Janice R. Rossbach, 1929 - Present
Photo of Janice Rossbach by Kim Wynne (December 6, 2018)
Janice Rittenburg Rossbach (born May 12, 1929) is a notable member of SWE Boston. She served as SWE Boston president for a short term in 1958. She attended the chartering of the Society of Women Engineers collegiate section at Olin College, to represent older engineers.
Rossbach was excellent in grade school. But was initially rejected from every college she applied to. The perceptions were that she would be taking the place of a man, and a mathematics degree would be wasted on a woman. Despite this, Rossbach graduated in 3 years, summa cum laude, with a Bachelors in Mathematics from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She earned her master’s degree in mathematics at MIT. She pursued a PhD at Brown University but hadn't received it because her advisor solved her thesis problem and published the result (although she'd solved it as well).
Throughout her life, Rossbach worked as a mathematician for Arthur D. Little, as a technical director in engineering on the navy’s Extremely Low Frequency (ELF) project, and as a systems engineer for GTE on large projects like command and control of the Minuteman and MX missile systems. She overcame obstacles and learned lessons along the way.
Rossbach is currently retired in Lexington, MA. She believes she had a rewarding career as an engineer, and that engineering is good for boys as well as girls. She continues her philanthropy and egalitarian good will today.
Rossbach was excellent in grade school. But was initially rejected from every college she applied to. The perceptions were that she would be taking the place of a man, and a mathematics degree would be wasted on a woman. Despite this, Rossbach graduated in 3 years, summa cum laude, with a Bachelors in Mathematics from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She earned her master’s degree in mathematics at MIT. She pursued a PhD at Brown University but hadn't received it because her advisor solved her thesis problem and published the result (although she'd solved it as well).
Throughout her life, Rossbach worked as a mathematician for Arthur D. Little, as a technical director in engineering on the navy’s Extremely Low Frequency (ELF) project, and as a systems engineer for GTE on large projects like command and control of the Minuteman and MX missile systems. She overcame obstacles and learned lessons along the way.
Rossbach is currently retired in Lexington, MA. She believes she had a rewarding career as an engineer, and that engineering is good for boys as well as girls. She continues her philanthropy and egalitarian good will today.
External Articles about Janice Rossbach
Awards
- Distinguished Engineering Alumna - by College of Engineering at UMass Amherst
Oral History Interview Transcript
On Thursday, December 6, 2018, Janice Rossbach was interviewed by Kimberly Wynne in Lexington, Massachusetts, as part of the SWE Oral History Project. The transcript and media files of the interview are below:
Janice: I didn’t study engineering. I only studied math and applied math. I took some continuing education and engineering courses. But on the job I became a military systems engineer at GTE.
Kim: Oh OK
Janice: And I recently found out there’s this international conference for system engineers. So I called them.
Kim: Yeah?
Janice: And I joined. I just felt… I wanted a formal affiliation with what I did. You see, I retired in 1990. We did system engineering. If you look it up on the internet, system engineering started with the military.
I worked on Air Force contracts for GTE, and Navy… and one little contract with the army. But that wasn’t really system engineering… Nevermind. Anyway. They didn’t really start teaching system engineering till 2000, which was in universities, which was 10 years after I retired.
I have to say. I never felt as if I was doing anything unusual. I was just doing what felt right for me, what I wanted to do, and my father was an engineer. My uncles were engineers. My cousins were engineers. My older cousins. One of them anyway.
Kim: So, your last job was systems engineering, right?
Janice: I became a systems engineer while working at GTE… And I can tell you exactly how I became an engineer, not having studied it. No degrees in engineering. I asked my boss one day, I said, “I’m not sure. Am I a mathematician or an engineer?” OK, from the work I was doing, I wasn’t sure.
Kim: What was your current position at this time? Before systems engineering. Did it have a name?
Janice: At the time, I would’ve been working on satellite communications.
*(Footnote: They were not geosynchronous satellites but were in polar orbits in those days.)
Kim: OK
Janice: One of the problems I remember was how often they would have to update computations. They would program the tracking of (communications) satellites. They had a way that they came into view with the site. When they had a mutual visibility. They worried about roundoff error and they had to update what they were doing. So that’s one of the things I remember doing at the time.
And I remember well, because I gave them a time frame. Then some PhD up in the Waltham office said they could do it less often. They sent me up to find my mistake. And it really stuck with me because he had a PhD from a Swiss University, and was very European, and was confident. He gave me his book. I had just figured it out. He gave it to me to take it home and find my mistake…
Instead I found his mistake.
Kim: Oh
Janice: You see, there were two little angles. And you could approximate the sine[10] of the angle. And he picked the wrong angle. And I had made - typical of me - I had made a mathematical error. My answer should have been about 15% longer, which is better, less often. But his was way off. His wouldn’t have worked at all. Mine was better than it needed to be.
Kim: And you found this because he thought you were wrong.
Janice: My boss sent me up to find my mistake. Which I did, but it wasn’t the mistake he thought.
Kim: Yeah
Janice: I remember very well because I didn’t know how I was going to tell this… somewhat arrogant…
Kim: PhD…
Janice: Had a German background, from a Swiss PhD, and he was older. And a little Jewish girl had to tell him he made a mistake.
And so, I did tell him. I showed him, and he knew immediately I was right. I said to him, I knew I made a mistake too. I have to give him the credit. And he looked at ‘em and said, “Yeah but yours worked better,”
Which was – that was good.
Kim: It was good that he said that
Janice: Yes, it was good. But it was very embarrassing for him. It was embarrassing for him to say that this upstart came from Needham, and they were in the research labs, and I was right.
Anyway, it was around that time, I said, “Am I a mathematician or an engineer?”
My boss immediately said, “Well you’re an engineer,”
And I said, “How could you answer so quickly?” Y’know he didn’t even think about it.
He said to me, “Well I know what you get paid. And engineers make more money than mathematicians,”
And at that point I said to him, “Thank you very much I’m never going to say I’m a mathematician again. From now on, I’m an engineer,”
And so it is… I studied mathematics. But I am an engineer.
Kim: Oh OK
Janice: And I recently found out there’s this international conference for system engineers. So I called them.
Kim: Yeah?
Janice: And I joined. I just felt… I wanted a formal affiliation with what I did. You see, I retired in 1990. We did system engineering. If you look it up on the internet, system engineering started with the military.
I worked on Air Force contracts for GTE, and Navy… and one little contract with the army. But that wasn’t really system engineering… Nevermind. Anyway. They didn’t really start teaching system engineering till 2000, which was in universities, which was 10 years after I retired.
I have to say. I never felt as if I was doing anything unusual. I was just doing what felt right for me, what I wanted to do, and my father was an engineer. My uncles were engineers. My cousins were engineers. My older cousins. One of them anyway.
Kim: So, your last job was systems engineering, right?
Janice: I became a systems engineer while working at GTE… And I can tell you exactly how I became an engineer, not having studied it. No degrees in engineering. I asked my boss one day, I said, “I’m not sure. Am I a mathematician or an engineer?” OK, from the work I was doing, I wasn’t sure.
Kim: What was your current position at this time? Before systems engineering. Did it have a name?
Janice: At the time, I would’ve been working on satellite communications.
*(Footnote: They were not geosynchronous satellites but were in polar orbits in those days.)
Kim: OK
Janice: One of the problems I remember was how often they would have to update computations. They would program the tracking of (communications) satellites. They had a way that they came into view with the site. When they had a mutual visibility. They worried about roundoff error and they had to update what they were doing. So that’s one of the things I remember doing at the time.
And I remember well, because I gave them a time frame. Then some PhD up in the Waltham office said they could do it less often. They sent me up to find my mistake. And it really stuck with me because he had a PhD from a Swiss University, and was very European, and was confident. He gave me his book. I had just figured it out. He gave it to me to take it home and find my mistake…
Instead I found his mistake.
Kim: Oh
Janice: You see, there were two little angles. And you could approximate the sine[10] of the angle. And he picked the wrong angle. And I had made - typical of me - I had made a mathematical error. My answer should have been about 15% longer, which is better, less often. But his was way off. His wouldn’t have worked at all. Mine was better than it needed to be.
Kim: And you found this because he thought you were wrong.
Janice: My boss sent me up to find my mistake. Which I did, but it wasn’t the mistake he thought.
Kim: Yeah
Janice: I remember very well because I didn’t know how I was going to tell this… somewhat arrogant…
Kim: PhD…
Janice: Had a German background, from a Swiss PhD, and he was older. And a little Jewish girl had to tell him he made a mistake.
And so, I did tell him. I showed him, and he knew immediately I was right. I said to him, I knew I made a mistake too. I have to give him the credit. And he looked at ‘em and said, “Yeah but yours worked better,”
Which was – that was good.
Kim: It was good that he said that
Janice: Yes, it was good. But it was very embarrassing for him. It was embarrassing for him to say that this upstart came from Needham, and they were in the research labs, and I was right.
Anyway, it was around that time, I said, “Am I a mathematician or an engineer?”
My boss immediately said, “Well you’re an engineer,”
And I said, “How could you answer so quickly?” Y’know he didn’t even think about it.
He said to me, “Well I know what you get paid. And engineers make more money than mathematicians,”
And at that point I said to him, “Thank you very much I’m never going to say I’m a mathematician again. From now on, I’m an engineer,”
And so it is… I studied mathematics. But I am an engineer.
