Women in Thermal Spray

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Thermal spray coatings services fall into the industrial commercial area of business. For a long time now, thermal spray coatings have found applications in aircraft, pump, paper, printing, textile industries and so on which generally fall under medium to heavy industrial applications. From the early days, even when medium and heavy industries were operated with a male dominated workforce, the thermal spray industry has had significant contributions by women. This is especially true of the thermal spray industry in the United States. In the early years, women in thermal spray companies in the United States could be found busily performing masking operations primarily; this is because a lot of patience is needed in masking large volumes of parts for flame spray applications and women have generally exhibited a high level of patience and finesse in this area. However, in recent years, women have exhibited tremendous excellence in operating metallurgical laboratory evaluations, performing quality control inspections, performing thermal spray engineering functions such as writing process sheets, standard operating procedures, sales functions and so on. In rare plasma coating shops in the United States, I have even seen women flame spray operators. The thermal spray industry, in this regard, is a model for other industries where women have been kind of left behind in being given significant responsibilities.
For some reason, thermal spray shops in other countries are still predominantly covered by men. The women in such companies may perform office and administrative functions but are not very much present in the actual manufacturing areas. I do not know why this division exists which frankly has no basis. Safety really should not be a concern since nowadays all kinds of safety gear is available to thermal spray operators from hearing protection to respiratory care. A lot of women are pursuing both undergraduate and graduate level education in the field of metallurgical engineering and that is a boon in my opinion to their potential involvement with thermal spray coatings. Several women have even started and have been operating profitable thermal spray companies in the United States and my hearty congratulations goes to them. Running a thermal spray business is no easy matter and women have done well so far. I strongly believe that women everywhere in the world should be made a bigger part not only in the thermal spray field but also in other medium to heavy industries, taking the example of the U.S. thermal spray industry model.