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VIEWPOINT: STRYTEN ENERGY
Women in the global battery industry forge ahead
Julie McClure chair of MAC Engineering and president of the WGBI, revealed on the opening morning of the convention, details of the newly formed group in an introduction ahead of announcing Gina Radke, as a keynote speaker for the morning session.
The WGBI was launched in January as a global organization to promote and develop the growth of women professionals in the battery industry. WGBI has grown to include 168 professional members and seven academic members. Of these, 75 participated in the first webinar, featuring a presentation from Nancy Martin, NRM Consulting on career development. This was the first of a quarterly webinar series that will continue through this year.
McClure invited WGBI members to join a closed LinkedIn group dedicated to connecting women in the industry for networking and sharing best practices. The first informal discussion was held on April 8 with 51 participants and featured an article from Kelly Shue of Yale University on promoting women and recognizing their potential.
Later this year, WGBI will be launching mentoring programs for both professional members and STEM students in an effort to develop its community of leaders. In a bid to emphasize STEM education programming, WGBI also sponsored two university students from Florida State University to attend this year’s convention to provide leaders of the future exposure to the opportunities available in the battery industry.
“The success of the launch of WGBI has truly been a testament to the commitment of our female leaders in the industry. We couldn’t have done it without your support,” McClure said.
The first WGBI meeting of the convention was followed by the WGBI reception in the early evening. The meeting was for WGBI-members only and those interested in learning more.
C+D Technologies/Trojan Battery Company and Hollingsworth & Vose gave generous support for the reception.
WGBI — LEADERSHIP STEERING COMMITTEE
• President – Julie McClure, MAC Engineering • Vice president/treasurer – Virginia Archibald, Surrette Battery • Secretary – Ellen Maxey, Clarios • Membership recruitment – Teresa Grocela, Hollingsworth & Vose • Member education – Angelika Mayman, Hollingsworth & Vose • STEM education – Negin Salami, Clarios • Marketing – Tammy Stankey, The Doe Run Co • Staff – Pam O’Brien and Priscilla Gil, BCI
testing, and record keeping, just to name a few of the topics that are important to our industry,” he said.
“Three of the most significant regulatory regimes at EPA and OSHA for the lead battery are currently under active review. Any one of these programs could have a significant impact on our industry and BCI is working hard to ensure that any new rules are based on sound science and are updated in a rational way while ensuring our workers and communities are properly protected from harmful exposures.”
Pruitt later said that the Council was pushing ahead for yet tighter blood levels for the industry. “We want to reach a maximum universal 20mdmg of lead in workers by 2025,” he said. “You only have to compare this level with the OSHA recommendation of 50mdmg to see how powerful a lead we are taking.”
There was the sense that the recent campaigning by the BCI had really started to pay off in a variety of directions — a theme that Roger Miksad, executive vice president of BCI also elaborated on in the side panel next to this. Highlighting regulatory and advocacy work BCI has in hand, Miksad said that BCI has submitted extensive comments in response to the US Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed amendments to regulations governing air emissions from lead battery manufacturing plants.
Those comments challenged many of the proposals — and there are two additional long-expected lead rule-makings of considerable concern: the statutorily-mandated five-year re-consideration by the EPA of the current Lead National Ambient Air Quality Standards (Lead NAAQS), and the muchdelayed reconsideration by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) of its general industry lead standard.
In early March, EPA released for comment draft versions of the first two volumes of what ultimately will make up its Integrated Review Plan for the Lead NAAQS, together with a schedule for completing that review by early 2026. As BCI’s Energy Beacon has reported, the two volumes are largely background material; a third volume, which will more deeply present scientific analyses, is due early next year.
The agency also announced that the volumes would be considered by EPA’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee on April 8. These announcements provided the first opportunity for industry to specifically comment on the need (or, more accurately, lack of need) to reconsider the existing level of 0.15µg/m3 .
