Championing women in the metal industry

MCS Influencer Anthony Ortega says women bring another level of expertise and insight into male-dominated industries.

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Anthony Ortega of Viotell Metal Concepts. You can Read the interview below, Listen to the podcast or Watch the recording.

Jenny Yu: Hi everyone. My name is Jenny Yu with MetalCoffeeShop® and today I'm here for an influencer response with Anthony Ortega of Viotell Metal Concepts. How are you today, Anthony?

Anthony Ortega: What's up everybody? How you doing? Doing well. Thanks for having me jump on, Jenny. 

Jenny Yu: Yeah, so happy to have you. And this month for February, we're talking about women in metal. We were wondering if you could share your thoughts specifically about the role of male allies and leadership to advance women in the industry.

Anthony Ortega: Yeah, I think it's 100% critical for those male advocates and those male leaders to be looking and to be supporting women in typically male-dominated trades, metal roofing. They just bring another level of expertise, they bring another level of insight and what they can do to a team dynamic, especially in a male-dominated industry. The industry is crazy awesome.

Before I was in roofing and metal, I was in another male-dominated industry which was a service-based industry, For uniform service and typically service-based district service managers that would run the routes. It was very hard work, and I brought in this woman, and she completely revolutionized the team, the expectations, eliminating excuses. It was a lot of fun to have her input, to have to watch her grow and build. We took her from a supervisor and then we made her a district manager, so she was out there running and gunning. She was out there pushing the limits of like, hey, I'm just as awesome as you guys, and in fact, I'm better. It really helped push the team to a high level.

I just think it's so important to advocate and to champion women that want to get into roles and get into industries like this because they can basically write their own ticket. If they go in there do the work, and what they bring to the table, they just run circles around guys. It's so awesome to be part of that and to see folks, to see women, go in and do that. So, I'm a huge champion of women in these kind of industries and think that there's a ton of opportunity for them to just come in and kick butt.

Jenny Yu: I love it. Thank you so much. We're really excited to have you.