“Good job, good job, ladies. Breathe, breathe, breathe,” urged a San Diego Gas & Electric manager, as two young female co-workers attempted to slice through a 6-inch steel pipe as fast as they could.
Huffing and puffing and occasionally pausing briefly to catch their breath, the two utility workers, outfitted with safety glasses and hard hats, ultimately had to stop after more than five minutes, unable to break through the thick pipe with a large circular cutting device.
No matter, because these two women, along with a third member of their team, were making SDG&E history Saturday. They became the first all-women crew to compete in the utility’s annual Lineworker and Gas Rodeo that tests employees’ technical skills and stamina in the sort of routine tasks they’re expected to carry out in their jobs.
Up until Saturday’s event, held at the company’s North Coast Yard in Carlsbad, no all-women team had ever competed before. The latest rodeo marked the 18th year of the competition.
“When I first ed the company, there were no women teams competing and no women doing my job in the field, and I’m all for ing women,” said Noelya Collon, 27, who became SDG&E’s first female welder in the company’s 144-year history when she was hired in 2020. “That was one of my goals, and I had a couple of years during COVID to daydream about that, and now the time is here, and we’re really excited,” she said.
Collon’s crew, which included Ernie Guerrero, 26, a gas technician, and Maria Diaz Gomez, 34, a regulator technician, was one of four SDG&E teams competing in the company-sponsored rodeo on the gas side of operations for a chance to win a spot in national competitions held in Kansas and Kentucky. For the electric line operations portion of the rodeo, multiple utilities participated, including Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas & Electric.
Besides being a source of pride for Collon and her female co-workers, their participation is also a proud moment for the company, said Tashonda Taylor, vice president of gas operations for SDG&E.
“Being a woman myself leading an operational group, I don’t think there’s anything so exciting as seeing women getting into a more non-traditional field and also thrive,” Taylor said. “And that shows a very high level of from the company and confidence in their skills.”
During Saturday’s rodeo, the four SDG&E teams were required to compete in four timed tasks, from pipe-cutting and digging to assembling a gas meter and installing new gas service.
“Whew, that really kicked our butts,” said an exhausted Collon immediately after the pipe-cutting exercise. “It’s just about stamina.”
Guerrero was more reflective.
“It’s definitely nerve-racking, for sure. I was shaking in the beginning and I’m shaking now,” she said. “It’s a lot more than I expected but we’re all out here for fun. We might not be No. 1 but hey, we’re out here for the first time and it’s great.”
In the “service run” part of the competition, teamwork also was essential, as the women worked together to thread polyethylene gas piping into a metal pipe and then connect it to a main gas line as quickly and error-free as possible. Collon and Guerrero — with Gomez available as an alternate — had two shots at the drill and were able to shave more than a minute off their first effort, ending with a final time of 4 minutes and 16 seconds.
“I’m disappointed, I hoped we could have done better, but I’m still proud of us,” Collon said afterwards.
“We’re competing with the guys but I have to they’re my co-workers and in the field we work together side by side and they’ve been nothing but encouraging,” she said.
In the last two parts of the competition, Collon said the team did measurably better, which made the women feel a lot better.
“We’re excited for next year, and we know what to expect,” she said. “And for next year, it’s not so much about beating the boys. Next year my goal is to beat what we did this year.”
