Elizabeth Taylor is quality assurance manager at Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Mississippi (TMMM). Prior to joining Toyota, Elizabeth was the lone female engineer in a shop filled with hundreds of men. When she left to work for a tire manufacturer, there were a few more women, but not many. “I had a lot of experiences where my colleagues assumed that, because of my youth or gender, I didn’t have any knowledge to bring to the table. That was really frustrating,” she recalls.

Elizabeth and a colleague are working with local universities on an effort to increase the number of women in their field. “We’re trying to understand why female engineers are changing their majors after freshman year. We’re also working to place them in co-op or intern positions within Toyota so they can see there’s a place in manufacturing where their voices are valued and respected,” Elizabeth says.