Fire Captain Michele Richards sits across from me in an office at the firehouse on the grounds of NASA Ames Research Center, just an hour down the 101 freeway from San Francisco. Of the thirteen men on her crew, one opens the door every so often to use the office where I’m conducting our interview. “Oh, sorry,” they say, which doesn’t faze Richards, who just smiles and says, “No worries,” to her co-workers before turning back to explain what life is like working as the only women at the firehouse day in and out.
“I still have to find my comfort level, my boundary, being a woman, and being one of the guys. It’s not a matter of fitting in, but it’s appreciating those similarities and those differences.”
She goes on to describe a day when she had come back to work after having dressed for a wedding she was attending because she had forgotten something in her locker.
“I had on a dress, make-up, the whole thing. I rang the doorbell. One of my firefighters came to the door and said, ‘May I help you?’ He had no clue of who I was. That’s an issue that I struggle with wanting to be one of the guys, yet retaining my femaleness, there’s a real balance there.”
It hasn’t happened overnight, finding that balance or even the progression of women in the field. Richards’ move to California three years ago for the captain position at NASA Ames’ firehouse was pivotal in order to advance her career, which spans a full twenty-two years in the fire service.
“For me back in 1985, I was one of the first women on my department. Certainly as a female and coming on twenty-some years ago, it was a challenge because you know as a female you have to give one-hundred and twenty percent, especially in a male-dominated field where you’re really being watched. It seemed like every progression from firefighter to engineer apparatus operator that was a promotion, to lieutenant, to captain, I still had to prove myself. Certainly the older individuals on the department when the women first came on, no matter what I did, it wasn’t going to be good enough. I was breaking into that sacred sanctuary of that male-dominated field and they were very unhappy, especially that I could do the job.”
