"We Belong Here"

Elena Rodriguez |
Machine Operator/Setup Person

Work Hard, Prove Yourself

Not all manufacturing careers begin when a person earns her diploma. Some opportunities begin out of necessity. When applying for a job in the United States, and English is not your first language, you find a job that lets your actions speak to your strengths.

That was the case for Elena Rodriguez, who began her manufacturing career in 2006 working with plastics machines and printing labels on plastic parts. In 2010, Ms. Rodriguez decided to expand her career as a CNC lathe machine operator, and within a couple months she transitioned into the role of CNC lathe setup person—a job that normally takes years of training to attain. Another opportunity was then presented a year later in the Swiss-type-lathe department where she honed her skills and became a premiere setup person. After a short layoff period, a former coworker mentioned her capabilities to Aneesa Muthana, owner of Pioneer Service in Addison, Illinois, where she has been employed since 2017.

Attaining a job in a non-native-language position and quickly moving to a new role represent two cases in which Ms. Rodriguez has broken through barriers. A third has been thriving as a machinist/setup person on the male-dominated shop floor. Her ability to do this comes from the confidence that was instilled in her from the beginning, she says. As a child, her father used to show her his builder’s blueprints and teach her how to read them. This ignited her passion for making things. In addition, she says her mother was a strong woman who instilled in her a work ethic to do a good job and fostered her desire to work with her hands. Her parents taught her to achieve her dreams through hard work and dedication—lessons that have served her well on the shop floor.

According to Ms. Rodriguez, the only way to survive on the shop floor is to have confidence and be aggressive, otherwise she might not be taken seriously. “This is how I see it,” she says. “We (women) have to fight. We have to be strong.”

Her strength and willingness to prove herself helped her in her former job where she says her CNC supervisor expected her to fail. Instead of being intimidated, she did the physical work of lifting barstock and loading machines, along with the knowledge work of properly understanding tooling management and loading. Eventually, she proved to her supervisor that she was more than qualified for the job, and he then became her biggest advocate.

“When I started manufacturing, making parts was not easy,” she says. “It is challenging for many people. But I can do it with my little hands. (Ms. Rodriguez is a petite, 5-foot-tall woman.) I love it. Sometimes I tell myself, ‘look what you are doing!’ I prove to myself how far I have come. I am not a quitter.”

Today, Ms. Rodriguez sometimes runs four to five Swiss-types, though the normal protocol there is three. When one job is completed, she is busy standing on her step stool, setting up another. In the midst of doing all that, she has taken it upon herself to encourage and train women (and men, too) who are new to the shop floor. If someone shows an interest in learning how to do something, she takes them under her wing. According to Ms. Muthana, her employer, this is not the industry norm. “Machinists tend to be very protective of their skills. Guarding them is a form of job security,” she says. Having an employee willing to help others has created a more positive work environment. Pioneer Service has also benefitted from Ms. Rodriguez cross-training and developing employees.