You know, once an engineer – Do you have a degree in engineering?
Kim: I have a degree in physics.
Janice: Oh physics, yeah. Well, mine was in math. Yeah. But when I found out about the Society of Women Engineers, I asked if I could join, and they said “yeah”, and so I did.
Kim: And you wanted to join something that had to do with your profession, right? Yeah, me too.
Janice: I mean, was with Arthur D. Little at the time in 1953, and I was the only woman doing things like that. I mean, at one point-
Kim: Can you repeat that? In 1953, you were working where?
Janice: At Arthur D. Little.
Kim: Oh, Arthur D. Little.
Janice: I think they still exist. Their headquarters was on Memorial Drive, and when I first got the job that’s where I had my interview. Then I worked in Kendall Square. They had an office there.
The Boston Globe was doing an article about women in science or something. Someone came to my office at the time to interview me. And I mean, I thought it was sort of silly, I don’t take these things that seriously. I’m just doing something normal. So I remember, when they took my picture, I made a point of holding my side ruler upside down -
Kim: [laughter]
Janice: - my little defiant statement. But I really was unusual. Somebody came from the head office – and this is really ridiculous – came from Memorial Drive and walked all the way over to Kendall Square to find the woman that voted for Adlai Stevenson
Kim: What-
Janice: But Eisenhower won the election.
Kim: Oh
Janice: He was Republican (a WWII famous general)[1] . And I guess Arthur D. Little was a very Republican company. So, he’d heard that some woman in Kendall Square – some girl – voted for Adlai Stevenson. And he came over and I remember him saying, he’d walked all the way over here to find the one responsible.
“Yes,” I said, “Why?”
And he said, “I couldn’t believe it,”
And I said, “Well believe it,”
Y’know, and I just… wanted to know why. I mean a lot of people voted for Stevenson, I was not the only one. Just because in the Boston area not many voted for him. But- anyway.
So I joined the Society of Women Engineers. And I think there were about 6 of us. And we use[2] d to meet in somebody’s living room.
Kim: Actually, that’s still happening. This Sunday we’re going to meet in my living room. So… traditions!
Janice: But how many of you…?
Kim: Um…
Janice: But that was the whole chapter - 6 of us met.
Kim: Now, about 6 of us run it. There’s about 500 right now.
Janice: That was the whole membership. At one point, I think I was treasurer for a few years before I was president of the Boston Chapter for a short term. Not very long. I might have been treasurer for a while. There was not much to do.
Kim: Can you tell me about your childhood growing up, and your relationship to math and science? Were you encouraged to do it? Were you not?
* Janice’s Answer After the Interview: At Arthur D. Little I did something that was interesting but not at all difficult. Picture windows were new and Pittsburg Plate Glass gave ADL a contract to find the best way to tape the windows in a hurricane so they wouldn’t break. Not surprisingly I calculated that they should be taped on the diagonal which most people do.
Janice: I was never discouraged from doing anything that I can think of. Maybe I didn’t notice. [5] Well the parts that were the exception were wanting to marry a non-Jewish boyfriend. That was major discouragement. But I didn’t marry him. That wasn’t because of my parents. That was because it was him or me or his mother or whatever.
But the thing is, my father was an engineer. I was born in ’29. And then the Depression started, I was born in May.[6] (My father graduated from Tufts in June)
Kim: What’s your birthday in May?
Janice: May 12, 1929
Kim: May 12th… I’m May 3rd . ’89. I think that’s – yeah.
Janice: Yep, my cousin’s son is May 3rd. I’ll think of you from now on.
So anyway, my father almost always had a job but it was the depression. In some respects, I had a happy childhood. In some respects, I didn’t, because we didn’t have any money. My father’s mother didn’t like my mother. So my mother returned the favor. I always got along with everybody.
The thing is, my father was an engineer, and that was very important.
Kim: And what was your mother?
Janice: My mother – she was just at home. She had worked… My mother actually had a very interesting situation because she had a very serious automobile accident before she even met my father. The newspapers said she’d died.
Kim: Oh!
Janice: Yeah, I mean it was so bad. She was in a coma. She got better. In retrospect, I realize that it affected her memory. She didn’t remember certain things. In some ways, it seems to me, my mother got smarter as she got older. Y’know people sort’ve…
Kim: Where usually it’s the other way around?
Janice: Yeah, I can remember going places with my mother… I could get to Park Street T Station, and all the street cars there at the time – I don’t know how it is now, I haven’t been there in decades – my mother would say to me, when I was maybe 7 or 8. [7] She’d say to me, “What street car do we want?” and I just took such things for granted. Y’know, and we’d go some place, and I’d know the number that we were going to. I mean, she probably told me, the first time we went. So, we were close. Anyway.
Kim: So you took after your dad? Well, being an engineer…
Janice: I remember when I was a very little girl, we would live with my mother’s parents. My father didn’t have a job. I could remember teenage girls in the neighborhood because we were that kind of a street.
And these girls asked me, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
And I’d say, “I want to be an engineer like my daddy,” which seemed like a natural thing for me to say.
And they laughed.
So I remember very well asking my father why they laughed. And he said something like, “Oh, they’re silly,”
Kim: Good
Janice: And I said, well, why can’t a girl be an engineer? Y’know, because of the way they laughed. I remember my father said, “A girl can be an engineer. It’s not usual. It’s not a usual thing, but a girl can be an engineer,” so I said, “OK so I want to be an engineer”, and I didn’t care if it wasn’t usual. I knew from an early age.
At one point we used to walk on Sunday because, as I said, my mother didn’t like my grandmother. So on Sunday morning my father would go to visit his family – which was fine – and my mother had her own time. He used to tell me how car engines worked - I don’t know if I asked questions or what - but he would explain to me about the piston compressing the gasoline and there’d be a little explosion, and the spark plugs, and I don’t know. I never was good at that kind of thing.
I was a concept type of person. I really was a paper engineer. I was good at the specs and things like that
Kim: Numbers
Janice: Systems, things like that. I could analyze things and say, “This should be done in hardware. This should be done in software,”
[Food Service Interruption]
Janice: That might have started – and I took algebra. I really liked it. I liked the idea of it.
Kim: Of algebra?
Janice: Yeah, that you could have an unknown and find out what it is.
Kim: I liked it too
Janice: I told my father that I decided I wanted to study math. It sort’ve went by me, I have to say. It’s sort’ve embarrassing to admit this, but it wasn’t that long ago – I’m 89 – but it wasn’t that long ago that I was falling asleep. I never felt that my parents took it seriously. That I needed money to go to college. Y’know, because when I told my father that I wanted to study math, I said, “What’s the best school to study math?” and he said, “MIT”
Kim: That’s true yeah
Janice: My father ended up having a nice career at Honeywell and Digital (Corp.)… So, anyway, I said I want to go to MIT. My father said, “Good luck!”
Kim: Ha! Wow.
Janice: I remember saying to myself, I’m on my own…
Kim: Yes
Janice: So, recently, I got over it.
Kim: But you did go to MIT
Janice: *nods*
Kim: Alright
Janice: But recently – alright – what did they expect me to do if I didn’t go to college? They didn’t take it seriously. I really regret – y’know, this is before you fall asleep, you get into a mood where you boo hoo hoo – y’know what I mean? Take it seriously - What’re you mad about? What did they expect me to do? What’s the matter with you? Y’know I had gotten to junior high school, my father said to me, “You’ll have to choose a commercial course or a college course,”
Kim: What’s a commercial course?
Janice: Where they teach you typing and shorthand
Kim: Oh, trade
Janice: Yeah. So this is for girls. I think boys had shop or something I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. So, he said to me, You’ll probably be a secretary like your aunts, in a business college or a commercial college. You’ll probably go to commercial college like your mother and your aunts. Everybody in his family was good with numbers. Y’know the men were engineers.
Kim: And you
Janice: His 3 sisters - they were more than bookkeepers. They were like business managers. One of them married a dentist and did a lot of work like that, charitable work, and as a bookkeeper for Jewish organizations including a tuberculosis hospital and later was treasurer in the condo she lived in. The other two were really hotshot business managers. And my mother’d gone to Burdett college. She had an accident. Before that she worked on the Moon Hopkins Billing Machine. She said she was very capable then. Which is probably why she was using a precursor to a computer in those days.
So that’s the point. My parents… didn’t expect me to go to college. It wasn’t expected. They hadn’t denied that I wanted to go. But of course they didn’t take it seriously.
I got turned down by every college that I applied to.
Kim: Oh OK
Janice: And they weren’t particularly perturbed. I was perturbed. But my parents weren’t.
Kim: That’s sad.
Janice: When I was in Amherst, if I wanted to apply for a scholarship, a loan, and I needed records to go somewhere, my mother would go to the high school and go by streetcar to deliver it.
So they were very responsive. But not proactive.
Kim: I see. They weren’t trying to guide your life. If you wanted [15] to do it, fine, but you’d have to start it yourself.
Janice: Good luck
Kim: Yeah, good luck!
Kim: I have a degree in physics.
Janice: Oh physics, yeah. Well, mine was in math. Yeah. But when I found out about the Society of Women Engineers, I asked if I could join, and they said “yeah”, and so I did.
Kim: And you wanted to join something that had to do with your profession, right? Yeah, me too.
