Bridging the Gap for Girls : Parents Introduce Their Daughters to Their High-Tech Workday World at TRW

Twelve-year-old Kristen Vandervoet knows that her father spends much of his day in meetings and that he worked on a project called Milstar.

But not until this week did she visit his workplace and see a satellite payload: a work in progress that to the non-engineer resembles a big box kite brimming with fat bundles of wires.

“How many miles of wire do you think that is?” asked her father, David B. Vandervoet, as the two inspected the payload--or communications brain--for the Milstar Flight Three satellite. “Ten miles,” he said.

“Miles?” Kristen said, sounding startled. “I never knew it would be this complicated--all the wire, and all the computers.”

This was Kristen Vandervoet’s first visit to the TRW Electronic Systems Division in Redondo Beach, where her father is deputy general manager. The electronics systems division is producing the payload for Milstar, a military communications satellite.

Kristen was one of about 30 girls who joined in the division’s observance of “Take Our Daughters to Work Day,” a national day promoted by the Ms. Foundation for Women to expose girls to the work world and boost their sense of self-worth.

The girls--aged 9 to 16--donned bright pink TRW hats, heard lectures from prominent female employees, watched a promotional film, took a tour and ate hot dogs and hamburgers.

Some strolled hand-in-hand with their fathers or mothers through the sprawling campus of glass and steel buildings, looking slightly out of place in their spring dresses and hair ribbons.

Many of these girls come from technology-oriented families: Fully one-third raised their hands when they were asked if their fathers or mothers are engineers. Yet when asked if they want to become engineers themselves, one lone hand went up. A few girls hope to be teachers, doctors, lawyers; at least five would like to become veterinarians.

That unscientific tally would seem consistent with reports of a continuing gender gap in which boys pursue math and science in greater numbers than girls. A much-publicized 1992 study by the American Assn. of University Women found that the educational system steers girls away from math and the sciences, and that they often leave school with less self-confidence than when they entered.

Another study, examining college freshmen interested in the sciences, mathematics, computer science, engineering and premedical studies, determined that women were more apt to lose faith and depart from those fields.

Such findings prompted the New York-based Ms. Foundation for Women to organize the “Take Our Daughters to Work Day.” Foundation officials say the event is intended as “a way of making girls visible, valued and heard.” Parents across the country joined in, bringing their daughters to hospitals, subways, stock brokerages and more.

Although most employers marked the day Wednesday, TRW’s Electronic Systems Division chose Tuesday for scheduling reasons. Women and minorities account for a growing share of the nation’s work force, said Paul Y. Sasaki, vice president and general manager of the TRW Electronic Systems Division.

Sasaki predicted that other sections of TRW will join in the event next year. “We hope the positive word spreads,” he said.

TRW decided to take part after an employee’s daughter read a newspaper article on “Take Our Daughters Day” and showed it to her father.

“I wanted TRW to do something about it,” said 10-year-old Mariane McAdam of Westchester, whose father is Pete McAdam, deputy director of the division’s advanced electronics systems.

“I didn’t see my dad’s work very much. I wanted to see what he did for a living,” explained Mariane, who discovered that the TRW facilities are far larger than she envisioned.

“I just think kids need to see where their parents work,” added TRW employee Ellen Lord, who never visited her father’s workplace when she was growing up. She brought her daughter Tuesday.

Engineer Herschel Stiles escorted his two daughters, Christie, 13, and Katie, 9, of Manhattan Beach. He wanted them to hear from women who could serve as positive role models, he said. “It seemed like an opportunity.”

Like most girls who toured TRW, Kristen Vandervoet is not planning a science career.

Now in the seventh grade, she likes literature and foreign languages and hopes to become a teacher or a veterinarian. But she paid close attention as her father took her to the Milstar assembly building.

The Milstar payload he showed her is the third that TRW has built for Lockheed, the Milstar project contractor. The payload will be mounted on a spacecraft and sent into space, where it will become a key component in military communications.

“These are telephone switchboards in the sky,” Kristen’s father said.

Kristen listened intently as her father pointed out various features of the payload. The visit helped her fill in the blanks about her father’s job, she said.

“I always wondered what he did all day, besides meetings.”

Traveling to TRW from her Los Alamitos home also gave Kristen a healthy appreciation for another aspect of her father’s working life: his 35-minute morning commute. She shook her head. “Constant brake lights,” she said.