Patti broke off the thought. “So let me ask the question I am sure most of our audience is thinking. How did you get into this field? I mean, I would have expected this to be a man’s bastion.  It is heavy construction, out in the field, climbing towers.  You know what I mean.”

“Microwave work in general has far more men in it than women. I think the wording the government uses is “underutilized for females”. But let me say this for any girl out there watching, women can do the jobs and they can be good at them. They just need to study and know what to do. Sometimes it may be a little harder to get the initial job but once in, it is your performance.”

“I keep saying that. Did you plan to be in this field or did it just happen?”

“It was really some of each. I went to college to be an electrical engineer and I got interested in microwave propagation during my sophomore year. Propagation is how the waves travel. Microwaves are what we call line of sight and you can focus and reflect them with antennas that are reasonable in size, just like you focus and reflect light with a lens or mirror. I took extra courses in it and went to a couple seminars. I worked with the one professor on a project.  I only dated a couple of guys the whole time I was in college. They seemed to be a problem, they wanted me to waste time with them when I knew I needed to study. I didn’t dronk or party so I had lots of time to study. When I got out of college I looked for work in the field and I went to work for a firm that installs microwave links. My husband started there two years earlier. He and I were doing site surveys. Neither of us liked doing the installs, the fussing with contractors to dig ditches, run wire and pour concrete. The sites get muddy.  For us the fun part was the surveys. Most of the guys wanted to get out there and play in the concrete and wire. I call it “little boy syndrome”, liking to play in mud puddles.” There was laughter. “There was a minor downturn in the market and the company went chapter eleven about two years after I started.  We were both out of work because we were two of the last three hired. I was really devastated because I checked the company before I hired in.  I found out that my research on the company financials was wrong because they were lying to the investors and cooking the books.  We were not the only ones who got snookered.  The one good thing, both of us had our 401K’s in other company stocks. We had lostened to Bob Brinker and he advised that you never invest heavily in the company you work for unless they are giving you substantial discounts and then you sell some as soon as you can and dives.  Some of the people there had their whole portfoilo in the company.