International Women’s Day
On the occasion of the International Women’s Day, in GONDAN we would like to take the opportunity to continue giving visibility to all those women who are behind our vessels.
Performing varied tasks, with multiple talents, and contributing with different points of view, all of them are part of our success in a product of the highest quality, benchmark in naval sector.
Currently, the positions occupied by women in the company are diverse, managing tasks of responsibility in areas as relevant as Quality and Environment, Health and Safety, Technical Office and Purchasing, and providing support in the areas of Administrative Management, Human Resources, Logistics and Sales and Marketing.
Today we will know a little more about some of them.
Andrea García
Andrea is Technical Coordinator of the company’s Purchasing Department. What she enjoys most is facing “day by day all kinds of challenges in engineering, the search for solutions and above all, seeing how the ship is growing in the slipway, with the equipment we have purchased with great care on board”. Her main challenge in her work is “selecting and defining equipment according to the needs of the project”. As a professional woman in the naval sector, she believes that, in general, “today’s society has a long way to go” when it comes to overcoming some gender-related prejudices, but “fortunately, the effort, the desire to improve, to learn and to be part of a shipyard that is committed to innovation and the integration of new technologies, have meant that I can continue to be excited about my job”. However, she is aware that her “work career” will sometimes be conditioned by unequal attitudes in the sector: “it is a handicap that women working in the naval industry have to know how to live with and continue fighting to eliminate it and finally achieve the so-called ‘equality'”.
Almudena Figueira
Almudena is a designer in GONDAN’s GRP Division. She says that it is a privilege to be able to work directly at the shipyard, and thus “experience and see the evolution of the ship’s construction, from the beginning, through the launching and up to the sea trials”. The proximity to the production workshop also allows her a continuous dialogue with the lamination and assembly areas, which results in the improvement of her work and that of her colleagues: it is very enriching “to be able to live with the different lamination and assembly professions and discuss with them the best way to carry out the drawings, so that they can be easily and correctly interpreted”. Her greatest challenge is to bring to the drawings and the 3D model “the ideas that the customer has in mind”, in the most realistic way possible, and at the same time, to make them “easy to interpret, so that they can be used by production colleagues”.
Cecilia Casas
Cecilia works in the company’s Technical Office providing administrative support to engineers and Design team. She feels satisfied every time she “lends a hand” to her colleagues, cintributing to the creation of an organized work environment, which helps the technical team to be more productive. Her biggest challenge is managing the time needed to meet all requests at those stages of the ship’s development that require a quick response in the production and delivery of documentation, such as the “exhaustive and complete printed and digital documentation that the ship carries on board”.
Cristina Canovas
Cristina is part of the Design team of the company’s Steel Division. What she likes most is the possibility she has with each project “to see the ship grow from the inside: from the first sketch on a drawing, to seeing it in the water”, hence her choice to work directly in a shipyard. Her biggest challenge is to effectively manage the time required to complete her scheduled tasks, which dictate production needs, while responding to shipowner requests that arise during the ship’s construction. As a senior designer, she is struck by the fact that a great part of the Design Team is composed by men, so she encourages young girls to train in this profession.