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Longtime Naval Undersea Warfare Center Division, Keyport employee and trailblazing female engineer May Westerback is retiring after an extraordinary, nearly 42-year career.
The Test and Evaluation Department, where Westerback works, held a send-off ceremony for her on July 27, attended by colleagues, friends and Westerback's mother, Dr. Mary Elizabeth Westerback. The event included an awards presentation, speeches by Westerback’s coworkers and reminiscences by the elder Westerback, herself a remarkable female groundbreaker.
Westerback’s supervisor, NUWC Division, Keyport Test and Evaluation Systems Design and Development Branch Head Dan Baker, delivered opening remarks.
“May has done a lot of things and had a lot of great history here,” said Baker. “We're happy to see her off into new adventures. We're sad to lose her, but glad that she can enjoy this time and say goodbye to all of you.”
Brian Adams, Acting Deputy Department Head for Test and Evaluation at NUWC Division, Keyport, presented Westerback with a retirement certificate, a command coin and a command plaque featuring an aerial photo of the base along with heartfelt hand-written well-wishes from Westerback's colleagues.
The farewell speeches praised Westerback’s strength in navigating the male-dominated field of engineering as a woman, as well as her unwavering dedication to the union she has helped lead over the past two decades, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 160, Local Lodge 282, AFL-CIO.
Westerback is originally from Long Island, New York, where her mother was a geology professor and her father, Ivar Stanley Westerback—now deceased—a Massachusetts Institute of Technology-trained aeronautical engineer for Unisys Corporation.
“I got my engineering from my father and the desire to be a professional woman from my mother,” said Westerback. “Mom got her Ph.D. when I was in college, and she was a college professor at a time when most middle-class women were at home taking care of the kids. So she was a groundbreaker, although she doesn't see herself that way; and she taught my sister and me to be groundbreakers. It wasn't seen as anything special. It was expected.”
Westerback was mechanically inclined from a young age. As a child, she had an old-fashioned windup clock that she liked to repeatedly take apart and put back together, prompting her mother to proclaim that she was destined to become a mechanical engineer.
While she loved both physics and engineering, Westerback was hungry for hands-on work and wanted to avoid the purely theoretical "white tower" path down which she felt a physics degree might lead her. Thus she chose to enroll in Duke University's engineering school, where she earned a bachelor's degree in engineering with a specialty in materials science.
Captivated as a child by television coverage of the Apollo 11 moon landing, Westerback was initially drawn to a career with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. However, a negative job interview experience at NASA caused her to change her mind about working there.
“At the end of the interview, the interviewer asked me, ‘Where is your boyfriend going? Because I know you're going to go wherever he goes,’ said Westerback. “I thought, ‘Well, guess I'm not working for you.’ I didn't want to work someplace with that kind of attitude.”
Westerback moved to Washington State after college and landed a job in the Weapons Quality Engineering Center (long since absorbed into the Test and Evaluation Department) of the command then known as Naval Undersea Warfare Engineering Station, Keyport.
During her time in the WQEC, Westerback worked in failure analysis and found it thoroughly enjoyable, which surprised her.
“I always thought it was kind of ironic that my most hated subject and worst grade in college was failure analysis,” said Westerback. “My first job here was in failure analysis. I did it for 10 years, and it was so much fun.”
As one of only 35 female engineers at the command in 1984, Westerback faced gender bias and discrimination, but wasn’t fazed by it.
“To me, my job wasn't about my sex,” said Westerback. “I was just a worker, and I did my job, and I enjoyed it.”
Westerback added that she’s glad to see the great strides NUWC Division, Keyport has since made toward a more inclusive workplace where diversity is celebrated and everyone's contributions are valued.
“It’s still a heavily male-oriented group, but there are more women, and I think we’re accepted more,” said Westerback. “I’m seen now more as a professional engineer than as a woman.”
Over the years, Westerback has had a chance to work in three of NUWC Division, Keyport’s major departments—production, in-service engineering and the testing ranges—giving her extensive experience in the command’s overall operations.
She was particularly fond of the variety that came with her time working on the ranges, which allowed her to engage with different assignments and challenges as she designed passive targets for range testing.
She also enjoyed doing shock testing for the Undersea Systems Sustainment Engineering Department. This involved using computer systems to simulate the effects of an underwater explosion on a nearby boat, in order to ensure the racked equipment would survive shipboard in a battle environment. “That’s kind of interesting stuff that you don’t see every day,” said Westerback.
Another high point of her career was her discovery of a design flaw in a mine sensor casing that had been found to corrode underwater.
“I did a failure analysis to try to figure out why it was corroding,” said Westerback. “It turned out there was a whole bunch of different types of metals in contact with each other, so you had what’s known as galvanic corrosion going on. And the manufacturer said, ‘Well, we don’t have that problem.’ I replied, ‘Well, where do you test it?’ They stated that they tested ‘in fresh water.’ To that I commented, ‘Well, we test it in salt water, which is where it’s used.’ So through the failure analysis I found out they designed it for the wrong environment, basically.”
During her early years at NUWC Division, Keyport, Westerback pursued further education in engineering, making use of the Graduate Academic Program to complete most of a master’s degree at the University of Washington (her thesis being the sole requirement left unfinished).
Westerback made it through the reduction in force NUWC Division, Keyport underwent in the late 1990s, and it was her experience during this RIF that inspired her to become involved in IAM District 160, Local 282, when it was initially being stood up in January 2000.
“I had managed to protect my job and my pay, and now I wanted to be able to do that for other people,” she said.
This union represents NUWC Division, Keyport professional employees at both Keyport and Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor. Westerback initially served as its chief steward and is now its chairperson, a role in which she’ll continue to serve until her retirement.
Westerback said she hopes to be able to keep up some of the great friendships she’s made at NUWC Division, Keyport. “I will definitely miss the people who work at Keyport,” she said. “I have lots of friends here, and I hope to maintain some of those friendships into retirement.”
But her first order of business will be taking a month-long vacation during which she’ll visit Australia as well as Japan, where her son and his wife reside.
-KPT-
About Naval Undersea Warfare Center Division Keyport
NUWC Division, Keyport provides advanced technical capabilities for test and evaluation, in-service engineering, maintenance and industrial base support, fleet material readiness, and obsolescence management for undersea warfare to expand America’s undersea dominance.
| Date Taken: | 08.03.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 08.03.2023 12:54 |
| Story ID: | 450611 |
| Location: | KEYPORT, WASHINGTON, US |
| Web Views: | 697 |
| Downloads: | 2 |
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