Equal Opportunity Order Of The Day For Joan

By Duncan Horscroft on February 21, 2012 in News

Women have come a long way in the workforce in the past three decades and are now readily accepted as ‘one of the boys’ in many professions once dominated by men.

Some companies connected with the booming Australian mining industry, for instance, prefer women behind the wheel of the behemoth-like trucks used to haul huge loads of precious pay dirt.

At the forefront of equal opportunities for women in the last 30 years has been Bronte’s Joan Ford, who was recently awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in the Australia Day honours list for service to business and commerce, to human resource management, and to equal employment initiatives.

And in what may be a first for a Bronte family, she joined her husband Bill as a recipient of an Australia Day award after Bill was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in 2005 for his service to industrial relations and as a contributor to community organisations.

It was Joan’s tenacity with Esso in the 1980s that raised the bar for women and set the stage for equal opportunity across the board in an age that saw many eyebrows raised among the male fraternity, especially in the oil industry where Esso was a leader.

“Yes those were very interesting times,” Joan said. “Back in those days women were mostly regarded as mere secretaries.

“There was a certain amount of antagonism surrounding women in the workplace, but I had the CEO on my side and that made it a bit easier.

“In my role as a training officer I pushed for getting women in to oil companies and getting acceptance for them in the jobs required in areas such as production and exploration, which included offshore work.”

Joan said one of the major changes that she achieved at Esso was the introduction of childcare facilities.

She said this has made it much easier for women to advance to higher roles within companies because it was now so much easier to juggle the responsibilities of the corporate world with those of being a parent.

“To attract women into the company they advertised positions to encourage both men and women to apply. Nowadays there are a lot more opportunities for women to work in what was once male-dominated areas.”

Joining Joan on the dais as an Australia Day recipient was Bronte’s Professor Martin Green, who received an AM for his research into photovoltaic energy.