bird sight view. Yeah. When he was there, he got to see what I. 

Cate: Well, and just to see the, like a picture only shows you so much, right? Like to see the scale of it when you're, when you're there. 

Marcelina: Yeah. And just see, my, at that time when I was up Amari and doing the tanks, I was doing TIG welding, but I was also doing mig welding.

What's that? And mig welding is where the, where the wire is fed through, through that. Um, Through the torch. Oh, it actually feeds itself. Instead of with TIG welding, you have to feed the wire into the weldment. Okay? Mm-hmm. With MIG welding, the wire actually comes out of the torch. Oh, that's different. And it's really, it's cool.

Oh, that sounds, yeah. I was doing the TIG welding on the outside, but I was doing Meg on the inside. And it's like 80 degrees outside. And I'm, I'm inside of a, a, a tank sardine tank. It's terrible. Wow. Yeah. 

Cate: It's not, [00:28:00] not, not a lighthearted kind of job. I mean, you have to, it's really physical. I 

Marcelina: was trucking, I was delivering, uh oh, geez.

I was delivering gas tanks. I was picking up my, my, uh, my heli yard. Yes, I was, uh, loading my tanks after they were completed into the truck that was delivering them to their destination. 

Shannon: And you've had no injuries. No, that's amazing. My God, I was a shipping and receiving manager at one point, so I used to build freight.

I've always worked with books, so I was also a textbook manager at the time and I'm like, you know, I used to lift these boxes and do this stuff. You what you've done. That's pretty amazing. I'm like, I thought I was cool. 

Cate: It's more impressive. 

Shannon: I'm like, whoa. 

Marcelina: I used to at the end of the shift, I used to. I used to, it was such a small place that we had to, at the beginning of my shift, I had to take all the tanks.

Mm-hmm. And I had a forklift. Mm-hmm. That was standard, by the way. Ah. And to this day, I have [00:29:00] my knee, I have problems with my knee. Mm-hmm. And, but anyway, I used to unload the, take the tanks and place 'em all outside. And at the end of the shift I would have to stack them inside. The, the, the building. So you were driving a forklift too?

Oh, I drive forklifts, motorcycles. 

Well, let, let's take a, a slight detour, because you told me when you learned how to drive a forklift, that was before you got the welding job. 

Yeah. Because you, yes, yes. I went from waitressing and uh, from waitressing. I went to work in a cardboard. Third shift because if I worked third shift, you got a differential.

My 16 year old son Okay. Was also babysitting my children. Mm-hmm. While they slept. And then I would come home, feed 'em and send them off to school and I got to sleep. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And that's how I worked that out three years after that. Well, while I was working in there, I did learn [00:30:00] some things and one of the things that I learned was like use said forklifting

i, I thought it was so cool. And I, you know, I said, I wanna learn how to do this. I wanna learn how to drive a forklift. So I learned how to drive the forklift, and then there was an opening, uh, the, the building that I worked and the company that I worked in, actually, they kind of divided the, the building where one side was finishing and only the women got to work there and the finishing and the men worked the machinery in the.

And there happened to be an opening for machine. 

Cate: And listen, there's a theme here. You took it. 

Marcelina: Guess who? Guess who wants that opening? Cause there was more money, right? Yeah, 

Cate: yeah, yeah. Was more money. Follow the money and more interesting, 

Marcelina: I'm sure. Oh yeah. And I said, I want that job. And I was told, you know, we've never had a woman work.

You know, in that area of the factory, we've never had a woman work machinery. It was a, a press. Yeah. [00:31:00] Never operated a press. And I said, but I have the ability to learn. Let me try. Good for you and, and you have to let me try, right? Mm-hmm. Right. And they said, well, okay, we'll give you a chance. I mastered it.

That's amazing. 

Christy: There you go. 

Cate: Take that people's, I know, but that takes a lot of. Confidence to be able to walk in there and say, okay, yeah, this has never been done, but I can learn. Yeah. Yeah, that's, I mean, that says a lot just about your character. Thank you. Because that's a really hard thing to do. And yes, the world has changed a lot, but that's still hard to 

Marcelina: do.

Well, I was the only woman that ever, that's, I don't know what they did after me. Yeah. But I was the first woman to oper, operate a press in that building. 

Christy: And yeah. Tell us a little bit about like some, some of the machinery that, that would've entailed. What did, what kind of work would you be doing in the press?

Marcelina: The press, you would, you would get a sheet and it would tell you the size of [00:32:00] the box that you have to, uh, cut up. Mm-hmm. And the form. And your job was to take all the measure. And set up the machine according to the measurements that they gave you, the sites of the box. And so I would set up the, the press according to the measurements.

Mm-hmm. And then when all the measurements were done, I would feed the raw, the, the raw product into the machine and measure, make sure this is what they. And then when they gave me the, when I got the go, I would just start feeding that machine on an eight hour shift with two 50 minute breaks all night.

Oh. 