Janice: I mean, was with Arthur D. Little at the time in 1953, and I was the only woman doing things like that. I mean, at one point-
Kim: Can you repeat that? In 1953, you were working where?
Janice: At Arthur D. Little.
Kim: Oh, Arthur D. Little.
Janice: I think they still exist. Their headquarters was on Memorial Drive, and when I first got the job that’s where I had my interview. Then I worked in Kendall Square. They had an office there.
The Boston Globe was doing an article about women in science or something. Someone came to my office at the time to interview me. And I mean, I thought it was sort of silly, I don’t take these things that seriously. I’m just doing something normal. So I remember, when they took my picture, I made a point of holding my side ruler upside down -
Kim: [laughter]
Janice: - my little defiant statement. But I really was unusual. Somebody came from the head office – and this is really ridiculous – came from Memorial Drive and walked all the way over to Kendall Square to find the woman that voted for Adlai Stevenson
Kim: What-
Janice: But Eisenhower won the election.
Kim: Oh
Janice: He was Republican (a WWII famous general)[1] . And I guess Arthur D. Little was a very Republican company. So, he’d heard that some woman in Kendall Square – some girl – voted for Adlai Stevenson. And he came over and I remember him saying, he’d walked all the way over here to find the one responsible.
“Yes,” I said, “Why?”
And he said, “I couldn’t believe it,”
And I said, “Well believe it,”
Y’know, and I just… wanted to know why. I mean a lot of people voted for Stevenson, I was not the only one. Just because in the Boston area not many voted for him. But- anyway.
So I joined the Society of Women Engineers. And I think there were about 6 of us. And we use[2] d to meet in somebody’s living room.
Kim: Actually, that’s still happening. This Sunday we’re going to meet in my living room. So… traditions!
Janice: But how many of you…?
Kim: Um…
Janice: But that was the whole chapter - 6 of us met.
Kim: Now, about 6 of us run it. There’s about 500 right now.
Janice: That was the whole membership. At one point, I think I was treasurer for a few years before I was president of the Boston Chapter for a short term. Not very long. I might have been treasurer for a while. There was not much to do.
Kim: Can you tell me about your childhood growing up, and your relationship to math and science? Were you encouraged to do it? Were you not?
* Janice’s Answer After the Interview: At Arthur D. Little I did something that was interesting but not at all difficult. Picture windows were new and Pittsburg Plate Glass gave ADL a contract to find the best way to tape the windows in a hurricane so they wouldn’t break. Not surprisingly I calculated that they should be taped on the diagonal which most people do.
Janice: I was never discouraged from doing anything that I can think of. Maybe I didn’t notice. [5] Well the parts that were the exception were wanting to marry a non-Jewish boyfriend. That was major discouragement. But I didn’t marry him. That wasn’t because of my parents. That was because it was him or me or his mother or whatever.
But the thing is, my father was an engineer. I was born in ’29. And then the Depression started, I was born in May.[6] (My father graduated from Tufts in June)
Kim: What’s your birthday in May?
Janice: May 12, 1929
Kim: May 12th… I’m May 3rd . ’89. I think that’s – yeah.
Janice: Yep, my cousin’s son is May 3rd. I’ll think of you from now on.
So anyway, my father almost always had a job but it was the depression. In some respects, I had a happy childhood. In some respects, I didn’t, because we didn’t have any money. My father’s mother didn’t like my mother. So my mother returned the favor. I always got along with everybody.
The thing is, my father was an engineer, and that was very important.
Kim: And what was your mother?
Janice: My mother – she was just at home. She had worked… My mother actually had a very interesting situation because she had a very serious automobile accident before she even met my father. The newspapers said she’d died.
Kim: Oh!
Janice: Yeah, I mean it was so bad. She was in a coma. She got better. In retrospect, I realize that it affected her memory. She didn’t remember certain things. In some ways, it seems to me, my mother got smarter as she got older. Y’know people sort’ve…
Kim: Where usually it’s the other way around?
Janice: Yeah, I can remember going places with my mother… I could get to Park Street T Station, and all the street cars there at the time – I don’t know how it is now, I haven’t been there in decades – my mother would say to me, when I was maybe 7 or 8. [7] She’d say to me, “What street car do we want?” and I just took such things for granted. Y’know, and we’d go some place, and I’d know the number that we were going to. I mean, she probably told me, the first time we went. So, we were close. Anyway.
Kim: So you took after your dad? Well, being an engineer…
Janice: I remember when I was a very little girl, we would live with my mother’s parents. My father didn’t have a job. I could remember teenage girls in the neighborhood because we were that kind of a street.
And these girls asked me, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
And I’d say, “I want to be an engineer like my daddy,” which seemed like a natural thing for me to say.
And they laughed.
So I remember very well asking my father why they laughed. And he said something like, “Oh, they’re silly,”
Kim: Good
Janice: And I said, well, why can’t a girl be an engineer? Y’know, because of the way they laughed. I remember my father said, “A girl can be an engineer. It’s not usual. It’s not a usual thing, but a girl can be an engineer,” so I said, “OK so I want to be an engineer”, and I didn’t care if it wasn’t usual. I knew from an early age.
At one point we used to walk on Sunday because, as I said, my mother didn’t like my grandmother. So on Sunday morning my father would go to visit his family – which was fine – and my mother had her own time. He used to tell me how car engines worked - I don’t know if I asked questions or what - but he would explain to me about the piston compressing the gasoline and there’d be a little explosion, and the spark plugs, and I don’t know. I never was good at that kind of thing.
I was a concept type of person. I really was a paper engineer. I was good at the specs and things like that
Kim: Numbers
Janice: Systems, things like that. I could analyze things and say, “This should be done in hardware. This should be done in software,”
[Food Service Interruption]
Janice: That might have started – and I took algebra. I really liked it. I liked the idea of it.
Kim: Of algebra?
Janice: Yeah, that you could have an unknown and find out what it is.
Kim: I liked it too
Janice: I told my father that I decided I wanted to study math. It sort’ve went by me, I have to say. It’s sort’ve embarrassing to admit this, but it wasn’t that long ago – I’m 89 – but it wasn’t that long ago that I was falling asleep. I never felt that my parents took it seriously. That I needed money to go to college. Y’know, because when I told my father that I wanted to study math, I said, “What’s the best school to study math?” and he said, “MIT”
Kim: That’s true yeah
Janice: My father ended up having a nice career at Honeywell and Digital (Corp.)… So, anyway, I said I want to go to MIT. My father said, “Good luck!”
Kim: Ha! Wow.
Janice: I remember saying to myself, I’m on my own…
Kim: Yes
Janice: So, recently, I got over it.
Kim: But you did go to MIT
Janice: *nods*
Kim: Alright
Janice: But recently – alright – what did they expect me to do if I didn’t go to college? They didn’t take it seriously. I really regret – y’know, this is before you fall asleep, you get into a mood where you boo hoo hoo – y’know what I mean? Take it seriously - What’re you mad about? What did they expect me to do? What’s the matter with you? Y’know I had gotten to junior high school, my father said to me, “You’ll have to choose a commercial course or a college course,”
Kim: What’s a commercial course?
Janice: Where they teach you typing and shorthand
Kim: Oh, trade
Janice: Yeah. So this is for girls. I think boys had shop or something I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. So, he said to me, You’ll probably be a secretary like your aunts, in a business college or a commercial college. You’ll probably go to commercial college like your mother and your aunts. Everybody in his family was good with numbers. Y’know the men were engineers.
Kim: And you
Janice: His 3 sisters - they were more than bookkeepers. They were like business managers. One of them married a dentist and did a lot of work like that, charitable work, and as a bookkeeper for Jewish organizations including a tuberculosis hospital and later was treasurer in the condo she lived in. The other two were really hotshot business managers. And my mother’d gone to Burdett college. She had an accident. Before that she worked on the Moon Hopkins Billing Machine. She said she was very capable then. Which is probably why she was using a precursor to a computer in those days.
So that’s the point. My parents… didn’t expect me to go to college. It wasn’t expected. They hadn’t denied that I wanted to go. But of course they didn’t take it seriously.
I got turned down by every college that I applied to.
Kim: Oh OK
Janice: And they weren’t particularly perturbed. I was perturbed. But my parents weren’t.
Kim: That’s sad.
Janice: When I was in Amherst, if I wanted to apply for a scholarship, a loan, and I needed records to go somewhere, my mother would go to the high school and go by streetcar to deliver it.
So they were very responsive. But not proactive.
Kim: I see. They weren’t trying to guide your life. If you wanted [15] to do it, fine, but you’d have to start it yourself.
Janice: Good luck
Kim: Yeah, good luck!
Janice: The summer before my senior year in high school… I think some of these insights that I’ve had and got over, are maybe interesting, and could be helpful to somebody. There’s a distinction between supportive parents, parents who are not supportive, and parents who just let you be whatever.
Kim: So what type of parents…?
Janice: They just let me be. The other point I wanted to make was, between my junior and senior year, I was worried about taking the SAT’s… I had a book, math problems[2] , from the SAT’s… I spent most of the summer doing math problems for the SAT’s. My high school did not teach solid geometry, a high school for girls.
Kim: Oh, really?
Janice: It didn’t teach college-level physics.
Kim: Do you remember the name of your high school?
Janice: Of course, Jeremiah E. Burke High School for Girls, which is now co-ed.
Kim: Oh
Janice: I was there a couple years ago
Kim: At your high school?
