With only one fourth of all STEM employees being women, Tyco Fire Protection Products, an engineering firm based out of Cranston, instituted the Women in Technology program.

The WIT program invited girls in high school to take an internship with the company throughout the school year to work on real Tyco projects, with professionals in the field. Last Thursday, the 12 girls, from Pilgrim High School, LaSalle Academy, and Bay View, gave their final presentations to family and friends at the Bay View campus.

Melissa Loureiro, WIT program manager, said, “We wanted to support workforce diversity. We want to get young women interested in engineering fields. We believe in sparking passion and opening opportunities for young women.”

A similar program has been run out of a Westminster, Massachusetts Tyco facility for several years now and Loureiro thought it would be a perfect fit to bring it to Rhode Island. Now Loureiro hopes to see WIT become an annual program and to expand to more schools.

Gina Newheart director of Marketing and strategy for the Westminster Tyco, served as the events keynote speaker.

She said the WIT program helps young women to develop far more than an interest in the industry, but also life skills such as leadership, communication, versatility, problem solving and public speaking.

The WIT program offers students hand on experiences they couldn’t have in school and Newheart encouraged all of the students to “build a base of knowledge,” from which they can grow not only as individuals, but also as intellectuals.

“Be champions and advocates for one another,” Newheart encouraged. “There is real power behind women helping women.”

Through the program the girls were part of three different project teams, the Arduinos, CAT or Coupling Accuracy Testing, and the Cannon Creators.

During their time in the program the Arduinos made up of Gianna Zackarian, Emily Heon, Nancy Alvarez and Sydney Ellis worked with Tyco staff, Pepi Pena and Bob Heon on developing software that would allow Tyco personnel to remotely see if testing space was available.

Courtney Caccia, Rose Keating, Ciana Martino, and Jenny Navas, on the CAT team with mentors, Bruce Mitchell and Hayden Hernandez, worked on an employee training video explaining the coupling accuracy test.

Lastly, the Cannon Creators, Erin Dillon, Paige Noland, Rebekah Pendrak and Samantha Proulx-Whitcomb, under Matt Ancone and Kat Stavrianidis, improved and made mobile the system to test the k-factor in sprinklers which helps to ensure in case of a fire any one sprinkler has enough pressure to disperse the appropriate amount of water.

Loureiro as well as fellow Program Manager, Sandra Lippka, said they couldn’t be more pleased with the girls’ progress on the projects.

“They really got their hands dirty,” Loureiro said.

Lippka said that not only did the students benefit, learning about the field, but Tyco itself benefited from the “youthful energy” that the students brought to the projects.

Colleen Gribbin, principal of the upper school at Bay View, thanks Tyco for offering their students this opportunity.

“It is important that women’s work is recognized and supported throughout every field,” she said. “Women can and have led the way in art, science and nearly every industry. Follow in the footsteps of great women from the past. Like Marie Curie, Amelia Earhart, break the glass ceiling.”