Women in Nuclear - WiN Canada

WiNners from across Canada shared their knowledge on how to communicate effectively to enhance the industry's public perception at the 8th Annual Women in Nuclear-Canada conference. The conference held in Oakville, Ontario on September 22 and 23 attracted 145 delegates from 30 companies across the industry.

Thursday morning’s session introduced WiN-Canada’s new board through a question and answer session on their career path, work-life balance and advice on career development. The board was unanimously endorsed by the membership in attendance at the annual conference, followed by each of WiN’s five chapters providing a quick overview of their many accomplishments over the past year.  

WiN members took the stage through a series of mini-sessions and educated the delegates on enhancing the public opinion on nuclear. Advice was shared from the presenters on everything from telling a good story, preparing your message, being aware of body language, educating yourself to communicate effectively, to using plain language.  

The morning ended with a very informative panel discussion on the Fukushima event in Japan. Ken Ellis, CNO, Bruce Power explained what happened to the plant during the earthquake and tsunami; Wayne Robbins, CNO, Ontario Power Generation explained how this event affected the Canadian nuclear industry and Denise Carpenter, President & CEO of the Canadian Nuclear Association provided insights into how the event was communicated to the media and Canadians. 

A session providing information on how to help assure our sisters, friends and neighbours of the safety of the nuclear industry was provided by Sarah Thorne, Decision Partners. Sarah provided insights into what women in Ontario say about our industry and gave practical tips on how we can connect what we do in the industry to people’s lives and create a better dialogue.  

Wendy Mesley, one of Canada’s most recognized and respected broadcast journalists provided the keynote address centering around the importance of trust. Wendy shared many stories from her years of experience as a journalist and drew a number of parallels to the barriers for women in our industry.   

Cheryl Cottrill, Executive Director, of WiN-Canada presented the WiN-Canada Leadership Award to Rumina Velshi, past Treasurer and Board member and Janet Donegan, past WiN-Durham Chapter Chair and Board member for their outstanding contributions to WiN’s success. Both Rumina and Janet have been board members since WiN’s inception in 2004 up to the election of the new board in 2011. Congratulations to both these ladies for their dedication and devotion to WiN! 

The conference closed out with a presentation on image and impact and how our image affects how our message is heard. Images that Suit provided a presentation on the impressions our audience receives from non-verbal messages and provided us with an increased awareness of visual cues. WiN members modelled the latest fall trends while our presenter, Gail provided a quick commentary of the image the outfits would portray to our audience. 

A great day of learning and networking ended with a group photo. 

WiNners were up early on Friday morning to participate in one of three technical tours taking place.  

An excited and attentive group of twenty-four women, arrived at Kinectrics on Friday morning, keen to explore the various labs. The morning began with a welcome from President and CEO, David Harris. Marketing Manager, Sam Peralta, then provided an overview of the evolution of Kinectrics and the various business lines. Two groups were led by Cherie Ferrari, Manager of Training and Ruth Burany, Engineer. The tours visited various laboratory areas ranging from the radiation laboratory and analytical chemistry laboratory, burst test facility, decontamination facility, the Equipment Qualification area, high voltage and current laboratories, and the inspection and maintenance tooling area, including the onsite machine shop. The individual tours were guided by Kinectrics scientists and engineers, allowing the participants to meet some of the Kinectrics experts in each area. 

A second group of twenty-six women headed for at tour of the McMaster Nuclear Reactor. During the tour the delegates learned about the reactor’s history, operation, and also about various research and industrial projects performed at this site.  The reactor is pool-type, moderated and cooled with light water, and has a core of enriched uranium, which operates weekdays from 8 am to midnight.  Delegates were able to stand on a raised platform over the pool containing the reactor and take photos of the reactor from this vantage point.  

Our third group was provided a tour of AECL's lab facility located in Mississauga.  Tours were guided by lab employees, Blair Jennings, Brain Wachon and Steve Neven, who showed the delegates through several of the mock-ups, manufacturing and testing facilities. The machine and fabrication shops that support the lab operations were also toured. Also part of the tour were the instrumentation and control facilities, which provide equipment and data acquisition systems in support of testing and operating the various test rigs and inspection and repair tooling. 

Presentations from the WiN-Canada Conference.

Pictures from the WiN-Canada Conference.

WiN-Canada Leadership Award WiNners.