Interview transcription below:
Hey, this is Jonathan Kersting with TechVibe radio and the Pittsburgh technology council hanging out with our tech vibe radio podcast series with SDLC partners. It's been a while since I've had a conversation with these guys. Yeah, I'm just really excited about what we're talking about today. It's going to be all about women in technology, not just in Pittsburgh, but obviously around the world. And I think for a very long period of time, we've been often forgetting that, you know, women are more than half the population here, but they're not represented in the workforce that way, unfortunately. And especially in the tech world where we need every sharp mind that we can get. And so I'm just really happy to see a focus on getting more women into the tech industry and especially in the leadership roles where big impact can be made. And so having this conversation with SDLC is gonna be a lot of fun.
And we have Kathryn Huber returning back who's no stranger to tech. Heather, always good to have you here. Thank you. As far as that goes. Aim had Kim Reed hanging out with us first time on our podcast, but I'm not mistaken. So welcome to the show. Glad to have you here. So Ken, what's your background real quick? What's your title at SDLC? So I'm a senior manager at SDLC. Okay. And my background is in technology so I have an excellent masters in technology and that's why I'm kind of passionate about women in technology was definitely, yeah. What got you interested in technology? I think I always from being a kid I was interested in how things worked and putting things together and it just clicked in my head. Definitely. Was there some point in your life where I knew like a lot of times like women or girls should I say when there are issue, but then they're kind of like [inaudible] you don't really want to explore that.
You should be more about this. So I mean obviously there, was there someone in your life that they kind of kept that fire, stoked, didn't kept you after it? I think I'm not traditional. I actually didn't. I worked first and then went back and got my bachelor's, my master's, and realized I'm kinda good at this technology thing. That's what I'm talking about. So maybe that'll inspire some poke, some folks listening to this because it's, it's never too late to go back and say, no, actually I've, I've finished in this, I'm going to go back and get the right skills and then build on that learning. I'm talking about, I have two daughters, so I'm really focused on that with them. So they're interested in STEM already. So that's good. Very cool. Very cool. So Catherine, your background, that SDLC. Yeah, so see, I lead our consulting services, um, and I'm also the head of HR.
So started STLC you need one less title? I'm sorry, that sounds like two separate jobs to me. I'm bringing it together. Started about eight years ago leading the HR and recruiting team and then that's evolved a little bit as the organization has evolved, it has evolved. And I think one of the things about, um, the focus on women in technology has been, as we were here last time on the podcast talking about the war for talent. And that's one that one of the areas that we're struggling in and we've noticed that we just don't see a lot of female candidates. No, it drives me nuts. Like, I mean, I go to many of our member companies and you're walking through and you see all these guys coding away and you're like, well, where are the women? It's like this, there's something missing as far as that goes.
It's important we begin that conversation. Just so our listeners, SDLC partners have always been one of my favorite companies here in Pittsburgh's. I've really watched them grow from four people. It's like 500 over the past 15 years, which has been just an amazing story. But give us the kind of the key Dietz on all things. SDL and Z. yeah, absolutely. So, um, as you said, been around for 15 years, um, focused for the majority of our time here locally with clients in Pittsburgh. Um, we really focus on providing customized digital solutions. Right. And we've got a couple of key partners in the Pittsburgh area that we work with. Um, everything from some, you know, individual and small team consulting engagements to large scale outsourced, um, overhaul of let's say something like their portals environment. So anything that they're doing digitally with their own internal teams or their clients, we help support that. Very cool. Very cool. That's good. SDLC partners.com you can check it out. There's a lot on the site and some great stuff. We've, we've spent the last two years really evolving our services strategy and we've even done some organized reorganization in the firm to focus on that. So that's really how, as I was mentioning, my role evolved to more of the consulting services. That's right. Constant evolution. So we've really built up our solutions department to give a second title to yeah, exactly. I can, I can work on that. Exactly. She has four right now.
