Three Dofasco women share their stories of careers in steel

Author Karin J. Lund interviewed more than 60 women from around the world for the first book that launched at the American Iron and Steel Technology convention in May 2023. A second volume followed this year.

In the first book’s introduction, Lund says interviews with women in the steel sector showed that each navigated their own path to success and they all had hard-won wisdom to share that will inspire and motivate others to look at a traditional industry in a new way. 

Eva is humbled to be in the book because she feels it’s important that young women and girls see a place for themselves no matter their career ambitions. She also wants them to know that the steel industry is a great place to be. 

“I was surprised when I learned that I was a whole chapter in the book, but I’m honoured that the author felt my story was interesting,” she says. 

“I hope that the book will show young women that they can be successful in steel. I’m happy to be a role model of that.” 

The chapter follows Eva’s career path, from graduating from materials and metallurgical engineering at Queen’s University, working summer jobs in mines and then landing her “dream job” in metallurgical technical investigation at Dofasco in 2000.  

She then moved to galvanizing and was one of the first engineers to analyze data from a new automated surface inspection system, which lead to several years of in-depth defect studies and improvements. . 

Eva was called upon to help with special steelmaking projects and became a coach for the customer service product development group. Through that work, she’s became a champion of continuous improvement. 

She’s also been involved in a maintenance set-up project in an electric arc furnace, helped implement a system to minimize downtime and worked on a corporate strategy team to evaluate the company and its future direction resulting in an in-depth analysis of decarbonization. . 

Eva was then promoted to Business Unit Manager in Utilities Technology and served in that role for three years before shifting back to Steelmaking.  

The chapter also documents Eva’s love of flying, especially gliding. It’s something she still loves to do but she’s got much less time while raising her two boys, ages 8 and 9, with husband Kevin Hayes, who is an Operations Coach in Pickling and Cold Rolling.  

There have definitely been challenges as a woman in a male-dominated field, but Eva is grateful for so many women who came before her who worked hard and proved they could do the job. 

“During my career, many women have progressed into all sorts of roles throughout the plant. That path was forged by pioneers who were the firsts.” 

Eva reflects on the contributions of Dofasco’s “tin ladies” in the 1930s and the women who flooded into factories in the Second World War and were then forced to go back home to make room for men returning from the front lines. 

“All those women proved they could do this work safely and productively but then it took decades to find women in plants again. There is a long history of women in non-conventional roles.”  

She’s also grateful for female friends and mentors at ArcelorMittal Dofasco, including Jane Wood (retired), Tammy Oommen (Decarbonization Investment Project Team) and Angela Pappin (ArcelorMittal North America).  

One of the things Eva loves about ArcelorMittal Dofasco is its investment in developing people. She’s nurtured her strengths in collaboration and problem-solving, along with leadership training and analytic skills.  

“I see ArcelorMittal Dofasco as a company and as a culture as enabling. It’s a privilege to work with people who see you for what you bring to the table and nothing else.” 

World Class Manufacturing Manager Mehrnoosh Afnan-Alaie and Jane Wood, who retired as a Corporate Projects Manager, are featured in a second edition of a book dedicated to women in the steel industry. 

In fact, Mehrnoosh is the first chapter and Jane is the last, meaning the stories of two ArcelorMittal Dofasco employees bookend More Women In Steel, Women Of Steel: Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow Volume II. 

Mehrnoosh joined ArcelorMittal Dofasco in 1999 as a Project Metallurgist with the Materials and Metallurgical Technical Investigation (MTI) group and moved on to the Automated Surface Inspection team in 2006. 

Mehrnoosh, a Queen’s University engineering graduate, was the Iron and Steel Society’s Young Leader in 2001. She won the AIST 2014 Continuous Casting Best Paper award and the 2015 AIST Hunt-Kelly Award for best technical paper and has been a long-time board member on the Association of Women in the Metals Industry. 

She also led our employee Diversity and Inclusion team (2018-2021) and played a critical role in developing that strategy and program. 

Mehrnoosh has a fascinating life story. She spent her early years in Iran and her family were practitioners of the Baha’i faith. After the Islamic revolution in Iran, the Baha’is were persecuted. 

