Women in Manufacturing part two - A 30-year celebration

With Herga proudly employing 4 x the national average for women in manufacturing, there has now been further reason to celebrate as the Leader of our Kabel Feeder Cell (KFC) Sandra (Adrenaline Junkie) Kempt celebrated her 30-years of service at Herga

As Ricky Astley was topping the UK charts with “Never gonna give you up” and Whitney Houston was number 1 in the US Billboard charts with “Didn’t we almost have it All”, a young Sandra entered Herga for the very first time back in 1987, and truly with the positive development of Sandra over 3-decades, Herga can proudly say it really does “Almost have it All” in Sandra.

Sandra (shown above) can often be seen using a more unconventional means of travelling to work as the site goes through a major refurbishment programme and the battle for car parking spaces. 

Sandra’s time at Herga

Sandra’s first position at Herga was an Assembly Operator in the Bellows range of product, but with the company seeing her early potential, attention to detail and methodical quality conscious approach, Sandra was transferred into the Injection Moulding department in the mid-nineties ,where she remained until she was promoted to run a critical feeder line in April this year.

Sandra combines running the KFC cell with production machining operations and more recently teaching Herga staff the very interesting sign language meanings of a parachutist (many of which could not verbally be repeated). Sandra now reports between two of the company’s manufacturing supervisors Chris Crick and Tina Moore, who themselves have over 50 years of combined Herga experience and can be seen with the Operation Director Ed Charlson (below) celebrating Sandra’s 30- years of service award    

The company was able to unearth a couple of classic and humorous Sandra related stories during a presentation that was given to her with some close colleagues, including her helicopter experience with Chris Crick and the wasp whilst walking by the A14 (no more said other than it stopped cars!). The company also presented Sandra with an experience of a lifetime award on the 7th October when she will go up in a 1940’s De Havilland Dragon Rapide aircraft from IWM Duxford and then have a 30-minute wing to wing flying experience with a Spitfire.

IWM Duxford had been warned in advance that Sandra may have sneaked in her parachute as she is a fully qualified member of the North London Parachuting Centre and also of the British Parachuting Association, she also loves wing walking, anything to get as close to that Spitfire as possible.

See above a day that will firmly remain in Sandra’s heart for ever, the very same Dragon Rapide aircraft that she boarded with her family from Caernarfon Airport back in 1988 and also the very same Spitfire pilot Steve Jones who Sandra had previously met in 2006 when part of the Red Bull Air race team.