Somebody tells me she's multitasking. Yes, she does. A little bit. Very cool. So let's just jump into this. Just broadly speaking, I'm sure it's maybe been in the past five years where there's kind of been this general spotlight. We've been kind of seeing just, just, you know, internationally, nationally, just simply recognizing that, Hey, there's this war for talent. And on top of that, that there's no women in tech. It's just, there's just this absolute lack of women in tech. So we filled in some key dates around that. Well, from my perspective, I agree. It's probably been about the last four or five years. What we've noticed when we're again in that hiring mode and we're out at either college campuses or different events, PTC events, I'm looking for talent. I think one of the things that we've noticed is just not enough citizens actually also in the tech industry.
And so we do, we're very supportive and very passionate about our foreign national, um, folks in tech. But that was one of the things where STEM activities locally for STEM involvement started to peak because I think that was a challenge. It's expensive and there are challenges in the immigration, you know, laws of today. So that's what I think started at, um, to say, Oh, we're not doing enough to encourage folks in sixth, seventh, eighth grade to get interested in STEM. And then I think the focus then on women came even beyond that to say, yeah, we're not seeing enough citizens, but we're also seeing not enough folks early enough in their, um, school age getting interested in STEM to be able to have those careers down the line. Exactly. Cause these are the types of things where it's about just like, Hey, I can get that job if I do something for six months.
Like, no, you need a background. So there is this long kind of ramp to get into it. And so you have to have this longterm view that we're really going to be solving this thing systemically. We got to start when kids are young and when you have your daughters yes. And they show these sparks of being interested in something around anything computer science, you try to make those embers, you turned to a fire in middle school. That's where we lose girls in math. That's where they say, I'm not good at bat. Oh, you know, kills me. Oh yes you are [inaudible] just cause having explained the right way or let's take an orchestra minute. Right. Cause they're not always the ones that raise their hands in the classroom because from an early age they're conditioned to be quiet and not speak up. And also I think boys and girls learn differently as well too.
And so the way they're taught may not click with the way their brain processes things like I didn't realize there's like different ways of doing multiplication and things like that. There's like a Russian way of doing things. I'm like the way we, it's just like, wait, so you wow. Three learning third grade math right now actually [inaudible] difficult. So it's a little difficult. I got a refresh in the brain. Right. But I think locally Pittsburgh has started to sponsor some STEM events and it was probably about four years ago that they had a girls in tech and that was one of the first things that SDLC participated in. Absolutely. That really got us more focused and yeah, this is a real challenge because to Kim's point, that's what we heard when we interacted with girls and it was middle school age, um, that you know, what, what do you do in technology?
So they're not even getting education in terms of what type of career they could have. The context to, which is why I always thought was interesting. I knew that the Pittsburgh tech council back in the day, we kind of hung out with and quasi sponsor, like a legal league robot robotics, Lego league team. I think it was girls that were like in the fourth and fifth grade or something like that. But the idea was like, ha ha, you're learning girls, but you have no idea that you're like, you're just having fun, but you're actually learning. Actually seeing the application of STEM to have something cool like a robot, do something and be in a competition. And two, they know it's good to compete and it's good to get ideas and work as a group so you learn the group skills. So I always thought that was really cool as a, as a way to inspire, but to meet Alex seem like this is, it's not really enough.
Like they need to multiply that times like 100,000 problem with either not getting enough exposure about what really technology is all about. Right, exactly. So being able to show the rural applications, which is why when we do our STEM summit here at the Pittsburgh tech council, we love taking them to the offices of like SDLC or taking them to duo lingo or Google so they can actually see the like, wow. So the things I'm learning in school now are going to translate into me working in teams that are solving like language problems and all types of crazy stuff. They got the idea that really science and math, it's all behind everything we do. Yup. We actually had a really cool speaker, Tony de Rose. He was a former Pixar, like the exec and he has this thing called Pixar in a box. And to me this is like actually I to take the Pixar in a box. It was actually showing you kids, I think from age like seven to like high through high school, how much math goes into making a Pixar movie that when you do animation there's math, that there's all these different skills that you need to learn. If you want to do something like that. And as a kid like you, wouldn't you want to build video games? You want to build movies, things like that. Oh wait a second. I do need to learn quadratic equations I guess.