Janice: To give the SWE awards. I saw they were looking for volunteers
Kim: Oh, the Merit Certificates
Janice: I had not enough time to do what I wanted to do. But when I saw that my high school was on the list. Nobody would volunteer to go there, in Roxbury (actually Dorchester but very close to Roxbury). In fact, I think a year later somebody got killed in the school yard. But I called them, I asked how the neighborhood was. They said it’s OK in the daytime. The next year somebody got killed in the daytime in the school yard.
Kim: Oh my goodness
Janice: But it’s getting better
Kim: Those certificates are Merit Certificates. SWE gives them out at high schools and it’s nice to have a real women engineer give them the certificate.
Janice: As I said, I wasn’t planning on doing anything like that but I went and the auditorium was exactly the same as in 1946 when I gave the Class Day speech.
Kim: And I believe the woman who runs it is Darcie. That’s her thing for us.
Janice: They said I was an alum. I think they said I had graduated in ’64. And I’m sitting there waiting, and I’m saying, “No, no, ’46!”
Kim: [laughter]
Janice: And everybody’s looking at me like, “She’s still alive?”
But anyway, here at 16, doing problems. And I really was enjoying myself. Because I was sitting on the front steps of our apartment house, doing math problems. And I was thinking to myself, “Why do I like math so much?” And I realize, it was like going to an alternate world. I really liked math. I didn’t like the environment that I lived in. And I could go to this place where I could have control. I could solve problems.
Kim: And there’s a right answer
Janice: There’s a right answer, yes.
Kim: It makes sense
Janice: I could go into another world, and I had control. It was up to me if I could do it or not. I remember that, when I was 16
Kim: Studying for the SAT’s
Janice: I was coming to that realization, and I really liked math and science altogether. It was the year when girls were screaming over Frank Sinatra. I had a second cousin, a year behind me in high school, who skipped school to go see Frank Sinatra. And I remember thinking she was so silly. Who cares about Frank Sinatra?
Kim: [laughter]
Janice: I still am not such a fan. I mean, he’s got kind’ve a nice voice, OK. But I was enthralled with Einstein. I just wanted to understand the theory of relativity.
Kim: That’s your Frank Sinatra
Janice: But the thing is, how did I go to college? I got turned down by everybody
Kim: Yeah, how?
Janice: MIT, Harvard, Tufts… My father and all my uncles, and my cousins, had gone to Tufts. That was the worst experience. My friend and I went by streetcar to Medford.
The Dean of women said to me, “Why do you want to major in math?”
I said, “Well, you know, I like it.”
And she said, “You would be taking the seat a veteran could have, and he would use it. It would be wasted on you,”
Kim: Wow
Janice: Then I said, “I’m not going to waste it,”
And anyways, they said, “You’re too sick to go to college,” I was 16…
Kim: Were you sick?
Janice: I had allergies. That’s why they said, “you were too sick”. I had allergies.
Kim: Allergies? That’s why she said you were too sick.
Janice: Yep. I was not so healthy though but…
Kim: Allergies though…
Janice: I just looked at her. I got all As in high school. I think I’m going to last another 4 years[6]
So Harvard, MIT, BU, Mass. State College (in 1946, which later became UMass shortly after I got there)… they all turned me down. All the letters at that time said, “Your qualifications aren’t high enough”
My high school principal – nobody from my high school got accepted to UMass – my principal went to see the Commissioner of Education and said, “I have an accredited high school, and if Janice Rittenburg–” that’s who I was “–has all A’s, and if her credentials aren’t high enough, then my school is no good,”
Kim: Yeah
Janice: It was an accredited high school. So they sent me a letter basically saying they made a mistake. They put two girls on the waiting list. One was going to Simmons anyway, the other was going to Connecticut College
Kim: Do you have this letter?
Janice: No. But the Dean who sent both letters taught Astronomy and I took his astronomy course, never said anything doing. But going into the final I had 100 average. And I did graduate summa cum laude in 3 years. I don't take these things seriously.
Kim: You majored in math
Janice: And I didn’t waste my education. And you know [coughs] I don’t know why my voice is so bad today. Probably my allergies
Kim: [laughter]
Janice: Now you know how I got interested in engineering.
Kim: So what type of parents…?
Janice: They just let me be. The other point I wanted to make was, between my junior and senior year, I was worried about taking the SAT’s… I had a book, math problems[2] , from the SAT’s… I spent most of the summer doing math problems for the SAT’s. My high school did not teach solid geometry, a high school for girls.
Kim: Oh, really?
Janice: It didn’t teach college-level physics.
Kim: Do you remember the name of your high school?
Janice: Of course, Jeremiah E. Burke High School for Girls, which is now co-ed.
Kim: Oh
Janice: I was there a couple years ago
Kim: At your high school?
Janice: To give the SWE awards. I saw they were looking for volunteers
Kim: Oh, the Merit Certificates
Janice: I had not enough time to do what I wanted to do. But when I saw that my high school was on the list. Nobody would volunteer to go there, in Roxbury (actually Dorchester but very close to Roxbury). In fact, I think a year later somebody got killed in the school yard. But I called them, I asked how the neighborhood was. They said it’s OK in the daytime. The next year somebody got killed in the daytime in the school yard.
Kim: Oh my goodness
Janice: But it’s getting better
Kim: Those certificates are Merit Certificates. SWE gives them out at high schools and it’s nice to have a real women engineer give them the certificate.
Janice: As I said, I wasn’t planning on doing anything like that but I went and the auditorium was exactly the same as in 1946 when I gave the Class Day speech.
Kim: And I believe the woman who runs it is Darcie. That’s her thing for us.
Janice: They said I was an alum. I think they said I had graduated in ’64. And I’m sitting there waiting, and I’m saying, “No, no, ’46!”
Kim: [laughter]
Janice: And everybody’s looking at me like, “She’s still alive?”
But anyway, here at 16, doing problems. And I really was enjoying myself. Because I was sitting on the front steps of our apartment house, doing math problems. And I was thinking to myself, “Why do I like math so much?” And I realize, it was like going to an alternate world. I really liked math. I didn’t like the environment that I lived in. And I could go to this place where I could have control. I could solve problems.
Kim: And there’s a right answer
Janice: There’s a right answer, yes.
Kim: It makes sense
Janice: I could go into another world, and I had control. It was up to me if I could do it or not. I remember that, when I was 16
Kim: Studying for the SAT’s
Janice: I was coming to that realization, and I really liked math and science altogether. It was the year when girls were screaming over Frank Sinatra. I had a second cousin, a year behind me in high school, who skipped school to go see Frank Sinatra. And I remember thinking she was so silly. Who cares about Frank Sinatra?
Kim: [laughter]
Janice: I still am not such a fan. I mean, he’s got kind’ve a nice voice, OK. But I was enthralled with Einstein. I just wanted to understand the theory of relativity.
Kim: That’s your Frank Sinatra
Janice: But the thing is, how did I go to college? I got turned down by everybody
Kim: Yeah, how?
Janice: MIT, Harvard, Tufts… My father and all my uncles, and my cousins, had gone to Tufts. That was the worst experience. My friend and I went by streetcar to Medford.
The Dean of women said to me, “Why do you want to major in math?”
I said, “Well, you know, I like it.”
And she said, “You would be taking the seat a veteran could have, and he would use it. It would be wasted on you,”
Kim: Wow
Janice: Then I said, “I’m not going to waste it,”
And anyways, they said, “You’re too sick to go to college,” I was 16…
Kim: Were you sick?
Janice: I had allergies. That’s why they said, “you were too sick”. I had allergies.
Kim: Allergies? That’s why she said you were too sick.
Janice: Yep. I was not so healthy though but…
Kim: Allergies though…
Janice: I just looked at her. I got all As in high school. I think I’m going to last another 4 years[6]
So Harvard, MIT, BU, Mass. State College (in 1946, which later became UMass shortly after I got there)… they all turned me down. All the letters at that time said, “Your qualifications aren’t high enough”
My high school principal – nobody from my high school got accepted to UMass – my principal went to see the Commissioner of Education and said, “I have an accredited high school, and if Janice Rittenburg–” that’s who I was “–has all A’s, and if her credentials aren’t high enough, then my school is no good,”
Kim: Yeah
Janice: It was an accredited high school. So they sent me a letter basically saying they made a mistake. They put two girls on the waiting list. One was going to Simmons anyway, the other was going to Connecticut College
Kim: Do you have this letter?
Janice: No. But the Dean who sent both letters taught Astronomy and I took his astronomy course, never said anything doing. But going into the final I had 100 average. And I did graduate summa cum laude in 3 years. I don't take these things seriously.
Kim: You majored in math
Janice: And I didn’t waste my education. And you know [coughs] I don’t know why my voice is so bad today. Probably my allergies
Kim: [laughter]
Janice: Now you know how I got interested in engineering.
When I was a child, [my father] brought home a microphone one time and I talked into the microphone and it came out of the radio. Have you ever had something like that?
Kim: Um, I think they’re different now.
Janice: Years later, at UMass, I was chairman of the summer social session, maybe because it was my second summer. So they made me chairman
Kim: Yeah
Janice: We wanted to have a dance. There were mostly veterans there. One of the guys really wanted girls to come. He found out we can get nurses from the local hospital. So we arranged to use the university bus s that we could go get girls to come to the dance. We had it (the dance) at (UMass) Memorial Hall. We had music. Some of the guys had records. Somebody had a record player that would play through the radio.
