Darleane Hoffman, left, Rich Mah, associate director for weapons, engineering and manufacturing (ADWEM) and Carolyn Mangeng of the Director's Office share a laugh at Tuesday's Women's History Month kickoff event in Fuller Lodge. They are standing in front of the "Women Pioneering the Future" poster, which will travel around the Lab and be incorporated into the Lab's 60th anniversary activities. Photos by LeRoy N. Sanchez, Public Affairs

Speaker: women have made great strides at Laboratory, elsewhere

Mentoring plays key role

Darleane Hoffman of the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School remembers when the Laboratory's Women's Diversity Working Group was formed as the Women's Committee of the then-Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory. She also remembers that 50 years ago next week, she was offered a job at the Laboratory.

As she was speaking Tuesday in Fuller Lodge, a viewgraph behind her displayed a "We've Come a Long Way Baby," slide reminiscent of the 1970's era cigarettes advertising campaign.

"You won't believe how hard it was to [obtain] my job here," said Hoffman, the keynote speaker at Tuesday's Women's History Month kickoff event.

She continued: "When I called personnel they told me 'we don't hire women in that division,' " referring to a radio-chemistry group at Los Alamos.

"Many things have changed since [that] time," said Hoffman. "I can't believe how much things have changed."

Darleane Hoffman of the University of California at Berkeley Graduate School used view graphs to talk about some of the women science pioneers at Los Alamos and elsewhere. Hoffman gave the keynote talk at Tuesday's Women's History Month kickoff event.

Hoffman's talk highlighted the Lab's Women's History Month observance opening event. She was followed by Kim Thomas of the Chemistry ( C ) Division. Hoffman was Thomas' mentor at the Laboratory. It is a relationship, Thomas said, that continues 28 years later. "I was the naïve graduate student," Thomas recalled of first meeting Hoffman at UC Berkeley. "Now she is a good friend.

"The reason I am here in Los Alamos is strictly and solely because of Darleane," added Thomas.

Also on Tuesday, the Women's Diversity Working Group unveiled its "Women Pioneering the Future" poster celebrating the achievements of women at Los Alamos going back to the Laboratory's Manhattan Project roots. The large- format poster features information on selected women at the Laboratory. It was sponsored jointly by the Nuclear Materials Technology (NMT) Division and the Diversity (DVO) Office, with assistance from the Information Management (IM) Division.

The poster will be featured during the Laboratory's 60th anniversary celebration and will travel to all Lab divisions during the year.

As an undergraduate student in Iowa, Hoffman said she initially planned to major in applied art, a home economics discipline. But after taking a science class from a professor, Nellie Naylor, she decided to switch her major to chemistry. As a result, Hoffman was the first woman to receive the American Chemistry Society's national Medal of Science.

"I think she was probably my first mentor in science, besides my father, who was a math teacher," Hoffman said of Naylor. "All of us have mentors at different times in our lives. We have to pick and choose what's relevant for us," she said.

"I have benefited by mentoring, both from men and women, and I've benefited from the young women I've mentored. I learned a lot from them," said Hoffman. "As women we recognize we need help from men and they need help from us . . . but I think that by working together we will solve our problems."

Hoffman also recalled her mentors at the Laboratory and some of the technical staff members she mentored while at Los Alamos, several of whom attended Tuesday's talk.

Women have made strides in technical fields, said Hoffman. She used a view graph, which indicated that in 1983, 17 percent of chemistry doctoral degrees conferred in the United States were to women. In 2001, the figure increased to 39 percent. But women can make even more progress, she encouraged.

Hoffman also left the audience some tips on how to survive and what to do to achieve goals. Among others, Hoffman said it's important to have a life outside work; always feel that your work is worthwhile and your contributions are valued; have a thick skin; choose a school and workplace carefully; select good mentors; if you don't like something, make constructive suggestions; remember that one person can't do it all; take advantage of opportunities; and persevere.

The Women's Diversity Working Group, DVO and the Diversity Affirmative Action Board sponsor Women's History Month at the Laboratory.

Other scheduled events include a talk at noon, March 19, by Ellen McGehee of Ecology (RRES-ECO) and tentatively, a talk by U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., in April. Wilson's schedule didn't allow her to speak at the Lab this month.

McGehee's talk, "The Women of Project Y: Working at the Birthplace of the Bomb; 1943-1946," is being held in conjunction with RRES-ECO's brown-bag speaker series. The talk is in the downstairs conference room at RRES-ECO, located at Technical Area 21 and is open to all Laboratory workers.

Also as part of Women's History Month, the Women's Diversity Working Group and Los Alamos Women in Science are cosponsoring a poster contest for children in grades one through 12. The contest is open to school children in the area; students are asked to design a poster that incorporates this year's "Women Pioneering the Future" Women's History Month theme.

Posters will be judged the week of March 20 and then displayed in the Otowi Building second floor lobby near the entrance to the Human Resources (HR) Division at TA-3.

Additionally, the Women's Diversity Working Group is scheduled to hold its annual mentoring awards presentation on June 4 in Fuller Lodge.

Other events may be added in March and announced on the Women's Diversity Working Group Web page at http://www.lanl.gov/WDWG online.

-- Steve Sandoval

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