Incredible times with BPW Ontario

Already a week has flown by since the BPW Ontario Conference hosted by BPW Barrie!  It was an excellent conference!  I sincerely enjoyed seeing old friends and meeting new ones.

The conference also provided me with an excellent opportunity to share Queen of the Hurricanes with the Ontario Clubs.  When Elsie Gregory MacGill was active in BPW Ontario, 1950s-1980, she rarely missed a BPW Ontario Conference.  So, it was wonderful to bring her story to her BPW sisters in 2015!  Some of the women present still remember Elsie and others told me they were excited to learn more about her.

Thank you BPW Ontario for all the incredible support since 2006 and for your interest Queen of the Hurricanes!  BPW Toronto, Elsie's home club, called here "Our Elise" and it is true!  

Cheers,
Crystal

Queen of the Hurricanes' flight plan has been checked out for the CAHS!

On June 20th, 2015, The Queen of the Hurricanes will be landing in Hamilton, Ontario!  I will be giving a presentation about Elsie, and  later that day selling copies of my book before the gala dinner.

I am really looking forward to this exciting venture!

Cheers! 

Upcoming Book Sale!

On May 20th, 2015, I will be participating in the Business and Professional Women's (BPW's) Ontario Provincial Conference.  It is taking place at the beautiful Nottawasaga Inn Resort & Conference Centre and hosted by BPW Barrie.

There will be a marketplace for participants to share their talents and sell their products.  The Queen of the Hurricanes will be available for purchase and signing!  Elsie was a prominent member of BPW Ontario and in a sense she will have a chance to participate in another provincial conference - as she rarely missed these engaging events.

Cheers!
Crystal 

And the APEO Gold Medal goes to...

Winning a gold medal is often considered the ultimate achievement of an individual.  In sports individuals and teams earning this honour are held up as heroes and champions - they have aspired to reach this elusive merit and they have succeeded. 

In 1979, Elsie Gregory MacGill was awarded a gold medal - the Association of Professional Engineers of Ontario (APEO)'s Gold Medal.  This was not an award she had sat down and devised a training plan for consciously, but it was an award that recognized years of dedicated service and training - years of commitment and service to her both her engineering colleagues and Canadian society as a whole.  In fact, the person selected was considered to have given "outstanding service to the country". (Queen of the Hurricanes, 208)

Elsie's colleagues had chosen her for this honour.  They had recognized the degree of dedication with which she undertook her engineering projects and service duties to the profession while still finding time to contribute to various non-engineering organizations (most notably the Canadian Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs).

Elsie admitted that the honour was such that she went "soaring into the wild blue yonder" as she considered that her name was added to the list of twenty accomplished engineers to have held the gold medal including C.D. Howe who held the first one. (Queen of the Hurricanes, 208)  Ever one to joke - Elsie's famous humour lightened the mood at the awards ceremony where she spoke about cracks in aircraft.

Elsie Gregory MacGill was a dedicated professional engineer.  As national engineering month comes to a close I hope that some of these reflections have given you insight into the world of engineering.  If you are an engineer, I hope that these historical reflections have added to your existing knowledge base, if you are not, I hope that they have you curious to know more about this creative and dynamic profession.  

Bridging Worlds

One of the many amazing things about Elsie Gregory MacGill was the degree to which she served as a bridge.  She advocated that scientists and engineers should take an active role in government and public life.  Elsie modeled her ideas.  She encouraged her engineering colleagues to reach beyond their areas of expertise to learn about new and different subjects:

"More and more we find that because technology shapes social and economic change, we are required to anticipate not only the technical but also the social and economic consequences of our work, bringing subjectivity into an otherwise fairly precise profession". (99, Queen of the Hurricanes) 

At the same time, she encouraged her feminist colleagues to ensure they were well-versed in the technological changes sweeping Canadian society in the twentieth century.

It still amazes me to think that Elsie was born in 1905 - only a few short years after the first powered flight at Kitty Hawk by the Wright Brothers - and she lived to see rockets and the moon landing.  

         (Wright Flyer at the Smithsonian Aviation and Aerospace Museum - Photo by C. Sissons)


Elsie saw major changes in women's advancement from winning the vote and being declared "persons" to the recommendations of The Royal Commission on the Status of Women.

In her words, actions and identify Elsie served as a bridge.  She knew that Canadian society needed the knowledge and expertise of scientists and engineers and she knew that scientists and engineers needed the knowledge and expertise of society.  

Today our world is increasingly more technological by the minute and it cannot be denied that we are living in the knowledge-based society.  Take time to stop and think about the various technologies you use - learn a little bit more about them and who makes them.  Reach out and explore an a subject or area you know little about - what you learn may surprise you.  You may be surprised by how many links there actually are between seemingly divergent areas.     

Queen of the Hurricanes with New Optics

During the long period when I was working on my graduate studies and then Queen of the Hurricanes I was asked from time-to-time if I had any intention of writing a book for youth or something that was less scholarly in nature.  My usual response to that question was something to the effect that I was finding the current project rather overwhelming and before starting a second book I wanted to finish the first!  

When I finished Queen of the Hurricanes I jokingly promised my husband that I would wait at least three weeks before starting another book.  I had no idea that before that time period had even passed that someone would already suggest a very interesting collaborative project!  That project has yet to materialize, but the question about a less scholarly book on Elsie resurfaced.  During a presentation to the Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) group of Ottawa, one of the questions was will there be a youth book?  This time I paused, and then noted that it would be a good idea - as suddenly dialogue was coming to mind!  

Shortly after that presentation I wrote down what had come to mind and I found it hard to stop writing - that has happened repeatedly as of late and the story is really coming to life.  It is a completely new world, despite the fact it is essentially the same story because it is historical fiction.  The limits placed on a historian regarding exact evidence are loosened and I am free to imagine what Elsie may have been thinking in certain instances - who she spoke to - what their responses were.  

It started out as a youth book - but it might end up being a regular novel - it is too early to tell at the moment.  In the meantime I am enjoying the challenge of changing from a thematic biographical study to a largely chronological story.  

Where it is headed for sure is unclear at this moment, but I do know that I am truly enjoying the journey and learning a lot along the way! 

International Recognition with SWE in 1953

In 1953, the Society of Women Engineers recognized Elsie and her achievements with their second annual award.  The first award, incidentally, had gone to Dr. Lillian Gilbreth "The First Lady of Engineering"!  This was quite a recognition for both Elsie and Canada!  

Elsie received her award in New York. The joy her chosen profession brought her was reflected in her words during the awards ceremony:

"Some work to fly faster; some work to fly cheaper; some work to fly safer.  All work primarily to fulfill themselves". (Queen of the Hurricanes, 97)

Elsie became an active member of SWE and followed its progress throughout her life.  Even when she could not be present for the launch of the first International Conference of Women Engineers and Scientists (ICWES) she sent a financial donation to support it.

For more information on this dynamic organization see:   societyofwomenengineers.swe.org