Women can reach the top, says Debbie (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Keighley Laboratories' managing director's new role

11:22am Monday 12th July 2010 in Business

Debbie Mellor is a woman in a male-dominated world.

The managing director of Keighley Laboratories has been elected as director to the management committee of the Contract Heat Treatment Association (CHTA) – the only woman among 19 officers.

She is also a rarity in holding down a chief executive’s job in the engineering industry, also she feels that with more people using high technology – there is scope for many more women to follow suit.

Mrs Mellor said: “Becoming a member of the management committee helps raise the profile of my company, enables me to network and share intelligence with industry counterparts, and lets me play a role in representing and promoting the metallurgical sector.”

The mother-of-one joined Keighley Laboratories in 1886 as an office junior in the accounts department.

She progressed to company secretary by 1997 and became a board director by 2007 before being made managing director in September, 2008. “There is certainly room for more women in engineering. We recently appointed a female material sciences graduate to work in our laboratory, perhaps showing the way forward for other young women,” she said.

The CHTA represents 70 per cent of companies providing sub-contract heat treatment services while promoting, protecting and championing the industry.