How I Got Here: When it comes to supporting women in STEM, PECO’s Nicole LeVine intends to pay it forward

Quarterly, LeVine takes these women out for a nice lunch. Her running joke is she hopes that one day, there are so many women in the group that she can’t afford to bring everyone.

“We’re at the point now where we have a fair number of people in the cohort,” she told Technical.ly. “So it’s been a lot of progress over the last 10 years, but it’s still a drop in the bucket when you compare it to the number of men that we have in those types of positions.”

LeVine has been with at the Market Street-headquartered power company for 23 years. She started at PECO as an intern, but left to learn from other companies and roles before choosing what she wanted to do after college. When it was time to find a full-time job, LeVine went back to PECO to become an engineer because of her positive internship experience.

At the start of her career, she said, there were not many women in the engineering field, especially in leadership roles; she was often the first or only woman on her teams, an experience not uncommon in the STEM industry. But the women who were there offered a lot of support.

“I found that women that are interested in STEM careers are really, really special women, and those that came before me spent a lot of time mentoring me and giving me good feedback, and good advice,” she said. “So although there wasn’t a lot, the women that were here were extremely powerful, and were really good mentors for me as soon as I came up, and gave me a lot of courage and confidence.”

“I found that women that are interested in STEM careers are really, really special women, and those that came before me spent a lot of time mentoring me and giving me good feedback.”Nicole LeVine PECO

LeVine was raised by her grandmother, who noticed she did well in math and science, and enjoyed tinkering and helping with projects around the house. Her grandmother told her when she was young that she would be an engineer someday, but she didn’t think too seriously about the prospect until it was time choose a college.

“She really encouraged me to go to a school with a good engineering program and try to figure out what my next steps would be,” LeVine said. “So, it was really the support of my grandmother who gave me the courage and idea to get into the industry in the first place.”

She went on to major in civil engineering at the University of Delaware because she loved building and being able to see the completed product of her work. She also loved the problem-solving aspect of the field.

Nowadays, LeVine believes it’s important to pay that support forward and help young women in STEM. She has mentor relationships with younger women at PECO and recently became the board chair of Girl Scouts of Eastern Pennsylvania. Her involvement with the Girl Scouts is rooted in the mindset that it’s important to talk to girls about STEM early on, just like her grandmother did with her.

Cue the adage: You can’t be what you can’t see.

For PECO’s part, the corporation hosts an annual STEM camp in partnership with the Exelon Foundation to bring girls into the company for a week-long, hands-on experience in the utility industry. And two years ago, PECO launched a “helper program” through which Philadelphians are hired to essentially try a bunch of different jobs at the company. LeVine said she’s seen some success bringing women into those roles who were not otherwise interested in this field.

Early in her career, when she was so often the only woman in the room, LeVine always felt like she need to work extra to prove herself. Her advice to younger women on a similar journey: Know you belong in the industry, and your input is valuable.