Oral History Program Trina Limpert Interviewed by Michael Thompson 5 November 2018 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Trina Limpert Interviewed by Michael Thompson 5 November 2018 Copyright © 2022 by Weber State University, Stewart Library iii 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. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The Beyond Suffrage Project was initiated to examine the impact women have had on northern Utah. Weber State University explored and documented women past and present who have influenced the history of the community, the development of education, and are bringing the area forward for the next generation. The project looked at how the 19th Amendment gave women a voice and representation, and was the catalyst for the way women became involved in the progress of the local area. The project examines the 50 years (1870-1920) before the amendment, the decades to follow and how women are making history today. ____________________________________ 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: Limpert, Trina, an oral history by Michael Thompson, 5 November 2018, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Trina Limpert 5 November 2018 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Trina Williams Limpert, conducted on November 5, 2018, in the Archives Conference Room at the Stewart Library, by Michael Thompson. Trina discusses her life and her memories at Weber State University. Alexis Stokes, the video technician, and Kandice Harris are also present during this interview. MT: This is an oral history interview with Trina Williams Limpert. It is being conducted on November 5, 2018, in the Archives conference room at the Stewart Library. The interviewer is Michael Thompson and the subject of this interview is her time spent at Weber State University as a student from 1996-1998. Also present is Alexis Stokes, our video technician, and Kandice Harris, our field worker. To being with, I would like to ask you about your early family life—when and where you were born, and maybe a little background of your childhood. TL: I have always lived in Utah, but I moved ten times up until I was fifteen, so I was all over the place. My family—I had nine brothers and sisters; a, his, hers, and ours. I was the first of “ours,” and my dad adopted my mom’s girls. It was still a close family, but we moved a lot for various reasons. I grew up in Utah County and in Cache Valley. Most of my childhood was split between those two counties here in Utah. I am definitely a Utah girl. MT: Why did you choose Weber State if you were all over Utah? TL: This is kind of an interesting story. When I graduated high school, I think I shared a little bit of this when I spoke at the STEM conference, I wrecked my car and due to this and some other moving violations I lost my driver’s license. At 2 the age of 18 I found myself riding my brother’s bicycle to this fast-food restaurant called ‘Vittles.’ I realized that this was not going to work for me. I couldn’t see myself continuing to live how I had grown up with our family always facing financial difficulties. I was thinking how do I get out of this cycle? I knew I had to get an education. I saved up some money and got into my first semester at UVU. I had always liked architecture and design, I was always drawn to engineering classes and always seemed to be the only girl. I was used to that— there weren’t many women going into the areas that I was interested in. That’s just what it was. I didn’t really think twice about it at the time. I went to Utah Valley University and started out in architectural engineering. I took structural engineering, electrical engineering, and some drafting classes. However, they also had us a take a Pascal programming class to do material’s estimations on building supplies. At that time, I shifted my focus to computer science. People were just starting to talk about it. Windows 3.1 had come out, which was the big move from DOS. I realized, “Hey this might be something up and coming,” and I just switched. I was just like, “Okay, I’m not going to continue in drafting as it is going to take a lot longer and there’s not as much money it.” It was all about the money for me and so I decided, “I’m going to switch.” At the same time, I was trying to find a job and had been out looking for work. I received a position at Hill Air Force Base working graveyards. Originally, I had worked at the front desk. Then I moved into running main frames, and was a data monkey running backups and computer maintenance jobs. I would work graveyards and go to 3 school during the day. That was how I got through my Associate’s Degree at Weber in Computer Science. It was graveyards all night, go to school all day. MT: Okay, so you started out at UVU… TL: And then transferred to Weber. Yeah, I only did the first semester at UVU before I came up to Weber and then attended here. MT: Okay, and from our research we established you attended from ’96 to ’98. TL: Yes, those two years. MT: And then graduated in the spring of ’99, is that correct? TL: Yeah, I think… I don’t know why it didn’t officially roll over to the next