Oral History Program Angie Tymofichuk Interviewed by Kimberly Ealey 29 March 2017 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Angie Tymofichuk Interviewed by Kimberly Ealey 29 March 2017 Copyright © 2023 by Weber State University, Stewart Library Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. 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These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Tymofichuk, Angie, an oral history by Kimberly Ealey, 29 March 2017, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, Special Collections and University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Angie Tymofichuk Circa 2015 Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Angie Tymofichuk. It was conducted on Friday, March 31, 2017 and concerns her experiences and insights into being a minority leader in a non-traditional role for females, particularly in northern Utah. The interviewer is Kim Ealy. KE: This is Kim Ealy. I am interviewing Angie Tymofichuk. It is March 31, 2017. I am interviewing her at the LSI headquarters office in Layton, Utah. She is the VP for Science, Technology, and Research at Logistic Specialties, Inc. Ok, so Angela, will you tell me how to pronounce your last name. AT: First, it's "Angie". KE: "Angie"... okay. AT: Tymofichuk. KE: Tymofichuk. AT: You were just talking about Ireland, so Irish guy. O'Fichick. Yeah, Tim O'Fichick. Tymofichuk. KE: Easier than I was trying to make it. Okay, so first question. Just start by telling me a little bit about your background. AT: So, I grew up in Kentucky. I was born at the UK Medical Center, University of Kentucky when my father was doing his post doc, his PhD in Physics. I was born at the medical center. My dad finished school and we moved to northern Kentucky. He took a faculty position up at Northern Kentucky University. So it's, I don't know, about two hours north of there and that's where they still live. And most of my family is still there. So, he was a PhD in Physics. My mother was a nurse. And I have three sisters. I'm second. I was middle for a while. Basically I was my father's son as he had no boys so I was the one that learned auto mech... not engine mechanics, but auto body repair with my dad. 1 We did a little bit of oil change, tire change, so he taught me how to do all that. And home remodeling, which is still my hobby, so I actually came to our marriage with more tools-- they're toys-- but more tools than my husband did. But, so instead of going on spring break trips with my friends I went fishing with my dad, camping and fishing. We're still close to this day. He had a big influence on me. His degree's in physics, my degree's in physics, so I grew up in the same house. He was still at the Northern Kentucky University when I went to school there so he was my dad, he was my professor, he was my advisor, he was the department chair at one point, and he was actually my supervisor when I was a teaching assistant there. So maybe a little too close for comfort. Myself and my youngest sister, Sandy, we look like my mother, but we are the math and science like my dad. And then the other two look like my dad, but they are humanities and social, or customer relations, that kind of thing, like my mom. She's very social. So I got my degree in physics and math with a minor in computer science from Northern Kentucky University. From there, I started an intern program at Wright-Patterson Airforce Base in Dayton, Ohio, which is about two hours north. And I worked in materials and manufacturing. The director, they sent me to my master's program at the University of Arizona, so I did a master's in optical sciences and went back to Wright-Patt, and I spent 24 years, which I thought would be a short-term position, with the Air Force as a civilian. Twenty-four years later I retired in July 2014. In between there, I started as a GS-7 and if you know anything about civil service – so I started as a seven and I retired as an SES. So, I went 7, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, SES in 24 years, so very proud of that. I had WrightPatterson Air Force Base in Ohio, Davis-Monthan in Arizona, Kirtland (AFB) in 2 Albuquerque, New Mexico, Fort Belvoir in D.C.-KE: I've been there. AT: -- Hill Air force Base in Utah, and Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma is where I retired, out of Tinker. When I worked up at Hill (AFB) is when I met my second husband, my current husband, on my first day of work there. And he had two kids, I had one. We've been married nine years now, and I've been here two and a half years working as a consultant, primarily in the same community, which is research and development, so that in my 24 years I spent almost all of it in what you could call research and development. I retired out of the sustainment center as Director of Engineering, which was all the maintenance activity and supply that the Air Force does. But I was in engineering, so we were technology insertion and people development, and policies that had to do with engineering and stuff like that, but still in that research and development side of technology arena. So that's where I spent most of my career. Most recently, I've been working with the University of Utah quite a bit bringing in sponsored Air Force research to them, so it's kind of right up what I'd been doing for 24 years just from a different seat. KE: Wow, 24 years. I would not guess that. You don't look at all old enough. And I'm saying that on film. You don't look at all old enough to have had such a long career. AT: Thank you, you're not looking close enough - don't zoom in. (laughter) KE: Truly, wow! What a background. So, what experiences did you have, either in your childhood, teen years, adulthood, that led you to believe that you could be a leader? AT: So, in fact, when I was having lunch with my friend, when I read that question 3 to her I said "How do you answer that?" because she had pretty much the same answer that I did. I didn't grow up thinking