And – this was my idea, it worked beautifully – we brought the record player, and we had a bunch of guys bring their radios. We put them around the room. We played our records. We put some cornstarch on the floor. And we made a punch with sherbet (this was good punch) [4] and ginger ale. And it all started when my father brought home the microphone
Kim: Was this dance during college?
Janice: Yeah, it must have been the summer of ’48. We had a big barbecue [5] too. [6] It’s in the archives. They have photos.
Kim: Um, I think they’re different now.
Janice: Years later, at UMass, I was chairman of the summer social session, maybe because it was my second summer. So they made me chairman
Kim: Yeah
Janice: We wanted to have a dance. There were mostly veterans there. One of the guys really wanted girls to come. He found out we can get nurses from the local hospital. So we arranged to use the university bus s that we could go get girls to come to the dance. We had it (the dance) at (UMass) Memorial Hall. We had music. Some of the guys had records. Somebody had a record player that would play through the radio.
And – this was my idea, it worked beautifully – we brought the record player, and we had a bunch of guys bring their radios. We put them around the room. We played our records. We put some cornstarch on the floor. And we made a punch with sherbet (this was good punch) [4] and ginger ale. And it all started when my father brought home the microphone
Kim: Was this dance during college?
Janice: Yeah, it must have been the summer of ’48. We had a big barbecue [5] too. [6] It’s in the archives. They have photos.
Kim: Do you remember working around a submarine?
Janice: Yeah
Kim: Do you remember the timeline -was it a job you look immediately after college or later?
Janice: Oh, no, it was later
Kim: After college, did you become systems engineer – I mean a mathematician, and then a systems engineer – right after college?
Janice: The conversation with my boss… must have been in the 60’s. But earlier when[1] I was at Arthur D. Little right after…
Kim: After college?
Janice: After MIT, I got my M.S. in 1951. They put me to work calculating stresses or torques – I don’t remember what – on the beams, structures of the submarine. I was working for an engineer. I was a mathematician. I had taken Applied Math for Engineers at MIT. It’s amazing they wouldn’t let me go on the submarine.
Kim: I read that in an interview that you did with… I forgot where – it wasn’t with SWE – but you did another interview. You were an engineer for the submarine, and you weren’t allowed to be on the submarine because you were a woman.
Janice: Then 20 years later, I was working on what they called the Seafarer Program. I’m trying to remember. I don’t think I was the technical director in engineering yet, but maybe I was.
[Food Service Interruption]
Janice: So I was involved in a program to send extremely low frequency messages to submarines so that they could stay submerged and not detected by the Soviets during the Soviet War… So I got to do something. I don’t remember what year it was. – I mean, you could look up when they did that – it was after I worked at Minuteman. That was before I was at MX
Kim: Before what? FX?
Janice: The MX Missile project. The MX missiles were planned to be like mobile Minuteman, the biggest contract we (GTE) ever got. In fact I was drinking tea this morning from one of the mugs with my name on it from that project. Note MX never got built
[Food Service Interruption]
Janice: We obviously got the messages in the submarine. Then I actually got on the submarine
Kim: Yes, eventually
Janice: Yeah
Kim: Do you remember the timeline -was it a job you look immediately after college or later?
Janice: Oh, no, it was later
Kim: After college, did you become systems engineer – I mean a mathematician, and then a systems engineer – right after college?
Janice: The conversation with my boss… must have been in the 60’s. But earlier when[1] I was at Arthur D. Little right after…
Kim: After college?
Janice: After MIT, I got my M.S. in 1951. They put me to work calculating stresses or torques – I don’t remember what – on the beams, structures of the submarine. I was working for an engineer. I was a mathematician. I had taken Applied Math for Engineers at MIT. It’s amazing they wouldn’t let me go on the submarine.
Kim: I read that in an interview that you did with… I forgot where – it wasn’t with SWE – but you did another interview. You were an engineer for the submarine, and you weren’t allowed to be on the submarine because you were a woman.
Janice: Then 20 years later, I was working on what they called the Seafarer Program. I’m trying to remember. I don’t think I was the technical director in engineering yet, but maybe I was.
[Food Service Interruption]
Janice: So I was involved in a program to send extremely low frequency messages to submarines so that they could stay submerged and not detected by the Soviets during the Soviet War… So I got to do something. I don’t remember what year it was. – I mean, you could look up when they did that – it was after I worked at Minuteman. That was before I was at MX
Kim: Before what? FX?
Janice: The MX Missile project. The MX missiles were planned to be like mobile Minuteman, the biggest contract we (GTE) ever got. In fact I was drinking tea this morning from one of the mugs with my name on it from that project. Note MX never got built
[Food Service Interruption]
Janice: We obviously got the messages in the submarine. Then I actually got on the submarine
Kim: Yes, eventually
Janice: But it also ended up – I was involuntarily a whistleblower.
Kim: Can you tell me or are you allowed?
Janice: I can tell you because it turned out alright. I think to the company’s credit, the project – one of the project managers, couple were in engineering and I was a technical director – came and told me that we had this antenna in Clam Lake, Wisconsin, overhead antenna. There were two telephone guys. It was in a state park, Clam Lake. We had a Navy facility in Wisconsin, which is hilarious (I guess it really is hard to believe)
Kim: Yeah it is
Janice: And we had one in Michigan. And we almost – I don’t know if we ever had one in Nevada… Anyway, he said these telephone guys were stringing wires and one of them touched a trick and got shocked. It was a high voltage system.
Kim: Did he die?
Janice: No
Kim: Oh. So, he was just injured…
Janice: It was scary! We had grounds. We had safety precautions
Kim: That’s dangerous.
Janice: And I was already upset because I had already called for an internal review. The customer didn’t require it. But I was already concerned about safety. It’s the way I am.
A lot of people didn’t want to pay any attention to me, especially the program office. But I looked[5] (in the Policy and Procedures Manual). I saw I had the authority to call internal reviews. I used to do it to investigate.
When in doubt, appeal to a higher authority. I did that a couple of times. People wouldn’t do what I wanted. I’d say, “According to such-and-so” following procedures, I’m calling such-and-so instructions. So I’d done that. And we had action items open for[6] us to close. It was already very concerning.
Now we’ve got this guy getting injured.
They told me that the program office is having a meeting to restart the system.
So why did the guy get hurt?
I didn’t know (at that time). But they wanted the system restarted. So they’re gonna restart it.
I didn’t like that.
Kim: Yeah, that’s dangerous.
Janice: I didn’t like it for a couple of reasons. I went to the company lawyer. There had already been safety... I said I’m concerned about company liability. I also, when they had technical manuals, had said, when there was a national emergency, that the GTE people should override the safety devices, the way they’d designed it. I wouldn’t sign of, approve, GTE people overriding safety devices so the manuals went to the legal department to say no.
I remember having a conversation to say, “The Navy system, if they want to override it, then let them override it. GTE doesn’t need that liability,”
And somebody said to me, “It could be the middle of the night, they’d be asleep,”
I’d say, “It’s a national emergency. Wake them up!”
Kim: Yeah [laughter]
Janice: Y’know, I just wouldn’t do it. And the customer didn’t like it that the technical manuals were in the hands of the legal department. So that was almost a separate issue.
Now I’m sitting here and they are going to restart the system. I went back to the lawyer. And I actually said to him, “Did we have a military coup? Did the Navy take over the country? What’s going on here? Why is GTE going to do this?”
He marched me in to the manager in charge of all the contracts, y’know the front office, and said the same thing… GTE’s Contracts Manager picked up the telephone, called the program office, where they were having a meeting, that I was not invited to.
Kim: Oh
Janice: Yeah. So “this woman… this technical woman…”
My boss was there I think. The Contracts Manager told them, “Don’t start up the system. Don’t do it,”
It turned out, there’d been a previous contract way before – I knew nothing about it – with RCA. They were thinking of doing an underground system. There were 35 miles of buried cable, that everybody had pretty much forgotten about, and I didn’t know about… at all.
So they had buried cables, and they had an overhead antenna, and somebody had strung a wire in between and touched the metal truck.
Kim: Really
Janice: It was like a transformer I do believe.
Kim: Wow
Janice: It was an induced current, wasn’t it? It was between two…
Kim: Yeah
Janice: I really don’t understand these things that well. But I know what caused it. It was an induced current that shocked. My boss actually said to me, “People don’t’ like what you did,”
I said, “Why?” Somebody got shocked.
And he said, “Because now they have to dig up 35 miles of buried cable. And they were already overrun,”
I said to him, “That can’t be my fault. I didn’t know they had 35 miles of wire away,”
And he said, “Well anyway, they don’t like what you did.”
Kim: Someone had to be that person
Janice: Y’know what I did? There was this nice Irish-Catholic guy. Very smart. I looked at him and I said, “Well Hitler didn’t like me either!” and I left.
So they dug up the cable.
[Food service interruption]
You can’t wimp out.
And eventually my boss said they were going to have a meeting to close out, I mean a meeting to deal with the safety action items.
Kim: They have to do what’s right not what’s easy. And it looks like they listened to you.
Janice: Oh yeah, yeah. When the Challenger blew up, I was in a meeting with the guy who wouldn’t let them start the systems. And I passed him a note, I said, “What do you think of the Challenger?”