year. Somehow, I missed a deadline or something. However, I was done in ’98 and moved down to Utah County. I got a job at Novell. I started working there and then went to school nights to get my bachelor’s in Business and Information Systems, once I had gotten a job at Novell. MT: What was Weber State like when you started, as far as demographics, or just the atmosphere? TL: You know I was running so hard, it’s kind of a blur and it’s been 25 years. I didn’t have much of a social life just because I worked non-stop and any spare time I had I tried to sleep. For me, a lot of my socializing and stuff wasn’t here on campus; it was with some of the people that I worked with. Which was a little different probably for—I think I was 21 at the time. I really did enjoy the time I had on campus, for sure. That was my free time… a little bit, because my work 4 time was more at night. I just worked and went to school. That’s all that I really remember: study, sleep, work. KH: Were you in the business building a lot? Were you in building four? Was there a different building that you remember taking all of your classes? TL: I was somewhat all-over a little bit. I remember being in—what’s the big stadium one up here, the round auditorium? KH: That would be the Lind Lecture Hall. TL: Yes, I remember taking a microbiology class that I really enjoyed. I wish I could remember the professor’s name because he was awesome. I’m trying to remember…as I said, it’s been many years; trying to remember all of the names of the buildings and where I was. I do get flashbacks even just walking through the campus to get here. I’m like, “Oh yeah, I kind of remember this and that.” I really did spend most of my time just in class and getting to and from class. MT: Were there any professor’s that stood out to you? You mentioned your microbiology professor. TL: Yes, and I’m going to have to find his name. You might have to help me look him up. He was awesome. I had an English professor that was amazing. In fact, a little bit of a story about that. Because I was mostly the only woman in the computer science classes, I decided to write my thesis paper on why women should go into computer science. When I went to went to get back all of my research and my paper, he called everybody else’s name in the room except mine. I think his name was Cavalier—Professor Cavalier, if I pronounced it right. 5 He calls everybody else’s name in the room except for me. I’m just sitting there thinking, “Oh man, I’m in trouble. I must have bombed this; I’m not sure what happened.” Finally, he lets everybody go and he says, “Okay, come up.” I’m like, “Oh man, Oh shoot”; I’m just having those thoughts. However, I go up there and he hands me this packet. I actually have the packet in my bag. I brought it with me. Anyway, he starts playing tug-of-war with me. I’m like, “Okay.” He says, “I just want you to go know that this was one of the best research papers I’ve ever read.” That just stuck with me all of these years. It wasn’t because of my writing; it was just because it was about something that I was passionate about. It probably conveyed in the research because it meant something to me at the time. For all of these 25 years, it’s something that I’ve stayed passionate about, trying to drive more women into tech and into education and to focus on STEM careers. We are still seeing a gap in it today. Unfortunately, I was hoping I would pull my research yesterday and see we’ve made progress, but actually, the numbers are a little bit worse now. I want to look at it more, but it just seems like we’ve kind of—we haven’t moved the ball as I would have liked to have seen. MT: While you were in the computer science program, did you experience any barriers because you were a woman? TL: I think there are two sides of barriers. There are your own barriers. You tend to limit yourself some, thinking, “Why am I the only one here. Is there something different about me?” I had to remove some of those barriers. Then you do have—there were things that would happen in class that were hard. I had— 6 some of them were hard. I don’t know how much you want me to talk about because some are hard. KH: Oh, please share. MT: If you are willing. TL: I had an assembly class. In the class, some young students would view pornography during class. Which is really a tough thing for a young girl, when you are the only girl in class. Moreover, they’re blatantly looking and browsing pornography in class. Professors that would just make blonde jokes in class and say things that made it harder to handle. You just had to have a thick skin and just keep your head down and stay committed. I think those things are challenging and why I think I may have had a harder time in it. It’s not just computer science, just in general that make it harder to stick through an education or in the work place; things that you have to deal with that you have to have a thicker skin than most. Those are just a couple of examples of things that made it harder. The one thing that I did get out of it, and that I’ve taken into my career, was here at Weber is where I learned to build relationships and teams. Because of the class, sometimes