Shannon: Oh my God. And you were still doing this one third shift too. 

Marcelina: Third shift. 

Cate: How did you feel after an eight hour shift?

Marcelina: I used to fall asleep combining her hair. Oh, 

Christy: we're really lucky to have some other folks that joined us today. If you wanna introduce them. 

Marcelina: My daughter Tanya's here and my granddaughter Ali's here.

I was going to [00:33:00] nursing school right now. I'm very, very proud of both of them. Aw. Well, 

Cate: I'm guessing they're proud of you too. 

Christy: They had, they had a really good role model

Marcelina: they're very, very courageous and strong women here too. I wonder why they had a great 

example. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. 

So they're taking, they're taking it further than I did.

Cate: But that's how it works, right? Somebody has to start, and then you see, okay, well I know that that's possible, so now let's go there, and then there, and that's, that's how it happens. But somebody has to take that first step, otherwise you don't go. So, yeah, 

Shannon: go ahead, Shannon. Well, since you've mastered so many things, um, we've been told that you earned a lot of awards for your work.

Hmm. Can you tell us about 

Marcelina: this? There was a bracket that we had to weld, um, on this humongous part. And, uh, this brackett took a lot of welding, a lot of welding soft to every beat that you [00:34:00] weld. You had to cool it and then you couldn't, you know, you had to wait till that cooled and then you'd drop, put another weldment on it.

And it was very, very redundant. It took a lot of hours. And the, we, we, we had to get the job done by a certain amount of hours that they gave us to finish the job. And we could never finish it on time because we had to wait for the park to Cool. Yeah. And I came up with an idea and I said, well, Air is free.

Cate: Bring on 

Marcelina: fans. I invented an air cooling box. Nice. That we would hook up to one of the airlines and we would just attach it to the, the, the parts called the bracket is called the clavis. And we would, we would attach it to the clavis. Open up that air, it would be cool in three minutes. Wow. And you could keep going, continue going.

And I saved the company a lot of money and a lot of hours on the job. Yeah. [00:35:00] Woo-hoo. And I got a $5,000 award. Wow. As it should 

Christy: have been. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. 

Marcelina: That's amazing. And uh, they had this big, I gave a big presentation to the stockholders. Wow. The precedent of Boeing was amazed. Came down to see what was going on.

And this is what I mean by I became a shining star in that department. Yeah. Because I shown, I I did something f to me. I feel I did something great. You did. 

Shannon: You did amazing. 

Cate: Absolut what you did. I hope that bully was there to see you get that award. 

Marcelina: He congratulated. Ah, yes. Must have felt 

Cate: good 

Christy: because you saw an area that needed improve.

And you came up with a way to do it that didn't cost them anything. No. Yeah. 

Cate: That's brilliant. Yeah. Thank you. I'm glad you were recognized for that. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. 

Christy: What was your favorite thing about being a welder? 

Marcelina: Oh my [00:36:00] God. My favorite thing about being a welder is taking a part that is so damaged and bringing it back to life.

Ah, and knowing that I did this. You know, I did this. I made this part usable again, I made this part so that they could load it back into an engine and fly that plane and my weld number's on there. It's right. It's done by you. Yeah, and it was done by me. There's many parts flying out there with my weld on it.

Cate: I hope I get your parts on. I don't like fly and I'm actually taking a trip and I think about this stuff, like, hope these parts are done well. So I wanna see your well numbered, believe me, they 

Marcelina: scrutinized these parts. Good. I mean, I mean they really, really, when these parts go back, wow, they're, they're, they're better than brand new.

That's, There's 

Cate: very 

Christy: high standards, but it sounds like not only did you keep to those high standards, you exceeded them. 

Marcelina: Oh, thank you. 

Shannon: [00:37:00] Yeah, yeah, sure. 

Marcelina: Sounds that way. I was very proud of all about my work 

Cate: as you should be. Yeah. And that shows that's why your quality was so high, because you took pride in it.

You know, a lot of people don't do that. 

Shannon: No they don't. Not anymore. Mm-hmm. They just jump around and do it, you know, fits their needs. I don't know. 

Marcelina: With me it was more like a, I had to show these guys. I had to show them, yeah, yeah, look, I can do this and I'm gonna do it better than you. Better than you. And so 

Cate: when with that x-ray machine did it, how did that work?

When the parts would go through the x-ray machine, how would, like, did they get a percentage, like, this is a hundred percent good, or this. 95%. Good. How did it, how did you know if something 

Marcelina: was wrong? The way that they x-ray the parts, they go, they, well, they x-ray the parts and they look for cracks. Okay.

In the welds. Porosity. Mm-hmm. And any, any imperfection, anything that's there, that's should not be there. [00:38:00] And, and the clavis, the bracket that holds, uh, this humongous part together.

That was a very high standard. Hmm. Very high standard. There could be no impurities. It had to be perfect because this is what held everything together. Wow. And so I was able to get it through X-ray. Mm-hmm. Almost every time. A hundred percent. Wow. That's awesome. 