Kim: Yeah
Janice: His answer was right on. He said, “I think it’s too bad when upper management won’t listen to their engineers,”
Kim: Yeah
Janice: But GTE did.
Kim: That’s a great story. I really appreciate that one. I’ve been reading some of your – or that interview – and I don’t think that was included. So I feel special. Thank you for sharing that with me.
Janice: It’s not GTE now and a lot of the people are dead
Kim: [laughter] yeah
Janice: I did not go to the meetings on safety after that. Unless… I told my boss I would only go if they were going to assign people to close
Kim: People to close?
Janice: The action items on the safety design. Because we had these open action items, and somebody needed to pay to close them. They called the man in charge of safety for the whole company. They called him back, afterwards. So they called the safety design bigwig. They wouldn’t pay for him to go to the site, you see. And come back from vacation. He was very happy. He went to the site. It was only 1 site operation.
It turned out that they were shy, missing, an inordinate number of safety notices, y’know, high voltage… Y’know, you need earplugs… Y’know, heavy lifting…
Kim: Either way, they got the safety guy back, right?
Janice: It wasn’t just all high voltage. But there was a lot of that too. So they closed them. And that was my original concern.
Eventually the program manager stopped me, and he said to me, “I really think it’s good that you went the second time”. He admitted to me. He said that, “I still don’t like that you went the first time,”
And I said to him, “I don’t think 35 missing safety signs at one of two sites is a minor thing,”
He said it wasn’t that important.
I said, “I don’t think it’s not important”. We just left it at that.
Kim: And you were right. It would’ve been very bad if it continued without being closed. Safety action items.
Janice: My boss said nobody pays attention to them anyway.
I said, “That’s their problem and they should. They should be trained to pay attention,” But I said we have to warn.
I feel you have to stand for something. I think engineers need to be concerned about company liability. I don’t bring it up because ‘Oh, I was so brave’ or something. What’s really important is if you have a position of responsibility. That should be part of what you’re doing. Think about responsibility, including the company’s responsibility.
Kim: And how it affects everyone. Not just the customer but the company but the company as well.
So I would like to wrap up this interview. Are there any final thoughts that you would like to share to either current members or future members of SWE? Women engineers?
Janice: There are a couple of things that I think are really important. Obviously there are a lot of things that happened to me. But two things I think are important.
I never told – I tried never to tell people what to do. I told them what I wanted. I think being assertive, what I would like to do. If there’s a conference that would be good for somebody in the company to go, say “I would like to go,” if they would like to go, if they can’t find anybody else. You should send, “I think.”
Kim: Say, “I think”, instead of “you should”
Janice: Yes. It’s always a good idea if you’re looking for a job or whatever, I never would say I want such-and-such a salary.
Kim: How should we say it?
Janice: My attitude when someone gives me salary and I didn’t like it, I would say, “I think I can do work that’s worth more the company than that,” It’s all about the company. They don’t really care about you in my opinion. They care about – y’know. So it isn’t “I want to go to a conference,” it’s “It would be a good for the company to send somebody to a conference,”
On the other hand, it’s good to say what you want, assertive. That’s good. So I think that’s good.
The other thing, a couple of serious times, I was told that women shouldn’t do this or women shouldn’t be at this meeting. I never thought of suing the company. I never thought. Once, I just said, “That should be part of my job, and I don’t want to do half a job. And if you can’t do that then you need to give me a different job. Because this should be part of my job,” and it worked out fine. Very short crisis but it worked out fine.
You’re entitled to be assertive but you’re also entitled to remember what you are to the company.
Another time – two more times, bear with me – I was recommended for a job I didn’t want. I was recommended for an important job on a submarine program. The outgoing technical director said I should do it.
Kim: But you didn’t want it.
Janice: I did not want it. But I was told they wanted a man in the job.
Kim: Oh
Janice: In front of a witness. Which was a terrible thing to do to the company.
Kim: Yeah
Janice: Yeah, I didn’t sue. You should always figure. If one person tells you something, you shouldn’t think that that’s typical. Your position – even if you believe it – don’t believe it. Your position should be, “This is not what the company is,” If they don’t know it, you should make them think it.
Kim: That’s a good way to say it
Janice: Yes. That’s what I did. I said this does not represent the company.
And when he said that it should not, “Is it not relevant to me?”
And they said you can’t say your boss is irrelevant. Note this was a different boss, a retired Navy Captain
I said, “I don’t think he represents the company,” If you can tell me he does, I’ll have to go away and think about that. But I don’t believe he represents the company.
And he didn’t. He didn’t. He never had a management position afterwards. And I said he should never be in a position to do this to another woman. And he never was.
When we were bidding MX, basically was still in his organization. I was on loan. I said I’m quitting. I’m not going to going to be treated this way. You’re not entitled to use my name with the air force. You have to know who you are. Your name has to mean something to you.
I didn’t quit. I was told I was the first employee of what would be the new division. My name stayed in the proposal. I got an upgrade, and a 15% salary increase, and a new boss. My husband, when I told him I’m going to quit, my husband said, “I’m so relieved,”
I said, “You are?” I mean I had a good job.
He said yes.
I said why?
He said, “I thought you were going to let them get away with it,”
Kim: He’s on your side
Janice: But I’m saying you have to know who you are. If you don’t have the power then you have to do something a little different. But you have to know who you are, and what you can do.
I still think with this Me Too business…
Kim: Yeah?
Janice: To my mind, even when my uncle pinched me when I was a little girl, I told my mother. I told my mother. If somebody did anything to me, my view would be, “I’m going to tell everybody”. And if somebody – if the man said to me – or the woman or whoever – said they won’t believe you …
I once reported a condo manager to the attorney general, it was a man.
They said, “We can’t do anything about it.”
I said to them, “But the next time you hear about it will be the second time, it won’t be the first,”
And if somebody does something to do you, and you say I’m going to tell the world, and they say nobody will believe you… They may not believe me, but they’ll believe the next one, and the one after…
So, it’s not good be silent.
Kim: That was the purpose of the Me Too movement.
Janice: Yes. Speak up. You have more credibility when there’s safety in numbers. And the second place, if they don’t believe the first one, they’ll certainly think about the second one, and the third one, if there is a third one, will really light a fire.
Also, the women in the entertainment industry wouldn’t be the same as engineers in the first place. Not going to put it any more than that. But you have to know – if somebody says, “I won’t give you the job unless you do such-and-so or whatever,” – you have to have the attitude, “You may find somebody else but they won’t be as good as me,”
Kim: Yeah. Assertive
Kim: Can you tell me or are you allowed?
Janice: I can tell you because it turned out alright. I think to the company’s credit, the project – one of the project managers, couple were in engineering and I was a technical director – came and told me that we had this antenna in Clam Lake, Wisconsin, overhead antenna. There were two telephone guys. It was in a state park, Clam Lake. We had a Navy facility in Wisconsin, which is hilarious (I guess it really is hard to believe)
Kim: Yeah it is
Janice: And we had one in Michigan. And we almost – I don’t know if we ever had one in Nevada… Anyway, he said these telephone guys were stringing wires and one of them touched a trick and got shocked. It was a high voltage system.
Kim: Did he die?
Janice: No
Kim: Oh. So, he was just injured…
Janice: It was scary! We had grounds. We had safety precautions
Kim: That’s dangerous.
Janice: And I was already upset because I had already called for an internal review. The customer didn’t require it. But I was already concerned about safety. It’s the way I am.
A lot of people didn’t want to pay any attention to me, especially the program office. But I looked[5] (in the Policy and Procedures Manual). I saw I had the authority to call internal reviews. I used to do it to investigate.
When in doubt, appeal to a higher authority. I did that a couple of times. People wouldn’t do what I wanted. I’d say, “According to such-and-so” following procedures, I’m calling such-and-so instructions. So I’d done that. And we had action items open for[6] us to close. It was already very concerning.
Now we’ve got this guy getting injured.
They told me that the program office is having a meeting to restart the system.
So why did the guy get hurt?
I didn’t know (at that time). But they wanted the system restarted. So they’re gonna restart it.
I didn’t like that.
Kim: Yeah, that’s dangerous.
Janice: I didn’t like it for a couple of reasons. I went to the company lawyer. There had already been safety... I said I’m concerned about company liability. I also, when they had technical manuals, had said, when there was a national emergency, that the GTE people should override the safety devices, the way they’d designed it. I wouldn’t sign of, approve, GTE people overriding safety devices so the manuals went to the legal department to say no.
I remember having a conversation to say, “The Navy system, if they want to override it, then let them override it. GTE doesn’t need that liability,”
And somebody said to me, “It could be the middle of the night, they’d be asleep,”
I’d say, “It’s a national emergency. Wake them up!”
Kim: Yeah [laughter]
Janice: Y’know, I just wouldn’t do it. And the customer didn’t like it that the technical manuals were in the hands of the legal department. So that was almost a separate issue.
Now I’m sitting here and they are going to restart the system. I went back to the lawyer. And I actually said to him, “Did we have a military coup? Did the Navy take over the country? What’s going on here? Why is GTE going to do this?”
He marched me in to the manager in charge of all the contracts, y’know the front office, and said the same thing… GTE’s Contracts Manager picked up the telephone, called the program office, where they were having a meeting, that I was not invited to.