I would hold back and say, “Why are they doing it that way? It doesn’t make sense.” I’d be thinking to myself and I finally had to learn how to have a voice and say, “What if we did this project a little bit differently? You’re overcomplicating it—at least it seems to me you’re overcomplicating it. What if we did it this way and wrote our code this way instead? Wouldn’t that be faster?” They’d go, “Oh, yeah.” I built this network of friends, I learned the geeky jokes, and I got a part of that. That’s how you build 7 comradery, and so I built these student body relationships that help me get through the program. That was a very valuable lesson for me going into the workplace; that you really can’t do it alone. You have to build relationships and work with people; it’s one of the best skills you can gain in building your career. It’s not just the technology and the functional learning; you learn all of the things from a relationship standpoint as well. KH: Do you feel like any of the professors or fellow students tried to exclude you or tried to encourage you to leave the program? Was it just you were kind of the outlier? TL: At Weber, I never had any of that. When I got older, I had—if I did, I didn’t recognize it. I just did it anyway. I’ve always been kind of a stronger mindset, I guess. When people said stuff, I’d be like, “Well I’m doing it, and this is what I’m doing.” I didn’t really think twice about it. But, I think maybe I became more aware of it as I got older and when I received my Master’s degree I had somebody tell me that I was being selfish; that I should be home with my kids. That I’m doing the wrong thing and that investing in school wasn’t the right thing for me. It was hurtful and I started to internalize it, but then I recognized that they were just limited in their thinking and I’m going to do it anyway. I’m very grateful that I was strong enough to think that. MT: In regards to comments by professors or students, did you feel that there were resources here at Weber that you could have reached out to help with those situations? 8 TL: I didn’t think about doing that. I just ignored it at the time—and I realize that was something that I probably should have done or said something. I was like, “Oh that’s it.” You just accepted it; at least I did. I don’t know if that’s what everybody does. You just go, “Alright, that’s awkward. Move on,” and you just move through. I had some great professors that really helped me in getting through the program. There was one class here that I really struggled with, a trigonometry class. I was able to work with the computer science professors in helping me to utilize some of my background in other areas to help make sense of it and be able to get my degree. There was a lot of support. I’m not saying there wasn’t support at all, because there was. There were great professors that I was able to work with here. MT: Outside of professors, were there any other departments that you felt really helped you? TL: Yeah, so this one’s funny. I had a literature class. That was the hardest class I have ever done. You would think literature would be an easy A; I struggled. For me, for my mind, I like very logical things. I struggled with the symbolism. “What did the author mean when they said this and that?” I’m thinking, “I don’t know, why don’t they just come out and say it?” I had a harder time with that. I actually utilized the tutoring department here on campus. I got to midterms and I was used to getting straight A’s. I’m getting a C and I’m freaking out because it’s money for me. At, Hill Air Force Base, if you got A’s you got a 100% reimbursement. I can’t remember the percentages, but they would reimburse based on your grades and I’m like, “This is money for me.” I didn’t have any 9 other resources so I had to figure this out. I actually used the tutoring department here to be able to get through literature. I figured out how symbolism works and I aced it and received an A in the class. I aced the final and brought up my grade and I remember going, “Yes!” You wouldn’t think literature would be the one that most people struggle with, but I did. KH: So what type of classes did you take for your major? TL: I took Assembly, Windows, and I took…what were the other ones? I should have brought my transcript and then I could remember them all. I had taken the Pascal one before. I can’t remember off hand what the other languages there were. I remember those classes. I have another funny thing about one of the professors here. I got this job at Novell as a network engineer. I would troubleshoot client servers, printers, and all this stuff. I was what was they called a dedicated engineer. I would go to different companies and troubleshoot to solve their network issues. I end up at Thiokol and it ends up one of my professors is one of the people at Thiokol that I’m working with. I’m supposed to be telling him how to solve his networking issues. We are in this meeting and he’s like, “You were one of my students? Okay.” After lunch, he went and looked up my grade and made sure I got an A out of his class so I could fix his problem. I’m like, “Okay, that’s great, I got an A. Now here’s how you fix your networking issues.” It was funny to have that tie back in. MT: That is funny. Did you feel like you were a minority within the program? 