“Never mistake being the only woman in the room for not belonging there. Sometimes, being the first or the only one means you have an opportunity to change what that room looks like for everyone who comes after you. You do not have to become someone else to succeed in a traditionally male-dominated industry. Your perspective is not something to overcome. It may be the very thing that allows you to see solutions others have missed.”
Jasmine Medina, Well Site Leader at bpTT has worked in more than 15 countries over the course of her 17 years in the energy sector; from neighbouring Venezuela to locations across the Americas, Africa, Europe, Asia, Middle East and right here at home. Her remarkable story of working offshore across the globe started when she was just 20 years old and equipped with a degree in mechanical engineering and the conviction that no task was beyond her ability.
This tough approach is attributable to her father. His military training meant that Jasmine grew up adventurous with camping and power lifting and actively participating in sports (against her mother’s wishes). These experiences helped to mentally empower her to surmount any challenge that she would encounter. And challenges she has had; as a young woman working on offshore platforms where the male-female ratio was (at times) 99 to 1 and the conditions physically demanding (-37 deg C to + 45 Deg) and not always considerate of the requirements of women. She also had to resign from a career that she loved passionately, to care for her only daughter after she was faced with divorce, barely a year after her child’s birth.
Jasmine’s story is characterized by many elements that challenge the status quo and one of these was her early education which did not include attending any of the schools labelled as ‘prestigious’. She is a proud past student of Carapichaima Junior and Senior Secondary Schools and brought her school honour by achieving numerous scholarship offers. While her passion was medicine, Jasmine decided on a degree in Mechanical Engineering also doing her thesis in Bio-Medical engineering, an emerging area at that time. She gave up the opportunity to study abroad, faced at the time with her mother having gone blind after a health challenge. Thrust into the role of student and ‘mom’ to her younger brother she entered UWI, St Augustine and immediately developed a keen interest and love for Engineering, realizing that this was her true passion. Her success extended beyond UWI and she received numerous PhD scholarship offers in UK, Singapore and US. Following her peers, she also decided to send out multiple job applications and despite the advice of her elder sister, a geologist, got her first interview and position with one of the largest oilfield service companies globally. Her first posting was in Venezuela in a remote area with very harsh, high-risk conditions that even led to a male counterpart quitting the job to return to Trinidad, not long after they started. Not one to back down from a challenge, Jasmine stuck it out, recalling having to work 57 days consecutively and then being sent home for as little as 3 days sometimes. Jasmine described the extreme challenges she faced as one of the first women in this role, including cultural barriers, and having to prove herself repeatedly to gain the respect of her colleagues.
As someone who enjoys travelling, Jasmine embraced opportunities in distant and even risky locations, fired by the excitement of learning and experiencing not just different cultures but also different approaches to the inclusion of women in the various locations. Young, female, tiny in stature and not what many would have considered physically built for such a demanding career, Jasmine demonstrated her technical and physical ability to her colleagues (mainly male) by not caving to the pressure of the job or from them, “Strength in this industry is not about being the loudest voice, the toughest person, or having all the answers. It is about being adaptable, staying open to change, having the courage to ask questions, the humility to keep learning, and the conviction to speak up when it matters.”
Her life in the offshore energy services sector eventually had to be put on pause when motherhood presented itself. This did not materialize quite the way she had anticipated, as she found herself divorced a few months after her daughter was born. Determined to be present, land-based and involved in her daughter’s life, she made the decision to pursue consultancy work and academic studies, including lecturing at UTT and pursuing postgraduate degrees. Having had the services experience, Jasmine decided to focus her post-grad studies on the downstream sector and renewables. A research offer for her PhD led to her (and her daughter) spending some time in Canada at the University of Regina and Petroleum Research Center, Saskatchewan. Jasmine’s yearning for the offshore field never waned and she recalls her daughter, at the age of five, encouraging her to return to doing what she loved. As a single mom, she faced challenges re-entering the industry, with most companies rejecting her applications. Eventually, privately held Norwegian-based company, Interwell offered her a position, providing the opportunity for her to return to offshore and land based work in the region.