Kim: Oh
Janice: Yeah. So “this woman… this technical woman…”
My boss was there I think. The Contracts Manager told them, “Don’t start up the system. Don’t do it,”
It turned out, there’d been a previous contract way before – I knew nothing about it – with RCA. They were thinking of doing an underground system. There were 35 miles of buried cable, that everybody had pretty much forgotten about, and I didn’t know about… at all.
So they had buried cables, and they had an overhead antenna, and somebody had strung a wire in between and touched the metal truck.
Kim: Really
Janice: It was like a transformer I do believe.
Kim: Wow
Janice: It was an induced current, wasn’t it? It was between two…
Kim: Yeah
Janice: I really don’t understand these things that well. But I know what caused it. It was an induced current that shocked. My boss actually said to me, “People don’t’ like what you did,”
I said, “Why?” Somebody got shocked.
And he said, “Because now they have to dig up 35 miles of buried cable. And they were already overrun,”
I said to him, “That can’t be my fault. I didn’t know they had 35 miles of wire away,”
And he said, “Well anyway, they don’t like what you did.”
Kim: Someone had to be that person
Janice: Y’know what I did? There was this nice Irish-Catholic guy. Very smart. I looked at him and I said, “Well Hitler didn’t like me either!” and I left.
So they dug up the cable.
[Food service interruption]
You can’t wimp out.
And eventually my boss said they were going to have a meeting to close out, I mean a meeting to deal with the safety action items.
Kim: They have to do what’s right not what’s easy. And it looks like they listened to you.
Janice: Oh yeah, yeah. When the Challenger blew up, I was in a meeting with the guy who wouldn’t let them start the systems. And I passed him a note, I said, “What do you think of the Challenger?”
Kim: Yeah
Janice: His answer was right on. He said, “I think it’s too bad when upper management won’t listen to their engineers,”
Kim: Yeah
Janice: But GTE did.
Kim: That’s a great story. I really appreciate that one. I’ve been reading some of your – or that interview – and I don’t think that was included. So I feel special. Thank you for sharing that with me.
Janice: It’s not GTE now and a lot of the people are dead
Kim: [laughter] yeah
Janice: I did not go to the meetings on safety after that. Unless… I told my boss I would only go if they were going to assign people to close
Kim: People to close?
Janice: The action items on the safety design. Because we had these open action items, and somebody needed to pay to close them. They called the man in charge of safety for the whole company. They called him back, afterwards. So they called the safety design bigwig. They wouldn’t pay for him to go to the site, you see. And come back from vacation. He was very happy. He went to the site. It was only 1 site operation.
It turned out that they were shy, missing, an inordinate number of safety notices, y’know, high voltage… Y’know, you need earplugs… Y’know, heavy lifting…
Kim: Either way, they got the safety guy back, right?
Janice: It wasn’t just all high voltage. But there was a lot of that too. So they closed them. And that was my original concern.
Eventually the program manager stopped me, and he said to me, “I really think it’s good that you went the second time”. He admitted to me. He said that, “I still don’t like that you went the first time,”
And I said to him, “I don’t think 35 missing safety signs at one of two sites is a minor thing,”
He said it wasn’t that important.
I said, “I don’t think it’s not important”. We just left it at that.
Kim: And you were right. It would’ve been very bad if it continued without being closed. Safety action items.
Janice: My boss said nobody pays attention to them anyway.
I said, “That’s their problem and they should. They should be trained to pay attention,” But I said we have to warn.
I feel you have to stand for something. I think engineers need to be concerned about company liability. I don’t bring it up because ‘Oh, I was so brave’ or something. What’s really important is if you have a position of responsibility. That should be part of what you’re doing. Think about responsibility, including the company’s responsibility.
Kim: And how it affects everyone. Not just the customer but the company but the company as well.
So I would like to wrap up this interview. Are there any final thoughts that you would like to share to either current members or future members of SWE? Women engineers?
Janice: There are a couple of things that I think are really important. Obviously there are a lot of things that happened to me. But two things I think are important.
I never told – I tried never to tell people what to do. I told them what I wanted. I think being assertive, what I would like to do. If there’s a conference that would be good for somebody in the company to go, say “I would like to go,” if they would like to go, if they can’t find anybody else. You should send, “I think.”
Kim: Say, “I think”, instead of “you should”
Janice: Yes. It’s always a good idea if you’re looking for a job or whatever, I never would say I want such-and-such a salary.
Kim: How should we say it?
Janice: My attitude when someone gives me salary and I didn’t like it, I would say, “I think I can do work that’s worth more the company than that,” It’s all about the company. They don’t really care about you in my opinion. They care about – y’know. So it isn’t “I want to go to a conference,” it’s “It would be a good for the company to send somebody to a conference,”
On the other hand, it’s good to say what you want, assertive. That’s good. So I think that’s good.
The other thing, a couple of serious times, I was told that women shouldn’t do this or women shouldn’t be at this meeting. I never thought of suing the company. I never thought. Once, I just said, “That should be part of my job, and I don’t want to do half a job. And if you can’t do that then you need to give me a different job. Because this should be part of my job,” and it worked out fine. Very short crisis but it worked out fine.
You’re entitled to be assertive but you’re also entitled to remember what you are to the company.
Another time – two more times, bear with me – I was recommended for a job I didn’t want. I was recommended for an important job on a submarine program. The outgoing technical director said I should do it.
Kim: But you didn’t want it.
Janice: I did not want it. But I was told they wanted a man in the job.
Kim: Oh
Janice: In front of a witness. Which was a terrible thing to do to the company.
Kim: Yeah
Janice: Yeah, I didn’t sue. You should always figure. If one person tells you something, you shouldn’t think that that’s typical. Your position – even if you believe it – don’t believe it. Your position should be, “This is not what the company is,” If they don’t know it, you should make them think it.
Kim: That’s a good way to say it
Janice: Yes. That’s what I did. I said this does not represent the company.
And when he said that it should not, “Is it not relevant to me?”
And they said you can’t say your boss is irrelevant. Note this was a different boss, a retired Navy Captain
I said, “I don’t think he represents the company,” If you can tell me he does, I’ll have to go away and think about that. But I don’t believe he represents the company.
And he didn’t. He didn’t. He never had a management position afterwards. And I said he should never be in a position to do this to another woman. And he never was.
When we were bidding MX, basically was still in his organization. I was on loan. I said I’m quitting. I’m not going to going to be treated this way. You’re not entitled to use my name with the air force. You have to know who you are. Your name has to mean something to you.
I didn’t quit. I was told I was the first employee of what would be the new division. My name stayed in the proposal. I got an upgrade, and a 15% salary increase, and a new boss. My husband, when I told him I’m going to quit, my husband said, “I’m so relieved,”
I said, “You are?” I mean I had a good job.
He said yes.
I said why?
He said, “I thought you were going to let them get away with it,”
Kim: He’s on your side
Janice: But I’m saying you have to know who you are. If you don’t have the power then you have to do something a little different. But you have to know who you are, and what you can do.
I still think with this Me Too business…
Kim: Yeah?
Janice: To my mind, even when my uncle pinched me when I was a little girl, I told my mother. I told my mother. If somebody did anything to me, my view would be, “I’m going to tell everybody”. And if somebody – if the man said to me – or the woman or whoever – said they won’t believe you …
I once reported a condo manager to the attorney general, it was a man.
They said, “We can’t do anything about it.”
I said to them, “But the next time you hear about it will be the second time, it won’t be the first,”
And if somebody does something to do you, and you say I’m going to tell the world, and they say nobody will believe you… They may not believe me, but they’ll believe the next one, and the one after…
So, it’s not good be silent.
Kim: That was the purpose of the Me Too movement.
Janice: Yes. Speak up. You have more credibility when there’s safety in numbers. And the second place, if they don’t believe the first one, they’ll certainly think about the second one, and the third one, if there is a third one, will really light a fire.
Also, the women in the entertainment industry wouldn’t be the same as engineers in the first place. Not going to put it any more than that. But you have to know – if somebody says, “I won’t give you the job unless you do such-and-so or whatever,” – you have to have the attitude, “You may find somebody else but they won’t be as good as me,”
Kim: Yeah. Assertive
Janice: I had an interview for jobs – this is another thing that I think was important – My father worked at Melpar and they wanted to interview me. A guy wanted to interview me. He was another story. But anyway, he said, “Here’s our salary curve” – they did hire me. I did work for them – he said, “What percentile should I put you in?”
Kim: What did you…?
Janice: I looked at him, I said 100.
Kim: [laughter]
Janice: And he said to me, “Nobody is 100%,”
I said, “What do you expect me to say? I’m a 50% person? I said 100%. If you think I’m less, that’s up to you to decide. I’m not going to vote against myself.” Don’t fall into traps like that. Don’t underrate yourself.
What would you say if someone said what percentile should I put you in? What answer is there?
Kim: Well, like you said, it’s a trap.
Janice: Yeah, when did you stop beating your wife? Ha
What does your husband do?
Kim: My husband is a science teacher. And I am a software engineer
Janice: And where do you work?
Kim: I work at Cognizant. It’s a healthcare company
Janice: Oh OK. That’s job security. They keep up with the software. My best friend was a lead software engineer in the [ELF program] It was the successor to Seafarer. By the time we on it, it was extremely low frequency (ELF).
We had one guy – he was a good engineer – but he owed me a report once, and I saw him in the hall and said, “Where’s my report?”