I was going to be a leader. I grew up, knew that I was interested in science and that math came easy, so I knew I was going to do something in that career, and when you do something that you really love and really enjoy and excel in, to excel means you grow into a leadership position. So I didn't start out thinking, “I'm going to be a leader.” Well, when I was in college, I wanted to be an astronaut. Well, in high school, I wanted to be a pilot, in the Air Force (shaking head back and forth) ... mm-mm. In college, I wanted to be an astronaut, even harder: mm-mm. And so I always tell everybody, “I'm 48 now, I'm still trying to decide what I want to be when I grow up.” So, you just kinda work your way. KE: It continues to evolve, doesn't it? AT: Yeah... I wouldn't say experiences. I would say that I always approach things -- that it's never a good time to leave a job. It's just that another opportunity to look for. I never look at a job and say I can't do that. I relate that back to my dad. I was his boy. He never treated me like a girl. In fact there's that commercial lately that says "Throw like a girl, act like a girl," you know, whatever. He never treated me like a "girl." I learned every tool right alongside with him and studied everything with him that he was interested in: hunting, fishing -- not hunting, but fishing, camping... So I never looked at something and said, “I'm a girl, I can't do that,” or “ T here's no other women at the table.” That never bothered me. So I think that helps to grow into positions, but I didn't start out saying I wanted to be a leader. KE: Wow, that's a great answer. So, what are your core values and how have they influenced your leadership experiences and abilities? 4 AT: The Air Force has a set of core values and, again, I was with them for 24 years. And those A ir Force core values were there for almost the entire time of my career, so I still remember them to this day: integrity first, service before self, and excellence in all you do. And really, that first one, integrity first, is what's really driven throughout the career and the home. I remember having discussions with my son who was going through some tough times-- it was myself and my husband who's retired active duty, so those are ingrained in him as well -- and asking my son, "What does it mean to have integrity and what does integrity mean?" All the training and all the upbringing in the Air Force: “Integrity is what you do when you think no one else is watching.” And so it's always making a decision that is going to stand the test of time. Always having discussions and using words; words matter. Primarily in decisions. In engineering, it brings on a little different twist to it because some of the decisions that you make have the potential to impact what they call "Operational Safety Suitability and Effectiveness,” and you've got to approach a decision on an engineering disposition that says, “Someone's life is going to depend on this. Would I want myself or my son in that women's system with that decision I made?” So there's an engineering code of ethics that are associated with that, too. So, integrity first. Service before self, hands down because... in fact, talking to Shelly (the friend who I had lunch with) again about that, it was always, you work 40 hours a week. If you work less than that, going back to integrity, you work less than that, you get paid for that. If you work more than that, that's expected for the job. So that's that service before self. And that carries through into your spiritual life as well. So, there are things that you need to put in front of your own preferences sometimes. And 5 then the excellence in all you do. Don't do something that's not worth doing well. Even if you think, “Oh, I'm only submitting this to my boss” or “It's not gonna go anywhere else.” If you're going to do it, you're going to put your name on it, it's going be done right. So those are three; I mean, they stand the test of time. KE: They do, and there is that crossover. I see that, too. That's great. Okay, so name a person who has had a tremendous impact on you as a leader and why and how did this person impact your life generally, and your leadership abilities. AT: Well, I'm going to say my dad. He's impacted me from the time I can first remember, all the way up until today. But it's like your dad is always that "go to" guy, you know? But I got to see my dad in ways that most -all the way through my life, including my career, in ways that most kids don't because we had so much in common. I was in his classes. He would take me on business trips with him around the state. He did some energy auditing work for the state of Kentucky and so we'd go around. I would be the one taking his notes and doing all those things. So we did a lot together where I got to see that side of him that again, most kids don't get to see of their parents. So there's always him. And then even today, or yesterday, when I was sharing some news about my son who's a senior at Northridge High School, and he was very selfconscious of the fact he had to be in front of school for this presentation. They had a "keys for success" where he was one of the participants. He did not want to do it. No self-confidence whatsoever. And my dad was just giving some very sage advice about it -and I can't remember his exact words - but I'm like, “Yeah, here we go! My dad's still solving everything!” And so there's 6 my dad. But I'm also going back to - there's a presentation that I give quite a bit and it's around the book "Everything You Need to Know You Learned in Kindergarten." KE: Yes. AT: So I have a presentation that I give - it's about my life and my career and some of the things that influenced me, and it talks about finding mentors in life. And I have a picture of her - I have my dad in there, of course - and then I have a picture of Sister Anita Marie. I'm Catholic, grew up in parochial schools. So, putting my dad aside, if there was one person in my formatory