So. So, and then the other part that we see now is, um, we're seeing more things like around just taking women who are maybe mid career or just beginning a career and being able to really rally around them and support them and entering into tech and being successful at it. Like things like red chair, Pittsburgh and various things like that, which are really important. What do you guys doing in that regard? We have a red chair. We have one in our lobby for awhile too, but it went somewhere. Maybe someone was borrowing it or something looking to change a light bulb somewhere and they didn't bring it back. But I digress with Julia pepping too with red chair and she came to our kickoff event that we had. So she was on our panel. Um, and that's something I've been involved with now for a few years. But the idea is, um, women leave tech jobs mid career to what at twice the rate of men. Um, and so I know that's her focus and I know that as we've started some of our mentoring things that SDLC has and even the women in tech event, I had so many people come up to me afterwards and said, I've never had a female manager. I'm shocked that they're true. I didn't know these things. They learned a lot from, from our session. The difference between mentoring and sponsorship and all of those things that we don't always talk about.
And that's really one of the key focus areas for us, for our SDLC. Women in technology program, which Kim's is spearheading. It was her idea. She brought it from another organization that she had been with. Stop real quick, cause this is interesting. I love this. So you had this idea and you go to management and say, Hey, this is important. And they're like, yeah, that's a pretty good idea. Do you want to build this thing? Which is like with the fifth thing that she's Polish. So that's cool. Tell us about that. You saw this and you actually were thought enough and knew that a place like SDLC, you could, you could raise this as something that you want to get behind and then they get behind you to do what's not amazing. Right. I just had lunch with Catherine and said, Hey [inaudible] she even bought. So it was a really good idea to go into doing and she bought you on Catherine. You're okay.
For sure. Um, and yeah, so I had the idea, I knew we had done it in my last company. It was pretty successful. It got women involved and engaged and connected. Um, you know, it was a global company, so all over the world. And we also have people from different parts of the world. So bringing that together. I think I had been there just a few months and I realized there is really a need. Um, I would see women get talked over in meetings. They weren't engaged. They would come to me afterwards and say, I had an idea but I didn't want to say it in the meeting. And I thought, Oh God, are you doing that? You should need to speak up. Um, so I thought there was a big need to get, I love you using the need. You go to Catherine, like yeah, we got to do something.
They empower you to then spin this up, which leads to this, this kickoff event that you guys just had to tell us about the event. Yeah, so it's been probably about six, six to eight months since Kim initially brought the idea forward. And like some of the other things like the hackathon that I know you're really, um, you know, you see of those events that we've had and, and follow those, another employee led idea. So another opportunity that we said, yeah, that's a great idea. Let's run with it. Um, Kim needs support. So we really put, um, the opportunity for other female employees to get behind Kim and work on this as a team. Exactly. And really show that we're, we're standing behind whoever wants to participate and be involved. Join up. We put together a vision and mission. We put together some action plans.
We built a budget for this year and this was one of the main things that we wanted to do as early as possible in 2020 to really kick off the event and show all of the things that the team has been working on so far. Um, and it's tough for us I think to get participation. Um, in the middle of the day. We are very client focused. The majority of our employees are focused on their client engagements, but we had over 75 people standing room only. They believe in it. They want to be a part of it. That's cool. And a lot of male allies. So we had a lot of our senior executive team and other just peers, you know, males at all different levels. What's this all about? Like the men?
Well, that's something we emphasize constantly. It's male allies. So CMU, I was at a session where we talked about, you know what it's like for women. Um, women can't do this alone. We need male allies. So glad you brought that point up because, because it's not an us versus them thing at all and if anyone's going to treat that way, it's like just please look at the tide rising. It's everybody coming together on this. Because the one thing that I keep, the older I get, the more I keep learning is the more people I hang out with and work with, the better it gets. Just because you have different minds is solving problems in different ways. And the idea is that it gives me the best brightest minds you can. Let's solve a lot of problems and make a little money while we're at it too.
