Rosie Riveters is on a mission to inspire a new generation of women in STEM

A conversation with Brittany Greer, executive director and founder, Rosie Riveters

July 23, 2024

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In this episode of the Work in Progress podcast, I’m joined by Brittany Greer, the executive director of Rosie Riveters, a nonprofit that is working to close the gender gap in the STEM workforce.

There are an estimated 2.8 million unfilled STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) jobs in this country. Meanwhile, women make up just 28% of the STEM workforce. Since 2016, Brittany Greer has been working to change that.

The nonprofit she founded aims to inspire girls aged 8 to 14 from diverse backgrounds to explore careers in the field through hands-on learning kits.

“It’s all of the materials needed to complete the project operationally. We do everything from explore hydraulics – making a hydraulic desk lamp where the arm goes up and down – to exploring the science of sound. To build a harmonica, we have popsicle sticks and rubber bands and straws and if you put those together in the right way, you can make a harmonica that vibrates and make sounds,” explains Greer.

She says that part of the lesson of each Rosie Riveters learning kit is to understand how that science project connects to a career in STEM. For example, the connection between the science of sound to a career in the audio-visual industry.

She adds, “The whole goal of our programs is not only excitement and awareness of the opportunities that are available in STEM, that’s one part of it. The real core of what we do is providing girls in our programs with an opportunity for productive struggle, a space to get things wrong before they get them rights.”

As a result, the young girls not only build critical thinking and problem-solving skills, they build their confidence. “It’s watching a kid go from, ‘I can’t,’ to, ‘Look what I did.’ Because once you get through the struggle and you have completed the task and you did something that you didn’t think was possible or you didn’t think was fair, there is a radiance that comes off of a participant after that moment and they’re excited to show you and talk about it,” explains Greer.

Greer believes that building those skills and building confidence is what drives more young girls to consider STEM as a career.

“If you can invest in them early, they will know that they can come and find you at the end. You’re going to have a far greater participation rate of of people who have not gone to participate in your space before because you’re welcoming them and you’re inviting them, and you’re showing them the opportunities that are available to them.

“I think the more that we can do that, the more that we can open up opportunities that haven’t previously been available to a lot of the population,” Greer adds.

Listen to the podcast here, or wherever you get your podcasts, to learn more about how Rosie Riveters gets the kits into the hands of the girls they are hoping to inspire.

You can also find it on my Work in Progress YouTube channel.

Episode 326: Brittany Greer, executive director and founder, Rosie Riveters
Host & Executive Producer: Ramona Schindelheim, Editor-in-Chief, WorkingNation
Producer: Larry Buhl
Theme Music: Composed by Lee Rosevere and licensed under CC by 4
Transcript: Download the transcript for this episode here
Work in Progress Podcast: Catch up on previous episodes here

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Dana Beth Ardi

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Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.