Mar. 30—In celebration of Women's History Month, we profiled three women who are breaking barriers in male-dominated professions: welder, police officer and highway inspector.
Jojo DaCosta, known as the "yard mom" to the workers who ply their trades on the deck plates of submarines under construction Electric Boat, went almost three decades as the only woman on the welding crew.
Now DaCosta, 69, is approaching a half century on the job as mentor to the slowly burgeoning ranks of skilled tradeswomen in the male-dominated industry. In addition to her pipe-welding responsibilities, she instructs new hires on the industrial art she likens to needlepoint.
"Every time I heard a new lady would be coming into the welding school, I would march down there and greet her," she said. "And when she was on the boat with me, I would try to help her the best I could, because she was in a world where it was all men, and we were all fighting our way to get where we're at now."
Company statistics show women today account for 17% of the company's 22,500 employees.
DaCosta, though, had to forge her own path. The New London native started work in 1976, a year after a strike by the Metal Trades Council at the shipyard lasted five months. She applied for a position at the shipyard based on experience in the blueprint room at the Navy Underwater Sound Laboratory at Fort Trumbull when she was asked if she might be interested in welding.
"And I said, 'Yeah, I'll try it,'" she recalled. "I thought I'd be here for a year and move on."
But she stayed for the challenge. There was the work itself, which required quality that sailors could depend on with their lives. And there was the never-ending need to prove she was as good as her male counterparts.
"The women have more of a challenge because, put it this way: If they make a mistake they get talked to. They get talked about," she said. "If a guy makes a mistake, it's fine and dandy."
DaCosta didn't give them anything to talk about.
"I've been here all these years," she said. "I must be doing something right."
At a ceremony for the recent christening of the submarine Idaho, Electric Boat President Kevin Graney from the podium picked DaCosta out of the crowd where she sat with her 31-year-old daughter. He introduced her to the crowd of thousands as one of the best pipe welders on the site and a mentor to the large group of new welders assigned to the shipyard's latest Virginia-class nuclear-powered fast-attack submarine.
"She's known for being the first person to reach out to a fellow employee and the last to leave the job site," he said.
DaCosta, also known for not taking any guff, said she has always had to stand up for herself. Now she stands up for other women who might be having trouble at work or at home.
"All the girls that I've helped train, I helped them to stick up for themselves in life," she said. "I'm their mentor. I'm the yard mom."
In charge
There were about a dozen female state troopers on the force when Sue Kumro first reported to the Troop K Colchester barracks in 1980 as a 23-year-old. She'd been working as a secretary for the state Department of Transportation when she saw the job opening.
"Maybe I could try that job," she remembered thinking. It sounded at the time like a great opportunity.
She was young and naive, but she was right: "It was the greatest opportunity in the world," she said. "I loved every minute of it."
Kumro, 67, retired in 2004 before opening Mermaid Liquors on Main Street in Niantic.
Today, 13% of the state's 904 troopers are female.
A self-described "in charge person," Kumro said she thrived on the ability to make her own decisions in the field. From taking the lead at a crime scene to helping people navigate some of the most difficult situations in their lives, she said every day was an adventure.
Among the challenges was a tendency among the general public to direct conversation toward her male counterparts even when she was the one in charge, she said. Then there was the fact that a lot of troopers "weren't thrilled with females being cops."
Still, she described most of them as respectful. "And to this day I still have some of those male counterparts come down to my package store and visit me," she said.
Kumro credited friendships with other women in law enforcement and related fields ― including fellow troopers, officers from other departments, judges and prosecutors ― for providing a network that helped alleviate the lack of female perspective in the state police at the time.
Chief among those confidantes was academy classmate and lifelong friend Kathy Miller, a retired trooper who in semi-retirement works as the records clerk for the East Lyme Police Department.
"Through police work and my whole life, we all have ups and downs in our lives," she said. "I have no idea how I would have survived without my girlfriends."
Kumro ended her career as a trooper where she started: in uniform at Troop K. Having worked a lot of plain-clothes assignments along the way, she said she chose the final assignment so her 13-year-old daughter at the time would remember her in the starched gray symbol of authority.
"I left as a master sergeant, so I was the second one in charge of commanding the troop," she said. "I wanted her to see that anybody could be a leader."
Now her daughter, Camden Scoggin, is a captain in the Air Force.
"She's a strong leader, too," she said.
'One of the guys'
Joelle Westervelt, 34, is one of only two women on the Interstate 95 reconstruction project in East Lyme overseen by the Glastonbury-based engineering firm GM2 and general contractor Manafort Brothers of Plainville.
As an environmental inspector, Westervelt speaks for the rivers and trees affected by the massive $148 million project spanning two exits ― and the state road that runs underneath ― that began last year with upheaval promised for four-and-a-half years.
"I have to be on the contractor about silt fence installation," she said. "I have to make sure there's no sediment running anywhere we don't need it to run. I have to make sure our slopes are protected, that they're not eroding."
At 5 feet 2 inches tall, the blonde with a background in biology and on-the-job training and certification in engineering has had to teach herself to convey the kind of confidence necessary to make herself heard on the construction site.
"You've got to be a little tough," she said. "But you also can't come off as a bitch, for lack of a better word."
That means rolling with the punches in the forgive-and-forget world of construction.
"You can get in a fight with someone one day out in the field over something and the next day you're having coffee together. That's just how it is," she said. "You've just got to kind of get up and get over it. And everyone's very good at that here."
Being successful in the role requires being "one of the guys," she said. But that's nothing new to her.
"I have six brothers, so my whole life has been male-dominated," she said.
She described growing up in Woodbury with an affection for the sports her brothers played and the dirt bikes they raced through the woods. When her parents pushed ballet lessons, she fought them every step of the way.
Still, she follows fashion and likes to wear dresses outside of work. She lamented construction vests that are always too big and how difficult it is to find work boots that fit.
Westervelt worked previously for the Interstate 84 expansion project in Waterbury when her son, now 7 years old, was still nursing. She recalled having to scrounge trailer and fridge space so she could pump breast milk to bring home to the baby.
Everyone was very accommodating, according to Westervelt.
"But, also, I could tell it was something nobody had ever dealt with before," she said.
e.regan@theday.com
