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Courageous, empowering, open and caring – awardees of Women in Geothermal (WING) Awards

Courageous, empowering, open and caring – awardees of Women in Geothermal (WING) Awards WING Awards 2020 - Awardees
Alexander Richter 7 Dec 2020

Women in Geothermal (WING) have released details on this year's winners of the WING Awards honouring four of its members for embracing and living its four core value, with a special fifth award to Andy Blair.

Announced during the Virtual GR(C) Annual Meeting and Expo this October, the U.S. Women in Geothermal (WING) country team has now shared details on the winners of the annual WING awards, given for the fourth time.

WING members embracing WING’s core values helps to further its mission to promote the education, professional development, and advancement of women in the geothermal community. Each year, WING honours four of its members for embracing and living its four core values.

  • Courageous
  • Empowering
  • Open
  • Caring

Winners for the 2020 WING awards are:

Courageous – Jamie Beard, Geothermal Entrepreneurship Organization at the University of Texas Austin,

Her organization made a huge splash in the summer of 2020 with the PIVOT 2020 panel sessions, aimed at pivoting oil and gas to geothermal. The main goal of this organization is to connect people in numerous different ways including networking, but also making connections with start ups and those with technical applicability between the two industries. She is working toward an understanding from the general public that geothermal can be done anywhere!

She has been a great inspiration to both men and women within the oil and gas/geothermal transition and has been described as both visionary and realistic for her forward thinking ambition for the geothermal community.

Empowering – Diana Adhiambo Macodawa, GDC

Diana has worked for the GDC in Kenya for 12 years and started off in a group of 70 engineers with only 2 other women. She credits her leadership at GDC for encouraging and empowering her early in her career to propel her forward and support her within the male dominated field. Last year, she was one of the pioneers who started the IEK-South Rift branch and as a member of the advocacy committee of IEK-South Rift, where she has encouraged young engineers to run for leadership positions and help influence policy changes.

As a co-worker, her colleagues always feel championed by Diana for their ideas and recognized for their hard work. They have noticed that she has a great amount of strength and presence in any room, but manages without micromanaging. She generally empowers her colleagues to achieve their goals and improve themselves at every turn.

Open  – Esther Nyambura Njuguna, GDC

Esther is an engineer at the GDC in Kenya and is currently working on the direct use application of geothermal fluids from the Menengai geothermal field.

Esther embodies everything it means to be open. She is truthful, acts with integrity and shares her experiences with others readily. She is not afraid to bring up ethical issues, challenges them if necessary and is always striving for diversity in every way. “My greatest delight is knowing that I impact people positively, that I am truthful and I carry myself with a lot of integrity.”

Caring – Málfrídur Ómarsdóttir, GRÓ GTP

It is impossible to think of anyone more deserving than Málfríður Ómarsdóttir or Fríða. Fríða Ómarsdóttir is an environmental scientist at the UNESCO GRÓ Geothermal Training Programme in Iceland. She has a really down to earth and caring attitude which is what makes her an eligible candidate for the WING Caring Award. She makes sure to create a ‘home away from home’ for the Fellows who come for the training in Iceland. She takes time out from her busy schedule to give swimming lessons, ski lessons, Icelandic lessons, knitting lessons, as well as free haircuts to the Fellows. Thanks to her many of us can now save ourselves from drowning.

One can always come to her in case of any troubles in a foreign land. She also makes sure the Fellows learn about caring for the environment, recycling, and most important of all, gender equality, despite the fact that most of the fellows come from developing countries where gender equality is not an important topic. Thanks to her, many Fellows start to become conscious of the gender disparities in their own countries and try to do their best in order to change that.

She is the living example of compassion and selfless human being. It is no wonder that whichever country she visits, a warm welcome always awaits her.

Open-Caring-Empowering-Courageous – Andy Blair, Upflow/ IGA

Andy Blair was the Global Chair for Women in Geothermal for 5 years and throughout those 5 years defined every aspect of the WING Core Values. We gave her a special award this year due to her representing all things WING. Every room she walks into, she brightens, every conversation she is in, she adds a strong, but thoughtful opinion. We, as the WING US team, felt motivated and empowered to take on the role of the Global Board because of Andy’s confidence in us and continue to seek her mentorship in our new role. She’s a great face for the WING cause and we appreciate all her efforts, and continued efforts, in this organization.

Source: Women in Geothermal