“I struck my first arc when I was 9 years old,” said Liz Richmond during a recent visit outside her Boothbay apartment. As a child she was visiting a friend, watching her father work on an old pickup. He told her, “If you’re gonna own one, you should know how to fix it!” She was fascinated and particularly intrigued by some welding he was doing and asked if she could try it. Reluctantly the man set her up with the welding gear and let her have a go. He was impressed, and told her that she should be a welder. She ran a perfect bead. It was the beginning of a lifelong journey that she never could have imagined.

She became infatuated with a lifestyle that would require a thickness of skin that few people could endure. A single woman in a job totally dominated by tough, aggressive and often abusive men. Liz’s life story is unbelievable, yet to this day she pursues the work she loves despite many obstacles.

I have been around construction sites for most of my life. Many years ago, while employed as a temporary laborer at a Pennsylvania coal-fired power plant, I worked with a crew of boilermakers who had been recruited for the project by Babcock & Wilcox. This group of men came mostly from West Virginia. They were charged with the repair and replacement of high pressure boiler tubing, turbine servicing and general upgrades to the aging plant which eventually became a gas-fired facility. At one time the plant was ranked third highest in the nation for total pounds of toxic emission!

These boys were tough. In many ways they had to be, working away from home in strange towns with dangerous and often harmful materials. Not a woman in sight! It is impossible to imagine how a woman could even function in this environment at that time. Although I managed sincere friendships with several members of the boilermaker crew, I did not ever feel totally at ease. It could be a very hostile environment, in many ways.

The hostility of the workplace did not deter Liz. She grew up in Frye, Maine, population 56. The town no longer exists but the area has become part of Roxbury, an equally small town on Route 17 passed through on the way to “Height of Land” and the Rangeley region. She attended school in Mexico, Maine, until her sophomore year. It was not easy. Girls were not permitted in shop class until her last year at that school. She floundered, left home and enrolled in a Job Corps program in Bangor in 1990. She spent two years there.

When Liz finished up with her training she took a job with Cianbro in Pittsfield, welding in their structural shop and as a welder/rigger. At the tender age of 24 she received a National Association of Women in Construction award, then got hurt on the job. She next worked at Bath Iron Works and became backup lead man on her shift.

Liz has worked all over the country from Nebraska to Arkansas, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Florida, North Carolina and on and on. “Just me and my tools,” she says. But with a National AWS Certified Welder certificate and a home base in Maine, she was always in demand. Maine workers have a great reputation, she says.

Her last local work was at Washburn and Doughty where she welded on 10 or 11 tugs and three ferries. She has worked in power plants, on Navy ships and at oil terminals. Currently she is employed by Phoenix Welding in Portland which has jobs throughout New England. Most recently she has spent time at the Buckeye terminal in New Haven, Connecticut.

Liz is a survivor. She has managed to navigate troubled waters all her life and continues to love her work, despite what can be a challenging workplace, physically and mentally. “At 54,” she says, “I still have a few good years left.” That, I suspect, is a true statement. The book you should write, Ms. Liz, would be a real corker! The title could be, “The Liz, A Maine Woman Welder’s Story.” Strap in!