He started trying to tell me a joke. It was a bad joke. I know jokes. I knew off color [5] jokes. I knew funny jokes. I was like yeah yeah the sales man the farmer’s daughter blah blah blah.
And I just said to him, “You think you’re going to distract me with this? I still want my report!”
Y’know they do things like that. My same Irish Catholic boss went bright red, with my answer because I gave hi the punchline. He went bright red when I gave him the punchline. See, it was easy to distract him, not me.
You just have to know who you are.
Kim: Thank you very much for your insight and for speaking to me today.
Janice: Like I said, to me, it was just a thing to do. But I guess looking back… was a little different…
Kim: It was... Especially, in your time. It’s much different. All of the things that happen to you would never happen to me, nowadays.
Janice: Wonderful. I think some places, they’re still doing – things aren’t… I have to say, for Society of Women Engineers, I don’t know how many times, maybe now it’s different. We had a new president, and she wrote (a long time ago). Well when I graduated from high school, the only jobs for a girl were to be a nurse or a teacher. And I just shuddered. So many decades after I retired, I was still reading that, and I just thought it was so sad.
Kim: I believe that that’s no longer the case. There are a lot of women studying engineering. But the problem now is that they’re not staying. The numbers now are about… 15% of all engineers are women.
Janice: And I think about half the students at MIT
Kim: Yeah, they’re studying it but they’re not staying.
Janice: I give a little scholarship at UMass. One year, I went to a breakfast – don’t ask me why I got up that early – and I met a lovely young woman, Eydis Lima, her name is, you can find her on Facebook
Kim: [Spells name]
Janice: She was one of the Cuban boat people. Her father was an engineer. He didn’t bring her to Florida. He brought her to New Jersey. Why do I mention her? I just love her. I still check her out on Linkedin. She wanted to be a doctor. And her father didn’t. He wanted her to get married. He didn’t want her to be a doctor. See, I really felt bad. I didn’t feel quite wealthy enough, to tell her I could send her to medical school. But she’s in some kind of research. She’s active on Linkedin. She’s always posting interesting things. She wanted to find the cure for cancer. Somebody had cancer.
Yeah.
But I’m saying… Maybe the way we grow up – or the way you grew up – I shouldn’t say we – you – and the way that a lot of American kids are growing up, it’s true what you say.
But there are a lot of kids in Hispanic families and maybe African families, that they’re not… We still need to be – have a society where we support them. And believe me at Jeremiah E. Burke High School, they still need help. Although the administrator I talked to there, his daughter was going to MIT.
I made a point when I gave the awards – I gave them to the girls. I was very happy to do this – I said, From personal experience, engineering, science, and technology is a great career to have. I’m an egalitarian. I want to make a point to say that it’s a wonderful career for you boys also. It’s not just for girls. There are even boys who don’t think – Did you see the movie Good Will Hunting?
Kim: Yes, I did
Janice: I thought that was – I was so sad from that movie. The boys and other boys from South Boston that were working construction weren’t thinking of going – why do you have to be a genius?
Kim: Yeah, they think you have to be a born [a genius to be an engineer]
Janice: There are these boys around... Women engineers are not just an inspiration to the women. Do you have children?
Kim: I’m planning on having children in 3 years. I’m 2 years married. To a Jewish man. So Happy Hanukkah!
Janice: Happy Hanukkah,
Kim: I believe today is Day 6, right?
Janice: Yep, and I just mailed some Hanukkah cards, 5 or 6. I still have another 5. Your half hour gave me a chance to write a couple more. I’ve just been so busy this week. I don’t know. I’m always busy. So anyway, this has been delightful.
Kim: Yes, this has been very delightful.
Janice: If you don’t mind, take a cookie.
Kim: I think one cookie is good enough to me. So let me end saying that it’s Wednesday, December 6, 2018. This is an interview with Janice Rossbach…
Janice: It’s really Janice Rittenburg Rossbach. Rittenburg with a U. B-U
Kim: Notable member of the Society of Women Engineers for SWE Oral History Project. The interviewer is Kimberly Wynne and we are in Lexington, Massachusetts.
Janice: Notable?
Kim: Yes, I said notable. You are notable.
Janice: I guess I’ve become notable. Pleasure to meet you
Kim: Yeah
Kim: What did you…?
Janice: I looked at him, I said 100.
Kim: [laughter]
Janice: And he said to me, “Nobody is 100%,”
I said, “What do you expect me to say? I’m a 50% person? I said 100%. If you think I’m less, that’s up to you to decide. I’m not going to vote against myself.” Don’t fall into traps like that. Don’t underrate yourself.
What would you say if someone said what percentile should I put you in? What answer is there?
Kim: Well, like you said, it’s a trap.
Janice: Yeah, when did you stop beating your wife? Ha
What does your husband do?
Kim: My husband is a science teacher. And I am a software engineer
Janice: And where do you work?
Kim: I work at Cognizant. It’s a healthcare company
Janice: Oh OK. That’s job security. They keep up with the software. My best friend was a lead software engineer in the [ELF program] It was the successor to Seafarer. By the time we on it, it was extremely low frequency (ELF).
We had one guy – he was a good engineer – but he owed me a report once, and I saw him in the hall and said, “Where’s my report?”
He started trying to tell me a joke. It was a bad joke. I know jokes. I knew off color [5] jokes. I knew funny jokes. I was like yeah yeah the sales man the farmer’s daughter blah blah blah.
And I just said to him, “You think you’re going to distract me with this? I still want my report!”
Y’know they do things like that. My same Irish Catholic boss went bright red, with my answer because I gave hi the punchline. He went bright red when I gave him the punchline. See, it was easy to distract him, not me.
You just have to know who you are.
Kim: Thank you very much for your insight and for speaking to me today.
Janice: Like I said, to me, it was just a thing to do. But I guess looking back… was a little different…
Kim: It was... Especially, in your time. It’s much different. All of the things that happen to you would never happen to me, nowadays.
Janice: Wonderful. I think some places, they’re still doing – things aren’t… I have to say, for Society of Women Engineers, I don’t know how many times, maybe now it’s different. We had a new president, and she wrote (a long time ago). Well when I graduated from high school, the only jobs for a girl were to be a nurse or a teacher. And I just shuddered. So many decades after I retired, I was still reading that, and I just thought it was so sad.
Kim: I believe that that’s no longer the case. There are a lot of women studying engineering. But the problem now is that they’re not staying. The numbers now are about… 15% of all engineers are women.
Janice: And I think about half the students at MIT
Kim: Yeah, they’re studying it but they’re not staying.
Janice: I give a little scholarship at UMass. One year, I went to a breakfast – don’t ask me why I got up that early – and I met a lovely young woman, Eydis Lima, her name is, you can find her on Facebook
Kim: [Spells name]
Janice: She was one of the Cuban boat people. Her father was an engineer. He didn’t bring her to Florida. He brought her to New Jersey. Why do I mention her? I just love her. I still check her out on Linkedin. She wanted to be a doctor. And her father didn’t. He wanted her to get married. He didn’t want her to be a doctor. See, I really felt bad. I didn’t feel quite wealthy enough, to tell her I could send her to medical school. But she’s in some kind of research. She’s active on Linkedin. She’s always posting interesting things. She wanted to find the cure for cancer. Somebody had cancer.
Yeah.
But I’m saying… Maybe the way we grow up – or the way you grew up – I shouldn’t say we – you – and the way that a lot of American kids are growing up, it’s true what you say.
But there are a lot of kids in Hispanic families and maybe African families, that they’re not… We still need to be – have a society where we support them. And believe me at Jeremiah E. Burke High School, they still need help. Although the administrator I talked to there, his daughter was going to MIT.
I made a point when I gave the awards – I gave them to the girls. I was very happy to do this – I said, From personal experience, engineering, science, and technology is a great career to have. I’m an egalitarian. I want to make a point to say that it’s a wonderful career for you boys also. It’s not just for girls. There are even boys who don’t think – Did you see the movie Good Will Hunting?
Kim: Yes, I did
Janice: I thought that was – I was so sad from that movie. The boys and other boys from South Boston that were working construction weren’t thinking of going – why do you have to be a genius?
Kim: Yeah, they think you have to be a born [a genius to be an engineer]
Janice: There are these boys around... Women engineers are not just an inspiration to the women. Do you have children?
Kim: I’m planning on having children in 3 years. I’m 2 years married. To a Jewish man. So Happy Hanukkah!
Janice: Happy Hanukkah,
Kim: I believe today is Day 6, right?
Janice: Yep, and I just mailed some Hanukkah cards, 5 or 6. I still have another 5. Your half hour gave me a chance to write a couple more. I’ve just been so busy this week. I don’t know. I’m always busy. So anyway, this has been delightful.
Kim: Yes, this has been very delightful.
Janice: If you don’t mind, take a cookie.
Kim: I think one cookie is good enough to me. So let me end saying that it’s Wednesday, December 6, 2018. This is an interview with Janice Rossbach…
Janice: It’s really Janice Rittenburg Rossbach. Rittenburg with a U. B-U
Kim: Notable member of the Society of Women Engineers for SWE Oral History Project. The interviewer is Kimberly Wynne and we are in Lexington, Massachusetts.
Janice: Notable?
Kim: Yes, I said notable. You are notable.
Janice: I guess I’ve become notable. Pleasure to meet you
Kim: Yeah
Audio Files of the Oral History Interview
| janicerossbach2.m4a |
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