Cate: So that's why they gave you specifically that particular job 

Marcelina: and that was my job.

There was one time when they had to layoff. Mm-hmm. And I got laid off and I got a phone call from a manager and he said, I want you to come back Monday. We can't get the cle, we can't get these parts through. 

Cate: Well, they, they shouldn't know. That's, you know. 

Marcelina: Wow. I felt so honored. I said, I'm there. [00:39:00] See bright and early.

Oh, 

Cate: there. That's amazing too. So would you encourage other women to enter this field? And if they were interested, what advice would you give them? 

Marcelina: God absolutely welding's. Awesome. Love it. It's an art. Yeah, it's an art. Um, I would say don't get discouraged. Don't let anybody make you feel that you can't do.

And you know what? The first tries may be awful, but just keep going because you're gonna get better. Mm-hmm. And you're gonna get really good at it. Just keep trying. And I, I, I'll never, never, never say that this was something I sh I, I loved it. I loved what I did. Yeah. I still do. I wish I could still do 

Christy: it.

Oh, I think people don't understand that kind of an art, that kind of, um, it's majestic really. 

Cate: And and [00:40:00] really important too, because if it's not done well yeah. There could be serious 

Marcelina: consequences to that. And there are, yeah. They, yeah. They hold, they hold you, uh, responsible and something goes bad. Yeah.

Cate: Yeah. And I, I think I mentioned to you on the phone that my daughter's in a mechanics program. She's gonna be 16 next month. You know, like you, she's had the experience of mostly boys in her class and she feels like she has to work a lot harder. 

Marcelina: Yeah. Oh. 

Shannon: I work in, um, the technology department here in our library, and the people I work with are absolutely wonderful. But the tech world, girls are always proving themselves. You have a bunch of men who think, you know, you don't know anything or you know, You can't do this, and you are constantly proving yourself.

I'm not saying maybe you have people come in and, you know, they kind of dissuade me and just talk to the men that I work with, but then I'm like, no, I'm here too. 

Marcelina: You know? [00:41:00] Mm-hmm. But you know what? Try make, but making yourself, um, or let me use a different word. Make, um, oh, what's the word I'm looking for when you are trying to show them?

Hey, I can do this. Mm-hmm. That just makes you better. Yeah. It just makes you better. Yeah. Yeah. It's true. 

Shannon: It is true. Well, so our last thing is, but our podcast is about gratitude, and so our final Quest question, please share something that you're grateful for in regards to your career as a welder and something that you're grateful for today.

Marcelina: I'm grateful because, The opportunity came to me mm-hmm. And I was able to take the class. I was able to use it for the better to take care of my children. Um, I'm very proud of what [00:42:00] I did. I'm proud of my craft. I'm proud of all the challenges that I had to encounter, and I went. And I can talk about it to my children and, and I can see the pride in their faces.

Mm-hmm. And to this day, I, I'm just grateful that I had that opportunity. You took that opportunity. 

Christy: Yeah. Though I'm sure that other people were presented that and just said, no, I can't do something like that. And you were like, yeah, bring it on. Mm-hmm. Show me where, show me where I have, you know, I have to go to take these classes and then give me a job and then give me the harder job, is what it sounded like.

Because you were not backing down from any of these challenges. 

Marcelina: I was not. I was not. I was a fighter always a. Yeah. And you know, the things came to me. They were tough, but I, I've always, um, how can I say it? The challenges came, but I, I never walked away 

Cate: from them. Yeah, you [00:43:00] rose to them every time. Yeah. It sounds like.

Yeah, 

Christy: you took 'em head on. I am so impressed and I'm so grateful that you shared this story with us because there's going to be girls that listen to this and go, I never even thought of this as a profession and maybe this is something that I could do. And I, I think that would be really, um, I think that's gonna be really important.

You, you never know how you're going to touch somebody with this discussion. Oh, thank 

Marcelina: you. We 

Christy: are thrilled. Thank do. I hope so. Oh, yeah. To have been able to talk 

Cate: to you about this and even the, you know, the women in your family that, the younger generation that maybe hasn't heard all the stories, you know?

Mm-hmm. 

Marcelina: They, and, and not pertaining to welding, but you know, when things come their way, challenge. They need to rise up to the challenge. Yeah. And not be scared. Yeah. Yeah. You know? And even if you're scared, act like you're not 

Cate: fake it till you make it. You gotta fake it till you make it. That's good 

Marcelina: advice.

Cate: Well, Marcy, thank you so much for [00:44:00] being here. This was, this was an inspiring conversation. Mm-hmm. And thank you to Tanya and Allie for joining. Thanks guys. Thank you. 

And just being here. It's, it's been a real pleasure, so thank you so much. Oh, it's been, 

Marcelina: thank you. Oh's been a pleasure for me too. It really has.

I might have to bring you back. Wonderful ladies...