Mehrnoosh’s chapter begins with being called into the principal’s office as a 12-year-old and being asked to recant her faith in order to stay in school. She refused. 

“So they said pack your bags and leave, you can no longer come to school. I was an A-plus student who very much-loved school and was devastated," she says. 

For a time, Mehrnoosh and others were educated in Baha’i homes. When her father was fired from his accounting job at a steel company for his faith and her sister was not allowed to go to 

high school, the family decided to flee to Pakistan, where they stayed for a year before immigrating to Canada and settling in Cornwall, Ont. 

Mehrnoosh always dreamed of being an engineer and even though it was a male-dominated field, nothing would derail her. She had to learn a new language and culture and when she went to university, she was among just a handful of women in her classes. 

If she ever struggled with an assignment, some professors would suggest she should choose a different career. That only strengthened her resolve. “They had no idea what I had been through,” she says. 

“Having gone through all that I have, gave me a lot of perspective, and built my character. I grew up very quickly and matured early in my mindset of what I wanted. I worked very hard throughout my schooling to reach my goal.” 

In More Women in Steel by Karin J. Lund, Mehrnoosh talks about how the teachings of her faith ground her and give her perspective in work and in life. 

She remembers being a young woman in meetings at ArcelorMittal Dofasco surrounded by men 20, 30 or 40 years her senior. 

“I was very intimidated. But again, I always reach down to my roots. We are all human beings with diverse backgrounds, and we all have our own strengths and weaknesses. I had to earn my stripes.” 

When her abilities were questioned, she tried to understand where the person was coming from and build relationships rather than grudges. “I always enjoyed working with different people, sharing ideas, and learning so much. Our strength is truly people, and I am so fortunate to call my colleagues at Dofasco my work fam,” she says. 

“When it comes to working in a very much male-dominated environment, I never looked at this as us versus them. I never thought that I have to compromise who I am. I'm just comfortable in my own skin. I don't have to become somebody else.” 

Jane, who retired from ArcelorMittal Dofasco after 35 years, says she appreciated the opportunity to talk about the challenges and opportunities of her career in steel. 

“My motivation for participating was to share my experience with others, such that they could understand what took place at that time and realize that the current climate is much more open and welcoming of women in the workplace with fewer barriers and more opportunities to embrace.” 

Wood, also a graduate of Queen’s University, was a newly graduated process engineer in metallurgy when she took a Technology role the now-closed No.1 Melt Shop in 1987. She was the first woman in Steelmaking Technology and worked on the shop floor there until the very last heat of steel was poured in 1993. 

Her role required getting to know the shop floor personnel, listening to them, and understanding their thoughts on the process improvements being implemented. 

“As a woman and a person, it was important to be able to work with people, listen, interpret and feed back the results. This character trait was one of my keys to success and continued to be required throughout my entire career.” 

Her career took her to project planning, building and startup of the No.2 Melt Shop’s Electric Arc Furnace and she developed the training, operational procedures and practices for the new No. 2 Caster. She then went on to the Commercial Department as a Manager of Primary Planning and Scheduling before finishing up in Quality & Metallurgy and Continuous Improvement as a Corporate Projects Manager. 

“I never felt that being a woman in the steel industry held me back, in actual fact, it gave me more opportunities to be different, stand out and to work with so many interesting and knowledgeable people and demonstrate that being a woman in a male-dominated industry doesn't matter. It's all about your attitude and approach to both the work and environment.” 

She urges young women to embrace all opportunities and challenges in front of them. “In today's day and age, anybody can do anything they set their mind to, so one should just pursue their passion and do it to the best of their abilities.” 

For Mehrnoosh, sharing her story in More Women in Steel is about encouraging women to pursue their dreams. 

“Don't give up. You just have to reach deep to see what grounds you and use that to give you strength to go through some of these difficult things. When women stay away from manufacturing or think it's tough, I say, it is sometimes. But we are the ones who often put the barriers in front of ourselves. You have to break those barriers down. You need to acknowledge the fact that it is tough. Know your reality, be your authentic self then set yourself up for success.” 

Mehrnoosh said she hopes her story inspires others. 

“I just want to tell young people, especially women, that anything and everything is possible. You can do whatever you set your mind to."