At the Society of Women Engineers (SWE), 63 past presidents have steered the organization to success in its 75-year history. This illustrious list of leaders includes women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) who made their mark across industries and recorded many firsts as they blazed trails so that many more women around the world could join them.
Here is a little more about three of SWE’s past presidents — women engineers who served in the military and went on to serve the Society, adding to its legacy and helping its growth in reach and numbers.
Lydia Pickup
Lydia Pickup was working as a secretary after graduating from high school in 1939, but the Second World War spurred her to enlist in the U.S. Navy Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES) in December 1942. After attending the first WAVES bootcamp in Cedar Falls, Iowa, she was stationed in Jacksonville and Lake City, Fla., as a link trainer instructor from 1943 until her discharge in November 1945.
Following the war, Pickup returned to work as a government secretary, but in 1947 reenlisted in the U.S. Naval Reserve and enrolled in electrical engineering at the University of Wisconsin under the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944 (colloquially known as the G.I. Bill). Months shy of completing her degree, she was called to active duty in 1951 and was assigned to Sand Point Naval Air Station in Seattle as a member of Air Wing Staff 89. Pickup returned to the Ready Reserve Program in 1953, rising to the rank of chief petty officer, training devices specialist (link trainer instructor) before retiring from the USNR in 1964.
She was hired by The Boeing Company after being released from active duty in 1953, and she spent much of the 1950s in Seattle designing mobile trainers for radio and radar systems used in B-52s and KC-135s, as well as 707 cockpit procedures trainers. From 1959 until 1962, Pickup worked in the BOMARC Weapon Control System Design program.
She transferred to New Orleans and Huntsville, Ala., in 1962 to work in systems engineering and configuration control on various stages of NASA’s Saturn V launch vehicle. Pickup returned to Seattle in 1968, assigned to configuration control and change management on Boeing’s SRAM Missile, SCAD, and ROLAND programs, before moving to the company’s B-1 and B-52 programs in the late 1970s and the B-1B Avionics program in the 1980s.
She retired as a principal engineer after 35 years with Boeing. Known as much for her humor as for her adherence to parliamentary procedure, Pickup joined SWE in 1955 and held more than 30 leadership positions within SWE sections, on Society-level committees, and on the Executive Committee, including serving as the Society’s president from 1968 until 1970.
In recognition of her service, she became a Fellow of SWE in 1984, and the Lydia I. Pickup Memorial Scholarship was established in her memory following her death in 1999.
Lt. Colonel Arminta J. Harness
Arminta (‘Minta) Harness graduated from high school in 1945 and spent two years at a liberal arts college. Inspired by Amelia Earhart, she earned her pilot’s license in 1947 (before she could drive) and enrolled in aeronautical engineering at the University of Southern California. However, Harness struggled to find an aeronautical engineering job after completing most of her coursework in 1950 (she completed her degree in 1955).
Having been surrounded by veterans in her engineering courses and being told by potential employers that they would never hire a woman when a veteran needed a job, Harness enrolled in the U.S. Air Force Officer Candidate School at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas in December 1950. She was the first woman engineer to join the USAF.
After completing the program, Harness spent two years as a recruiting officer before being assigned to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in 1953. Although she was supposed to be working as an aeronautical engineer, a local personnel officer — believing women excelled at administrative work — made her chief of personnel in the Aerial Reconnaissance Laboratory.
When a project engineering position opened in the laboratory in 1954, Harness trained her replacement and assigned herself to the engineering role. From 1954 through 1959, she was responsible for prototype design, and wind tunnel and flight-testing aerial weather reconnaissance equipment.
Harness served several years in the Headquarters Air Force Systems Command at Andrews Air Force Base in Washington, D.C., as a research and development staff assistant before being assigned to the Gemini Target Directorate, Space Systems Division at Los Angeles Air Force Base, in 1963. There, she was promoted to chief of program control for the Gemini Target Vehicle program, an unmanned docking target spacecraft for Gemini astronauts.
In 1967, Harness was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel and assigned as chief of the Program Control Division in the Agena upper stage rocket program office. She was transferred to the Defense Intelligence Agency Special Activities Squadron in Washington, D.C., as a research and development director from 1968 through 1970, before returning to the Los Angeles AFB Space & Missiles Systems Organization, first as deputy chief in the programs/budget division and then an executive officer for space communications systems.
During her time in the military, Harness received multiple recognitions: Air Force Commendation Medal, Joint Service Commendation Medal, National Defense Service Medal with one Oakleaf Cluster, and Air Force Meritorious Service Medal with one Oakleaf Cluster. She was the first woman awarded both the Senior and Master Missileman badges.
Although Harness loved her time in the U.S. Air Force, she retired from service in 1974 to pursue another passion — leadership in the Society of Women Engineers. She began a second career at Westinghouse Hanford Company in Richland, Wash., first as technical assistant to the president of and later as manager of laboratory planning. She retired from engineering in 1979.
Harness joined SWE as a senior member in 1964, after attending the First International Conference of Women Engineers and Scientists in New York City. Active in both the Baltimore/Washington and Los Angeles sections, and a charter member of the Eastern Washington Section, she was first elected to SWE’s Executive Committee (now the Board of Directors) in 1970.
Harness served as the Society’s president from 1976 to 1978, a dynamic time in SWE, and was known for being a stickler for proper SWE protocol. She became one of SWE’s first Fellows in 1980.
An avid sculptor, Harness designed and sculpted SWE’s Resnik Challenger Medal, in memory and honor of fellow SWE Los Angeles member Judith Resnik, who died aboard the Challenger shuttle in 1986. In recognition of her service to SWE, she received one of the Society’s first Distinguished Service Awards in 2000. Harness passed away in 2010.
Harness recalled her career and time in SWE in a 2003 SWE oral history interview.
Bette A. “BK” Krenzer
After attending a liberal arts college for two years, BK Krenzer began her civilian career in the U.S. Air Force as an engineering aide and electronics technician in the Wright-Patterson AFB Aircraft Radio Laboratory in 1942, where she adapted airborne radio equipment to military needs. She took time off to pursue a bachelor’s degree in engineering physics at the University of Kansas in 1946, but interrupted her studies in 1948 to return to Wright-Patterson (she completed her degree in 1955).
From 1954 through 1978, Krenzer was assigned to the Foreign Technology Division as an electronics engineer and later as program manager for projects related to electronic signal data collection and processing. She became the Foreign Technology Division’s liaison and technical advisor to HQ Strategic Air Command in 1978 and retired from the U.S. Air Force in 1982 as an intelligence analysis engineer in the Signal Exploitation Division.
During her career, Krenzer was recognized with two USAF Meritorious Civilian Service medals. She continued private consulting in electronics and electronic warfare until her death in 1989.
Krenzer declined to join SWE the first time she was invited, after colleagues reportedly ridiculed the idea. Still, she joined the Society in 1968 and quickly became deeply involved as a member-at-large before helping to charter the South Ohio and Kansas City sections.
Krenzer became a Fellow in 1983 and served as the Society’s president from 1986-1987. During her time as president, she improved communication between the Board of Directors, Council of Section Representatives, and SWE sections, and led the establishment of SWE’s Resnik Challenger Medal.
Curious about the Society’s past leadership? Read about our past presidents and visit the 75th anniversary page to see how they contributed to SWE’s legacy of celebrating and inspiring women engineers globally.
