Profile of Stephanie Wegner, Mowiol plant

“Playing my part in the team
is what I enjoy“

The Mowiol plant may have a reputation as a male preserve. But that is hardly surprising. Stephanie Wegner, a 28-year-old chemical production technician, is just one of three women on the plant's shifts - alongside 45 male colleagues.

Stephanie Wegner left her home in Leipzig and moved to Frankfurt-Höchst in 1999 when she was just 16 to train as a chemical production technician at Clariant Deutschland GmbH. “I also applied for a training place at Buna near my home and was close to signing a contract with them. I had never been to Höchst Industrial Park, but the prospects offered by Clariant were good,” she says looking back.

That was twelve years ago and she embarked on the three-year vocational training course with just four other women. Naturally, settling into a new environment was not easy. However, working almost entirely with men was not a problem for her. “That wasn’t anything new for me. Even as a child I spent most of my time with boys," she explains. Her decision to opt for a career in this male-dominated field was easy to explain: "At school I was good at chemistry and physics. I was introduced to the idea of being a chemical production technician by a friend who applied to Leuna.” At her interviews, she discovered it was the right job for her.

Stephanie Wegner is very happy in the Mowiol plant, where she has worked since the end of her training in 2002. “The work is far more varied than in other plants and you have to have broader knowledge.” She is one of the few employees at the Mowiol plant who is qualified to operate both the production line and the distillation plant. Her tasks in the control room and plant are exactly the same as those of her male colleagues. The only time she has to call on their assistance is for heavy physical work such as converting a drier. Teamwork has top priority for Stephanie Wegner. “You cannot operate a plant on your own; you always have to rely on colleagues.” She also see direct communication as vital to ensure safe operation of the facilities.

She enjoys physical work

Best of all, she likes working directly in production: "You are dealing with the materials, and there are opportunities to do small mechanical tasks like changing a feed pipe. Those are things I particularly like doing," she says. She believes that chemical production technicians have to be able to identify with the equipment they operate. That is the only way to realise tasks such as saving energy or cutting cooling water requirements. Employees can put forward their own ideas through the Kuraray Idea Management system (KIM). “If you really want to enjoy your work, you have to be interested in it.”

Stephanie Wegner sees lack of information about training opportunities as one reason why so few women opt for a career in this field. Initiatives like Girls’ Day are helpful in her view. She is a passionate motorcyclist and likes to go sailing in the holidays. As an alternative, she could have imagined a career as a motorcycle mechanic or in technical drawing. She has always had a flair for anything connected with physics and technology.

At the moment, she is unsure whether she wants to take a further training course to qualify as a supervisor. The big challenge for her in the immediate future is the conversion of the Mowiol plant. And one dream would be to visit Kuraray’s facilities in Japan. She thinks that would be exciting and that everyone would benefit from more intensive interchange on the production level.