10 TL: Yeah, I knew I was. It didn’t bother me that much. In high school, I had taken drafting. I had always leaned toward these engineering roles. I was used to it; maybe having grown up in a family where you were independent and on your own anyway because there was a lot of kids. You just figured stuff out, you learned how to work hard, and you just did it. I just didn’t question it. I knew it but I didn’t dwell on it. It just was. I figured that was what it was like going into those careers or those educational areas; you’re going to be a minority. It’s just the way it is; I’d like to change that, now. However, at the time, you just accepted it. MT: After graduating from Weber, you went on to the University of Phoenix, is that correct? TL: Yes, I got my job at Novell. I knew I wanted to finish and get a full bachelor’s degree. The only way I could do that was if I went to school at night. At the time, the only school I knew of that did evening school, was the University of Phoenix. I enrolled there and completed a business degree in information systems. I learned many great things that were very valuable. I’ve done many different things now in technology. I’ve had quite a bit of span of experience and all of it’s been applicable all the way back through Weber through that and then into my business degrees as well. MT: How would you say Weber State helped you with your career field? TL: I think Weber was above and beyond what I got out of the University of Phoenix, from a computer science perspective. There was a lot more hands on 11 experience. The instruction, from my perspective, was a lot better. I think there was a lot more qualified professors here than what I experienced later on. In fact, I had to retake—they made me retake—C++. It’s all coming back to me now. I took C++ here at Weber and had a really great instructor in that program. Then when I got to the University of Phoenix, they wouldn’t recognize my C++ for some reason, and made me retake C, which is a lower level language. There were frustrating things like that. I just did it. I was like, “Okay.” They would have me write my code, print it out, and turn in a hard copy. I wouldn’t even compile it there. Here, at Weber, we would compile it. Those were just some of the differences. I think my actual hands on application that I got here from Weber helped me a lot more once I got into my career and had to get projects out the door. I liked the program here a lot more. KH: Oh good. TL: Yes. MT: What resistance or battles did you face while you progressed through your career? TL: How much time do we have? It’s funny, they had me speak at BYU on failure, and I questioned, “Why are they asking me to speak on failure?” Then I thought, “Oh yeah, I’m really good at it.” I’ve learned that that’s a part of the process. Don’t be afraid to take something on; don’t be afraid to just dig in and figure it out and then learn from it. If you fail think, “Okay, what did I learn?” I’ve always had to learn to just speak up more and be louder. Because you will have people 12 interrupt you. You’ll have people try to talk over you. You’ll have people try to take your work. I actually had that happen, not here at Weber. At the University of Phoenix, I had students copying my work and turning it in. It happens in the work place just as much. You have to be more aware. That’s probably the one thing that I’ve had to learn over the years is to be aware of what’s going on and making sure you have a voice and speaking up. I think that’s probably been the most challenging thing for me in my career is really trying to be effective. I’ve done a good job of that, but also standing up and showing my work on an ongoing basis. MT: How have you become a mentor to others in your field? TL: Oh, this is my favorite thing. This is my best question yet. This is kind of my passion here. What I’ve found—it’s funny because it stems so much from here when I wrote that paper on where is everybody. Over the years, I’ve done a number of different things. As opportunities have come up, I’ve just said, “You know what, I didn’t have a mentor there. I need to be that person that’s out there saying, ‘Hey you can do it.’” There are women in computer science, and here I am. I’ve definitely become a proponent for women in tech. As well as, I’ve found myself at one period in my life as a single mom. My career enabled me to carry a lot that I don’t think I could have had I not. I was able to hire a nanny. I was able to have a gardener. I was able to do things that many women that find themselves in that situation struggled with on a day-to-day basis. Whereas, I was just like, “Okay, I got it financially. I can just focus on my kids and my career and get through this time.” I started working with an organization called, People 13 Helping People. It’s an amazing organization here in Utah that works with getting women back into careers. They’ve found themselves single, they have never had a career, or they are returning into careers, and coaching