Jasmine’s strong technical knowledge, leadership style and physical ability led to her eventual move from Interwell to oil and gas major bpTT, where she has experienced an embracing of diversity, and where there is greater equality in treatment, something she found lacking in many companies and countries.
Jasmine has maintained a strong commitment to continuous learning throughout her career, Her unique combination of multiple engineering degrees culminating at PhD level, alongside numerous postgraduate courses means that she has had a career that spans the entire energy value chain. While she makes it seem easy, her journey has been far from that; Jasmine emphasized the importance of resilience and standing up for oneself in male-dominated industries. She recalls when she just began her career in the sector, incidents of passive aggressive behaviour, of being assumed to hold the lowest rank in a technical meeting, to having her clothes hung out on a platform for entertainment. For Jasmine, succeeding in a male-dominated industry has never been about proving that she is better than the men around her. It has been about setting such a high standard through her work ethic, competence, and performance that her capability cannot be denied. Her results speak for themselves. Today, the culture is vastly improved with offshore facilities much more accommodating of the needs of women. Her advice to young women aspiring to such a life is to pursue their dreams despite all the perceived obstacles, “Courage is not walking into an unfamiliar environment without fear. It is walking in with fear, knowing you have something valuable to contribute, and refusing to let uncertainty decide how far you can go.”
Giving back is an important part of Jasmine’s journey. She actively contributes to engineering societies and women’s networks while volunteering at STEM events globally to share knowledge, mentor others and inspire the next generation of engineers and energy professionals.
While one of her biggest struggles was balancing her career with being a single mother, the most difficult overall challenge was being the first woman in multiple positions throughout her career. Unlike many other females, she had no other women to look up to or to whom she could turn for support. Two mentors, Anthony Guillen and Dr. Curtis Boodoo, saw first-hand the challenges Jasmine faced as one of the few, and sometimes the only, woman in a male-dominated environment. They saw the added pressure of having to prove herself repeatedly and challenge assumptions about where she belonged, including walking into meetings as the technical lead only to be mistaken for the most junior person in the room. Beyond those struggles, they recognized her unwavering drive to excel, her determination to exceed expectations and, above all, the depth of her technical expertise.
She advised young women entering male-dominated industries to focus on resilience and not let obstacles become boundaries to their ambitions, sharing that her most rewarding aspect of the job is leading offshore operations safely while bringing together diverse teams, “There is great satisfaction in seeing a plan come to life at the wellsite. Operations do not always go exactly as expected, and being able to lead the team through changing conditions, make sound decisions and overcome challenges while maintaining safety and operational discipline is a part of the role I really enjoy”.
Passionate about her job, she also admits that her role comes with a great deal of stress given the overall responsibility for ensuring the job is delivered safely, cost- effectively and on time. Despite this, and probably as a result of her success rate, she derives a deep sense of satisfaction from being involved in the local energy sector as her role involves “delivering the energy needs of Trinidad and Tobago and I get a sense of fulfillment knowing that I have contributed to my country with regard to energy security”.
Jasmine recognized bp's support for women in the energy sector with the majority of bpTT’s executive leadership being female. On what role women can play, Jasmine concluded that ‘from being the only woman on a lot of jobs globally, I would say that the input women have and the difference in mindset, adds a great deal of value, especially in the energy sector. I think women are innovative, creative and find different ways of challenging and doing things, rather than the conventional way”. I have seen it a lot; the energy sector needs the best minds, strongest ideas and diverse perspectives and females bring that. Jasmine has been posted to locations on most of the continents and has experienced some of the harshest conditions physically and mentally but is still eager to continue her unique journey in a sector that continues to challenge and excite her. To the women who will follow she had this bit of advice: “Do not enter the energy industry simply to prove that women belong there. Enter because you have ideas worth exploring, problems worth solving, and a perspective worth hearing. Let your competence speak, your curiosity drive you, and your courage take you places you never imagined. And when you get there, make sure another woman can see a path forward because of you.”