Student Profile: Harmony Bock

It took Kalamazoo Valley Community College student Harmony Bock a while to figure out her career aspirations, but she couldn’t be more pleased with the path she’s on today. The Portage Community Education Center graduate said she didn’t do well when she first started college because she didn’t have clear goals.

“Then I came back a year or two later and started to take classes for tool and die, before I got scooped up for maintenance,” she said. Today she works in maintenance at Benteler Automotive. At her previous job in a small factory in Kalamazoo, she was the only technician on her shift. “I wanted to work with more automation, so now I am. I'm training with robots every day,” she said.

In addition to working fulltime, Bock is completing an industrial maintenance mechanic associate of applied science degree. While it can be a challenge to work in a male-dominated field, Bock hasn’t let that deter her. “Some places will outright never hire a woman in my field so that's discouraging,” she said. “Some places are totally cool with it but even then, not all of your coworkers will be. In almost all my classes, I'm the only girl. That's nerve wracking the first five times or so. But after that, you just know who you are, what you're about, and it doesn’t matter anymore. It's the same with coworkers, you realize after a while that some people are just going to treat you a certain way and after that it's not a surprise anymore, it’s just an annoyance. You become equipped to handle it and usually you can just work circles around these guys and take pride in that.”

Bock has a one-year-old son, Ash. She plans to finish her associate degree this year and get her journeyman card as soon as possible. “I really love going to school, but I'm ready to be done with my degree and done with school at least until Ash is older, because work is demanding enough in itself,” she said. “Maintenance always requires overtime, anywhere you go – twelve hour days, Saturdays, sometimes Sundays. No one gets 40-hour weeks often. I hesitate to use my son as an excuse because I know that doesn’t look good on women, but a lot of us techs want to be able to spend more time with our families. It's just an ongoing struggle across the board. Maintenance works more mandatory overtime than anyone else in a factory, because anytime anyone is there, maintenance is there.”

And while juggling the demands of parenthood with work and school can be a challenge, Bock said receiving the Industrial Trades Scholarship from Kalamazoo Valley has eliminated some of her stress. “I've paid for school out of pocket in the past, which meant always taking one class per term instead of three, so any financial help goes a long way in making my dreams a reality. Plus it's nice to receive any sort of recognition. As an adult, life just keeps going by so fast, I don’t ever notice that maybe I've exceeded at something or done well, until I get an email about the Dean's list or something,” she said.

Bock is happy to have found a field where she excels and she encourages others to explore their options. “I always tell people to get into maintenance,” she said. “We are so sought after, at any education level really. It's relatively lucrative and just enjoyable. It definitely always comes with perks. Like one time, I found a cat in my factory, so I kept it in my office till the end of the shift and then found it a good home. How cool is that? I've carried whole hydraulic presses with cranes, worked on top of silos, modified robot programs, and more. You don’t have to be mechanically inclined from the start. That can all be taught. Also I think a lot of non-men are out there struggling to imagine what they would enjoy doing as a career, because they don’t feel welcome in certain trades. But some people would love to have you! You just have to be willing to get dirty, crawl around on the ground, climb up on stuff, and work Saturdays.”