them. It’s a lot of that same, removing the barriers and then coaching them on how to rebuild their resume. Showing them that they do have skills, that they are applicable, and coaching and mentoring them. I’ve worked with expanding horizons and gone into young girls, because you have to get in young. I worked with the Women Technology Council here in Utah, which is an amazing organization that gets more girls into STEM. Last year I was a finalist for their Women Tech Awards here in Utah. I’ve worked with another organization that I got involved with a couple of years ago through eBay called, The Hunger Project. What they really focus on is solving global hunger. However, they do it through rather than donations, they actually educate and be able to build people to be self-reliant. Why I’ve been really drawn to that is there are many parallels as far as empowering women help them to overcome poverty. The Hunger Project found that if you empower women, they actually reinvest back into their families and into the community. You have to lift up equality in order to overcome poverty. I’ve done some work with them. Then, on the side, I have quite a few women and students just reach out to me and say, “I’m in this place, how do I get out of it? Where do I go? What do I do?” I’ve been coaching and mentoring on the side. This last month I started—it’s really small, just my own personal mentoring called, RiseNext, in which I do career coaching and counseling and help people find pathways back into work. Whether it’s, “I’ve been a single mom for twenty 14 years and now I’m going back in.” Or, “I want to get into some type of career but I’m scared and I don’t know what that means.” Again, it’ all of those same barriers and removing those and then finding, “Here’s different pathways and careers certifications,” and, “Here’s where the job opportunities are.” Then just point them on their way. That’s what I like doing. KH: That’s great. As you’ve been going through your Bachelor’s and your MBA program, did you have any mentors after you left Weber that helped you through your career and the education process? TL: Yeah, I’ve kind of tied onto various people throughout my career—probably not just one person. It’s been various people that I’ve either watched from a distance thinking, “They’re pretty cool, what are they doing,” or companies that provide leadership training, that’s just so invaluable. Companies that really invest in their people and provide leadership training and coaching and actually mentoring programs —I’ve leveraged those. They are very helpful. If I see those come up, I do the same thing and try to pay it forward. I don’t think that you can get through a successful career without good mentors. It’s a part of it. MT: Would you say that you had many female mentors that you were able to look up to as role models? TL: Not as many as I would have liked. I think that throughout my career there’s been times where there’s been a lot of women, and others where there are not. At Novell, I think there were three of us out of eighty. Then, as I moved into 15 Oracle, there was none. I was the only woman within my group. It was harder to find them. I didn’t really know how to go about finding them. It wasn’t until eight years ago when the Women Tech Council started doing their work to help provide mentors and networking. That’s where I started finding other women in the industry and connecting with them and networking and going to luncheons. Also, the opportunity to get really networked within, not just female but male role models that can help build you and be a proponent for you is something that I’m still working on. You have to work continually at getting both male and female advocates. KH: Is there any advice you would give to any female students that are starting out in the STEM program now in any capacity? TL: Oh absolutely, just stick with it. I think that’s the biggest thing. As I’ve talked to various students that are going through the program, sometimes you like a class and sometimes you don’t. That’s what you’re doing; you’re figuring it out. They think that what they are doing in class day-to-day is what they’re going to be doing in their job, and it’s not. I think sometimes they’ll drop out or be like, “This isn’t for me. I don’t want to do this.” If I had to write assembly code every day, I think I wouldn’t want that career either. However, that’s not what your career is. You’re just showing that you can learn and solve problems and repeat. I think going into STEM… you’re going through the process of learning and evaluating what you like and don’t like. That’s not what your career is going to be, it’s just setting you up with a foundation for success. The world is wide open with different things that you can do. I mean, I look at all of the different roles I’ve 16 been able to do. I’ve lost count of the number of systems I’ve implemented, the number of systems I’ve designed. It just grows. It becomes much more than you can even imagine at the time you start. You have to stick to it and finish. MT: We appreciate you coming in and talking with us today. TL: Absolutely, it’s been very fun. Thank you.