SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — Ernestina Guerrero, Maria Diaz-Gomez and Noelya Collon are gearing up for SDG&E’s Lineworker & Gas Rodeo. It's a competition that puts safety and skill in the spotlight, while giving crews a chance to show what they’re made of.
And this year, that means history. For the first time in SDG&E’s 144 years, an all-women crew is stepping into the arena. Their team name? The Steel Sisters.
Noelya is leading the team, and she’s no stranger to making history herself. She’s SDG&E’s first woman welder.
"When I first joined as a laborer and I found that there was no woman that had completed welding school, I was surprised, but I also knew immediately [that] it was what I was gonna go for," Noelya says. "It's what kept me motivated.”
Her journey to that welder’s torch wasn’t easy. And building her team was a dream years in the making.
Their supervisor John Mendoza says the field is still male-dominated, only about one in every twenty workers are women.
But watching the Steel Sisters in action…he sees change sparking.
"It's great that it's evolving. It really is," John says. "I have two daughters myself, and I would encourage them to become welders. In fact, that's the plan.”
For Noelia, representation is everything.
"There are women who want to work this job and it can be really intimidating, especially when you don't have other women on the field and you don't see yourself represented," Noelya says. "Of course I questioned if I was even capable of being a welder since there was no [female] welder on the field yet.”
And yet, here they are.
“If the boys can do it, we can do it," Ernestina says with a smile on her face.
And while Saturday’s competition won’t bring a trophy or cash to the winners. They’re after something else:
“High fives, pride, congrats and pride," Noelya says.
And that unmistakable feeling of knowing they’ve already won.
