Power & passion
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ATHENA AWARD FINALIST
JILL S. TIETJEN
MAKING WAY FOR MORE JILLS IN A JACK WORLD
Looking back, Jill Tietjen compares her life to a snowball: Her experiences have unexpectedly, yet wonderfully collected into who she is today. This path, she says, began to take shape 20 years ago, when she agreed to judge a Society of Women Engineers essay contest.
Tietjen, president and CEO of Technically Speaking, her engineering consulting firm, has dedicated much of her life to mentoring young women and girls and advocating for them to be exposed to and pursue math, engineering and science careers. She has successfully nominated 17 women into the National Women’s Hall of Fame, more than anyone else. She is co-author of five books including last year’s, “Her Story: A Timeline of the Women Who Changed America” (2008, Collins).
“She’s an awesome role model for everyone,” says Rae Ann Dougherty, a fellow engineer, who nominated Tietjen for the Colorado Women’s Chamber of Commerce Athena Award. “She’s always there to help other people … and she’s always coming from a place of service.”
While Dougherty has never directly worked with Tietjen, their worlds have often intertwined because of their involvement in Denver’s Girl Scouts Mile Hi Council and the Society of Women Engineers, among other professional and volunteer affiliations.
“Both Jill and I started in a day when people asked, ‘Are you the secretary?’ and you’d have to say, ‘No, I’m the project manager, would you like to talk to me?’ Dougherty said. “Because I work with so many young women and older girls, I know it’s still hard out there.”
Tietjen came by her affinity for engineering naturally: Her father was a NASA engineer, both of her brothers were trained as engineers and her sister is a research scientist. But when she enrolled at the University of Virginia, hers was only the third class to admit women. She joined the Society of Women Engineers in 1979, “and I got to encourage women like me to consider engineering as a career,” Tietjen said.
Her first job out of college at Duke Power Co. led her to specialize in generation planning for electric utilities and become an expert witness in her field, testifying nationally and before regulatory commissions in support of her clients’ work. She established her own consulting firm and, for more than 20 years, she has offered her opinions and technical expertise for technical reports, peer-reviewed papers and professional articles on everything from power pooling to the challenge of developing more renewable energy resources.
But it was her work with the Society of Women Engineers sixth grade essay contest that exposed her to the fact that few people, including her, could name a significant woman scientist outside of Marie Curie. She and a friend began researching the topic and compiling fact sheets on women innovators for students to choose from for their essays.
At about the same time, Tietjen learned about the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the U.S. equivalent of the Nobel Prize. She had just been elected to the Society of Women Engineers national board of directors.
She went on to successfully nominate Admiral Grace Murray Hopper, a pioneer in computer science, for the honor. She accepted the award for the 84-year-old Hopper in the White House Rose Garden, where it was presented by President George H.W. Bush in 1991.
She subsequently — and successfully -— nominated Hopper in 1994 for induction into the National Women’s Hall of Fame. Tietjen has been at every induction since. This year, three inductees will result from her nominations. “Girls need more role models,” Tietjen said. “And it became my mission to get more women in the Hall.” Her books feature more than 850 amazing historical women, Tietjen said. “I’m floored by the women who aren’t in it yet,” she said.
Of her many achievements, Tietjen said these inductions are among her proudest. As she looks back on her life, Tietjen said, “It all fits together.” She has also established scholarships supporting women in technology careers through the Society of Women Engineers and at the University of Virginia, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and the University of Colorado, where she served as director of the Women in Engineering Program for more than three years.
The scholarships, she said, “have been very exciting and satisfying to me. I know I’m impacting lives.”
— Mary Butler
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