'Lack of female role models' in engineering

When Lian Lin stood up last Monday morning to speak to a group of students at the Cradle of Aviation Museum in Garden City, she made sure to note that being a female engineer in the defense industry is still something unusual.

Lin, 37, is the only full-time female engineer at AAR Corp., an aircraft components company in Garden City with about 200 employees.

"You have to do your best to show your capabilities," said Lin, who has worked for AAR for 6 1/2 years, after having come from China in 2002. "Once they [male workers] know you, they will respect you."

There is a crying need on Long Island for more engineers, according to company executives, economists and planners, and, according to others, an even bigger need for more women in the field.

"I think there's a lack of female role models" for women in engineering, said Carrie-Ann Miller, director of Women in Science and Engineering, an honors program at Stony Brook University. "Traditional engineering is still male-dominated." Stony Brook, she said, sends its students to high schools to encourage the study of engineering and the other sciences.

Anne Shybunko-Moore, president of Hauppauge-based defense contractor GSE Dynamics Inc., said there are no female engineers among the company's 48 employees. "But I don't look to hire men or women," she said. "I go for the best qualified candidates." She said she believes there are "great opportunities" for women, and she is looking for people to work in the company's composite business.

Pat McMahon, who runs Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Long Island operation, is the highest-ranking woman in the defense industry on the Island. Much has changed since she got into the business 30 years ago.

"In the early 1980s if you had a room of 80 people, you would be lucky to have two women," McMahon said. Now, she said, about 150 of the company's 700-member engineering force on the Island are women.

Alice DeBiasio, an engineer who joined Northrop Grumman in 2006, said she believes the issue is not just getting more women, but more young people in general, into engineering.

There's still a lot of work to be done, said Miller. "It would be a disservice to the country if more women are not encouraged to go into engineering."