And the interest, the interesting thing about that is I had a few of the men mentioned to me, you know, I didn't really think that we had a problem. I feel like we have a lot of women at SDLC. And that was actually something that Audrey mentioned to me right around the time, maybe a little bit before Kim brought the idea to me. Um, because even though I know it's hard to attract, um, I kind of felt the same thing. Like, well I think we do have quite a few women in SDLC. And when we shared our percentage with Audrey, she was blown away. So we're at 31% female employees and the industry is 25. And so we sorta didn't realize that maybe we were doing something that was working, some of the other things that we do as an organization. And so when Kim brought the idea, it clicked for me as well or say, Hmm, maybe it's more important not only to focus on finding talent and bringing in women, but nurturing the ones that we have.
That important part mean you can get them in there and that's great. That's just the first step. I mean now the hard work begins where you got to make sure they're engaged and growing and growing and helping to move the company forward and everything and then hopefully being like you and being passionate about it and then trying to keep spreading it as far as that goes. So the men were a little bit surprised and then they say, Oh okay I get it now. What can we do to continue on the trend that we've been on to hire, you know, hire as many women as we have been, but even make that better. But also what can we do to make an impact in the Pittsburgh community? Sure. Yeah. Yeah. At the tech council we're 75% women. Wow. That is awesome. Many people, there's only four guys. Wow. Seriously, we're skewing some numbers. This is why there's so much creativity. It's hilarious because we've, as we hired people, it's just like we don't ever get any actually even getting email candidates for a lot of things. Interesting. We're trying to figure out what's going on and we're like, we've got no problems with that. You know, despondent. Very odd. Cause it seems to be the reverse of what a lot of other companies kind of do. So yeah. So we're, we're believer in it too.
So what's in the future? Anything new that's going to be coming up as you continue to grow and build this thing? So we're building on our roadmap and we have a lot of ideas for internal events, things that we want to do, like training, coaching for the ladies that are inside SDLC and then recruiting Catherine's team. They are already doing a lot to bring new students and engage with the university. So we're going to just foster that, bring the red chair along with us wherever we go. Right. Um, so those are some, you know, internal, external and lots of social media so we can kind of get the word out about what we're doing. Right. And one of the things also in the community capitalizing on some of the STEM events as we mentioned, that are going on and really again focusing on the younger girls in that middle school age.
So we've done a few speaking engagements in a couple middle schools. Um, some high school events as well. So really leveraging the females that are really passionate about the SDLC, women in technology program and getting into them out talking to the girls. Um, because I think that was one of the other things that if it's just the recruiting team or if it's just some senior leaders, they're not really feeling that connection to get the folks that are in the trenches every day to really talk about this is what I do every day. Exactly. So we'll be focused on that for this year as we're hitting all fronts. You're going to be super busy cause you're also serving a bunch of clients and solving some tough problems at the same time. So there's like to be busy, let's get you out of here cause I'm feeling bad for keeping you here as long as I have now.
This is fantastic stuff. It's always just, I'd love having these conversations. I'm hoping people get a little inspired by it and started doing the same things that you're doing. If there's any way that they want to link up with you. I'm sure obviously though that you went over with other companies as well too, because this is like one of those things. All tides rise here. Dave went to SDLC is doing well, so your competitors and anybody else that's in the text as far as that goes. Absolutely. Thank you for having us. We really appreciate it. It STLC partners.com check you guys out because like I said, great place. Like I said, for 15 years I've been watching you guys go straight up man, in a really cool way. So anyhow, so glad you listened to this tech vibe, radio podcast and Huntington bank podcast studio. This has been Jonathan Kirsten with the Pittsburgh tech council and of course tech vibe radio.