Young women seeking an inspirational role model who combines a heroic job as an engineer in a cutting-edge sector with the demands of family life need look no further than Major Steph McKenzie. She’s the first woman to command the 73 Aviation Company, which supports the British Army’s fleet of iconic Apache helicopters and other aviation platforms.
In recognition of McKenzie’s career achievement and her hard work supporting and encouraging other young women to enter the profession or become chartered, the IMechE has named her as its nominee for this year’s Karen Burt Memorial Award. The award is made by the Women’s Engineering Society to encourage women to aim for and celebrate the achievement of chartered engineer status.
The 73 Aviation Company which McKenzie commands is part of 7 Air Assault Battalion of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME). The battalion supports British Army aviation worldwide, overseeing the maintenance and airworthiness of key rotary-wing aircraft, including unmanned aerial vehicles and Gazelle and Lynx helicopters.
Within this operation, it’s McKenzie’s role to support the Apache helicopter fleet, which has helped to change the face of modern warfare, and which requires the input of highly skilled engineers and technicians to keep them well-maintained and airworthy.
McKenzie’s key responsibility is the in-depth maintenance and post-operational servicing of Apache helicopters in preparation for deployment in Afghanistan or on big training exercises. She heads a team of 90 military engineering officers and technicians and 35 civilian technicians. She ensures that they are suitably trained and professionally competent to support the aircraft in theatre or on current deployments in Northern Ireland, Arizona and the UK.
It is apposite that McKenzie should be recognised for becoming a chartered engineer and encouraging professional registration at a time when the army is under review and is restructuring to become a contingency rather than operational force.
McKenzie said: “As part of the planning for the restructuring of military aviation, I’m contributing my knowledge and experience to future army aviation structuring: how we will support Wildcat – the next-generation helicopter – and how we move towards contingency operations once we finally withdraw from Afghanistan.
“For me, it is very rewarding and exciting to be able to contribute to this, briefing senior army officials on how we can restructure to face tomorrow’s challenges, and how we can balance contingency and operations to give support to each of the army platform types.
“As a contingency force, we are likely to become more and more pan-service in approach, and work far more closely with civilian contractors. All this change, plus the big changes on the back of the Haddon-Cave inquiry, mean that my job is complex.”
It was this combination of wanting to demonstrate her professional excellence and show her competency in this rapidly changing environment that was the catalyst for McKenzie choosing to become chartered at this point in her career. She explains: “As soon as I joined the army, it was my ambition to become a chartered engineer. It is vital to be able to demonstrate that you’ve got the professional goods and that your portfolio of skills has been independently validated and is valued, whether you are working with the forces or civilian industries.
“Also, as a leader, it’s up to me to set a good example by demonstrating professional competence and commitment.”
McKenzie’s career with REME has been characterised by her determination to progress, her engineering achievement as a female officer in a predominantly male environment, and her efforts to encourage female recruits and support female colleagues in their professional development.
She explains: “Only 15 years ago, women did not hold senior positions in the REME within the regular army, and if they became pregnant they would be expected to leave the service. However, things have changed rapidly.
“There are now two female regular lieutenant colonels in the REME, commanding battalions. And I am the only female officer commanding (OC) in aviation engineering, and the first female OC to have worked on the Apache fleet.
“Probably my proudest achievement has been to gain this job and become the first female OC within REME aviation, coming straight off maternity leave. Because I believe that your next job should always be a step up, I went for the role, even though it meant making a huge sacrifice of moving to another part of the country, leaving my 10-month old baby and husband behind temporarily.
“I want to show young women that there is good career progression in the army, even after having a baby. I hope that my experience means that I can be a good role model for other women in the armed forces and show that it is possible to have a child and still remain as a high-achieving engineering officer with an exciting and rewarding career.”
Both in her working life and in her spare time, McKenzie has demonstrated her commitment to encouraging other women to choose a career in army aviation engineering. She said: “Women constitute 10% of army personnel, but after the forthcoming redundancies and restructuring this figure is likely to be higher. I’ve been involved in army recruitment in universities, and I’ve done school visits wherever I have been based in the country: enthusing children of all ages about engineering and what it’s like to be an army engineer. The Apache is a very sexy bit of kit to bring high-tech engineering to life for them. We have visits from schools and cadet groups once a month. More and more of the young female students I meet as part of these visits are studying maths and physics. Yet few of them consider reading engineering at university, largely because they don’t have role models who can show them how to be successful in a science or engineering career.
“By showing them the Apache and talking to them about my experiences, they do go away with the sense that they can get into engineering and have a fulfilling, intellectually stimulating job.”
McKenzie reflected that it is rare now for her not to have women working alongside her in the army, from the highly skilled technicians to civilian engineering contractors, to the ASM – the highest-ranking non-commissioned officer in the company – to her second in command. McKenzie said: “I’m very fortunate that my number two is a talented young female engineer: an astrophysics graduate who joined the army and is now studying for an MSc in mechanical engineering.
“It has been a privilege for me to mentor her through her professional registration as an incorporated engineer and support her professional development. As she is leaving the army soon, I have offered her guidance to help ease her transition to civilian engineering by being able to demonstrate professional competence for a non-military employer.”
Having been in the army since she was 17, McKenzie is contracted to serve for just another 3½ years, so she has to consider the next stage of her career. She said: “Ever since I was 16, I have been focused on progressing as an engineer, and have achieved all the career targets I set for myself: whether that was moving into aviation engineering, becoming OC of the company which supports Apaches, or becoming chartered. This is a very exciting time to be thinking about what to do next.
“Where would I want to be in 10 years’ time? Well, if I stay in the military, I would be looking to be a full colonel or a brigadier. There has never been a regular female REME officer who has fulfilled that role, so that would be ground-breaking.
“If I go into civilian employment, there are so few female engineers at senior level in industry that I would love to be a director of a multinational engineering company.”
With a smile, she asked: “I don’t think Rolls-Royce has had a female CEO, has it?” Not yet but, if Steph McKenzie has anything to do with it, that won’t be the case for long.