DAWN LONGDON - Technical Training & Development Specialist

In 2022 Dawn was given a headline in Napit’s company magazine ‘STANDFIRST: NAPIT's first female trainer Dawn Longdon has broken all stereotypes throughout her career. Not only is her story inspirational, but also aspirational. In many ways, she has broken the glass ceiling, excelling in an industry that's traditionally been male-oriented and male-dominated.’ (Napit is a Competent person scheme.) The article spoke about Dawn’s start in the working world and some of the challenges she faced.

When she left school, a local mining company offered Dawn an apprenticeship, which evoked an interest in electrics. When she finished her apprenticeship, the mining industry was facing a massive decline, and Dawn was laid off. As a result of this, she began to reconsider her career options.

‘I applied to an aerospace electrical manufacturing company in Nottingham, where I was accepted’ she recalled. ‘The majority of my work involved producing various electrical panels and harnesses for military fixed wing and rotary wing aircraft. My inquisitive nature meant I soon progressed into the inspection and test department.”

A number of years later, Dawn left the company, but not the industry. Creating her own limited company, she subcontracted with many other companies.

‘I remember my first day working at a rotary aircraft company in the southern region of England. I soon realised that they hadn’t considered toilet facilities for me. It meant I had to walk 15 minutes over to the ladies' facilities in the office block since there were none in the flight sheds. However, that didn’t last long. I used to shout if anyone was in the gents and just use their cubicles – eventually, they gave me an old outside toilet that I had a sign to turn around to say I was in there!’ she laughed.

The people Dawn worked with were always male, except for the administration team, and although the men were initially wary of her presence, she was soon treated like one of the guys. Dawn admitted that she found she always had to put in more effort than her male counterparts. ‘Over the years I have always had to work harder than a lot of guys who could just cruise along, but because I was a little different, I did stand out more. It also meant I had to be confident in my work.’

Dawn’s work in the aviation industry has taken her to many countries, including America and Denmark, where her skills were appreciated, and she was therefore asked back to complete additional work.

Eventually, Dawn worked for a fixed wing company in the South that produced both civil and military planes. ‘I used to work as the technical design directive for that company, where I assessed the designers' designs and checked if they met all regulations and requirements. We even developed a new style of connector to satisfy the bend radius requirements’ she said. The result of this was an appearance on a television programme about the company's aircraft, and how one type of aircraft had influenced another.

Dawn acknowledges that her career choices would not have been possible without her family's full support. In subsequent years, however, her husband expressed a desire for Dawn to spend more time at home. ‘My husband was very patient with me and the type of work I did, but eventually he wanted me to be at home more with him and our daughter, so I went for a job interview, which was in the railway industry - again not your typical female industry’ she recalls. ‘I stood out with my headstrong attitude, and was offered a position, but it did mean starting off at the bottom of the company ladder.’ In a matter of weeks, Dawn was fast tracked through numerous training courses and obtained various IRSE licenses and qualifications. She eventually took over testing and inspection of the Victoria line trains and again appeared on television for the BBC.

Approximately 8 years ago, Dawn finally moved into teaching electrical courses, which, she says, ‘I totally love. My favourite thing is seeing people's faces light up when they understand a new subject. I always feel proud of them when they complete, and I have received positive feedback over the years.’

Dawn says her background is not the norm for a trainer in the domestic, industrial and commercial industry. She firmly believes in always doing her best for her students. Dawn also believes in being sympathetic to a students requirements and needs, and always supports them to the best of her ability. ‘I try and teach them not just how to do the job, but how to do it better. I do still sometimes get guys looking at me and I can see them thinking ‘what she is doing here?’, but again they soon realise I do know my subject and settle down.’

Dawn worked for a few of training centres before moving over to the E.ON NET ZERO ACADEMY, delivering / assessing and even IQA various electrical training courses including green skills like Electric vehicle charging, Solar photovoltaic systems, Electric energy storage systems and ASHP (electrical side).

Dawn recently completed the Domestic Energy Assessors and the Retrofit Assessors qualifications. This, with her training / assessors and IQA qualification, allows E.ON to deliver these courses not just to E.ON internal staff, but to begin to deliver all the courses to an external market.

Dawn said ‘This is an exciting time for our training centre. We are also hoping to be able to deliver out various training at other centres, not just in Kingswinford.’