years that impacted me it was her. That she... I digress a second here because yesterday I got the privilege of listening to Utah State's new president, Noelle [Cockett], the first woman president at Utah State and I just heard her yesterday. She was talking basically about her career and a lot of these same things - she'd a be a good interview - she grew up Catholic just like me and she was talking about how the nuns in their Catholic school gave her this background that she needed and every word she said I'm like, “You know, that's right.” Nuns in the Catholic Church are taught no boundaries and can do anything. Not in terms of the Catholic practices, but in terms of them personally, they have no fears. They're the teachers in the Catholic schools and so they're brought up like they have no bounds when it comes to education or academic things that they can do. So my Sister Anita Marie was that for me. She was my math teacher and my science teacher in high school and she decided on her own that she was gonna - it was back when computers were just coming out - and she was gonna start this computer problem solving team because the state was sponsoring all these computer competitions and she wanted to sponsor a team out of our school. 7 And there were three of us, a total of three out of the school that signed up: Brain, Angie, and Denny. We called our team B.A.D: Brian, Angie, Denny. KE: I love that (laughter). AT: She was our fearless leader. She took us to all the competitions, mentored us through, and we took, I think it was third in the region, first in the state. But I think about all those things that she taught me and it was never - because she was a woman and my dad never taught me a bias of a man or a woman -and here was a woman. So that was my first really, "go get ‘em", you know, "take the hill" kind of female in my life, so I put a lot of credit on her. KE: That's amazing. So, what do you see as the biggest challenges of being a woman, if any, or minority leader in a Northern Utah? What do you do or what have you done to overcome those challenges? AT: This is the one that gets interesting, especially on film. KE: Oh, good! I'm ready. AT: Well, so, when I moved here in 2007, I came, and this was my first time ever in Utah. I came from Washington D.C. And when I was in Washington D.C., I worked on the Pentagon staff, so I was in charge of all the budgeting for all the DOD: Air Force, Army, Marine, Navy, test ranges. So I wrote the report to congress and that was the kind of position, and I never thought about it really, and then I come here, and I was put -- I was the Director of Engineering for one of the wings up at Hill (AFB) and I get into the position and basically, there was one other woman - I'm trying to think back- might have been a sprinkling here or there, but there was one other woman in a senior position, junior to me. All men and pretty much unilaterally and older than me. So, I walk in and, you know, I don't think twice about it. So, you know, I call my meetings 8 and I'm doing this, and I'm kinda getting, well, not a warm welcome. And I didn't know anything about the community, I didn't know anything. There was a core of guys that were my direct reports. They're still up there and they're still some of my best friends to this day. They kinda took me under their wing and said, "Okay, this is really the way the culture is here and it's heavily based in the religion." And so, I'm not. I'm Catholic, I'm young, I'm divorced, and I'm senior to them as a woman. I had all these things marked against me. So I think that becomes a challenge, especially for someone walking in that doesn't know. Because once I understood what maybe they were seeing or not seeing in me, you adjust. I love Utah, that's why we moved back to Utah, so it didn't impact me in a negative perspective. It's a lesson learning point. I said, "Okay, I've got to be sensitive to other people. Period. Dot." So you take those lessons and I have never been a fan of someone who steps into a leadership position and people just salute them. Military do that, not civilians. It was never me, so I always approached a position as I have to earn respect. So I started... I, uh, actually...some people say is a little biased against women, but I started socializing more, a little bit. And I don't mean outside of work. I'd call a meeting and I'd make brownies, or you know, I'd do whatever. Just, in fact, I started bringing in... I found a new cookbook, that was how to put more vegetables into your meal and hide them from your kids, so that became the running joke. Julia Seinfeld's cookbook. KE: I have that cookbook. AT: I started making things out of that cookbook and bringing it into the meetings. So then it became a very social event. They wanted to come. They wanted to see what was going to be there. What joke I was trying to pull on them this 9 time, like the spinach brownies, which weren't popular -- that texture's just not right. So then, like I said, they're still really good friends of mine. I have a picture in my office. It was probably a year later. We have formal events up on Hill Air Force Base. Their dining-ins, dining-out. This was a dining-in, where you get all dressed up, all spitted up, and then they do this big ceremonial - it's called "The Grog". It's actually made in a toilet bowl with different ingredients you put in. So I made this nice little script and they each had roles and we were pouring neon Jell-O and all kinds of stuff into this grog bowl. And then afterward, I made them go and we all got our formal picture taken together. And it was just that moment - that picture - I'm sitting in the middle of all these senior guys that are older than me, been here forever, and to me, that was just the cementing of that team. So, again, it's just understanding each other, where each other are coming from, and you have differences -so did everybody. So how do we work through them and go with it? I know that's a drawn-out answer. KE: No, I love that story. I have military family and I was married to a Marine, and we were actually stationed at Quantico... AT: Oh, been there, yep. KE: So, I've spent time in kind of the same places. So, it's interesting. And I work with engineering students, so very fun connections. Makes sense. What advice would you give emerging young women or minority leaders in order to be successful? AT: Be aware of differences. And that can be the way people look, the way they were raised, what their beliefs are, their work patterns, their personalities ... even my boss has his personality color rating on his door, so you know what 10 you're getting, you know. How to react and interact with that. And don't say you can't because you're a girl. I don't believe in the glass ceiling, personally. I do know it exists because I have had some friends who have taken over organizations that said there was a pay disparity when I walked in, but there wasn't when I left. There was leadership disparity. And I tend...well, let's see...how do I put this without being... I spoke at a women's history luncheon when I was in Tinker, Oklahoma and one of the charts I put up was the demographics of Tinker Air Force Base, as a military, male dominated organization versus the outside world and how different it was in terms of the leadership: 5% versus 30% women in leadership positions. And I put it up there, so I asked the audience what are their thoughts? "Well, we need more women in leadership positions." And I think I took them back by saying, "I don't want to be considered," well, what's the term... "a quota." I said, "Do you want to be considered a quota? Because that's exactly what you're saying." What we need is women to be raised and given the opportunity to compete for those positions more. They may not even want it, but you do not want to be considered a quota. I was told that once in my life. I didn't ever want to hear that again, and I never want to put anyone in that position. So, don't expect to be put in a leadership position because you're a woman. Earn it. Earn respect. And it's okay to have children and work at the same time. KE: That was great advice. Do you have any other insights or any other tidbits of information or suggestions you would like to share? AT: I already suggested who you should interview. KE: Yes! And I wrote her name down and I'm going to look her up. AT: Well, I will share... so it's an ongoing debate. My family is now fully engaged in 11 the text communication, and that's really my family, my sisters and my parents. So, two sisters and I are really close so there's always a text going between the three of us. One sister's a GS- 15 with OSD [Office of the Secretary of Defense] at the Pentagon. One sister just left her job of 17 years with Northup [Grumman] and took a job with Boeing. She's a computer engineer. Then myself. So the three of us constantly going back and forth. So, Sandy, the youngest one, works for Boeing, was complaining because she just learned that part of her job performance expectation was to include community involvement and she has to be on two volunteer societies, not on a board, just a member, and she was complaining about that. And so my sister, Jennifer, said, "That's not unusual, you know. Even we're expected to do some things." And I said, "And in the corporate world I can tell you it's expected." And our CEO is phenomenal. He loves the community. He says the company is headquartered here because he loves Utah. And this is where he wants to be, so "we're going to give back to the community." So he's very much into that. On this white board right here, it wasn't too long after I'd shown up, there was an influx of new folks. He went around the room and had people say what volunteer organizations are you part of and make sure, okay, what are we missing across the community because you're new and you're new and don't have anything up there so where do we need to plug you in. And it was just striking to me to see how important that was. So that was, right in the beginning, something I wasn't used to. I'd been involved in volunteer work, but not because my employer was asking me to. And so I thought that was unique in its own. And today I was counting -I thought it was four - on my way back from lunch. It's actually five. I'm on five boards now. And to me, it's exciting. I 12 was just asked... I'm going to be part of the inaugural board for the STEM Foundation for the state, with the STEM Action Center. So, I'm like so excited about that. I'm with SAMPE [Society for the Advancement of Material and Process Engineering], I'm with Utah Engineers Council, I'm with the Chamber of Commerce [in Davis County]... oh gosh, I'm going to forget the last one. Just thinking that were four and I thought it was five. Now I'm not remembering the fifth one. But that really expands your professional network and there is nothing that I need in the community that I don't now have a contact for that I can go talk to. And you see them and you're friends and it's just very personal and fulfilling. So I was trying to relay that to my sister and she's not a fan yet, but I guess that's the piece of advice I would give. It's always, always, always about your network. Never about you. And your ability to pool those people together or when you need them. You can say that about the position as well. I've always said... it was funny. When I was promoted to SE, there was a running joke and they hung a banner up in my office, like a news title that says "Director of Engineering is Not Engineer", because I'm a Physicist. That was such a novel concept to them and I said I could not do that job successfully because I'm not trained in engineering unless I had that lower tier there to depend on. As you grow through your career, you can't know everything, but you have to be able to build that network around you that does. It's no different personally or professionally. So I guess that's it. KE: Thank you so much. I appreciate your time. 13