steps
Small Steps Forward Slowly, women are building a presence at diving companies WHEN LIZ VAZQUEZ APPLIES IN-PERSON for a job as a diver, she really needn’t bother writing her name on the application. Though the commercial diving industry is more open to women now than ever before, women divers still share something in common with four-leaf clovers and professional basketball stars under six feet tall: They do exist but are hard to find. So, if there’s a woman diver in Virginia looking for a job, companies know it’s probably Vazquez. A certified commercial diver since 2008, Vazquez has worked for three companies as an inland diver doing bridgework and construction, and she’s spending the summer in Australia for a fourth firm. She said the company received 90 applications for the overseas project, and she was the only woman who applied. Based on her past experiences, that came as no surprise. “When I went to fill out an application at a big company here, they knew who I was before I even got to talking,” Vazquez said. “They’ve heard of me here in Virginia. They call me ‘the girl diver.’” Vazquez said that when she first started working in the industry, she didn’t know how rare women divers were, but her boss at a small company told her she was the only one in Virginia. She thought she might run into another female diver when she went to a bigger company, but that wasn’t the case. “When I’d go to work for other companies, as soon as I set foot on the barge, they’d say, ‘Oh, there’s a girl diver,’ and I’d say, ‘So, what’s the big deal?’ And they’d say, ‘You’re the first one I’ve met.’ At first, I thought they were pulling my leg, but they weren’t.” Many diving companies have a handful of women divers and crewmembers, but the industry largely remains a man’s world. Timothy Beaver, the CEO of Global Diving and Salvage Inc., said his company has about 100 active divers, including three women. He said that although the industry historically has been slow to embrace women, it is starting to come around.
Stephanie Stone is a Diving Shift Supervisor for Ballard Diving & Salvage. She is working long hours this year in the specialized Tunnel Support division. Her current assignment takes her underground in Seattle to support Tunnel Boring Machines (TBMs) working on the city’s water infrastructure. Image courtesy Ballard Diving & Salvage.
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UnderWater
JULY/AUGUST 2010
