Women’s Equality and Leadership

Women’s Equality Day is a national holiday celebrated on August 26th. It commemorates the 1920 adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which granted women the right to vote. This was a monumental step in the fight for women’s equality.

Women’s Equality Day invites us to support women’s empowerment, promote gender equality, and provide opportunities for education and collaboration. This is also moment for us to honor the power of women in leadership, which is why I would like to highlight the women leaders who support our work at ASME.

Our current ASME president, Susan Ipri-Brown, began her term as ASME’s 143rd president our annual meeting this past June. Susan is an ASME Fellow, has served on the ASME Board of Governors, and has been an active member of the Society for 34 years, including her years as a student member.

Within her work and community, Susan is a long-time advocate of programs that enhance diversity, equity, and inclusion in the engineering profession. She actively encourages the next generation of engineers through STEM programs for area Scout councils along with devoting time as a coach and judge for FIRST robotics programs.

In addition, for the first time in ASME’s history, our Board of Governors will consist of seven men and seven women-- a significant milestone in our organization’s evolution.

In honor of this achievement, ASME will be launching a new “Celebrating Gender Diversity” campaign designed to inspire and empower gender diversity efforts in engineering, while also promoting ASME’s commitment to creating an inclusive environment for members, volunteers, and staff.

Starting this fall, we will be distributing a variety of communications in support of this campaign, including video interviews with our BoG members, social media posts, placement on ASME.org, and more.

I am looking forward to seeing how women in engineering and leadership continue to create positive change in our organization and in the engineering profession as a whole.    
 

Kind Regards,

Thomas Costabile, P. E., FASME
Executive Director/CEO