New exhibit: Dieselettes get their turn to shine

To Pepper Kerwin, her career in softball seemed like it was broken up into bits and pieces. Seeing it all brought together in one exhibit made it quite a different story.

“Oh, this is something. I am thrilled by it. We all are,” said Kerwin, whose given name is Irene. “I’m so glad Caterpillar did this.”

Kerwin, 89, was referring to the newest exhibit that opened Monday at the Caterpillar Visitors Center in downtown Peoria. Called “Caterpillar Dieselettes: The Girls of Summer,” the exhibit follows the women’s softball team the company established in 1936 and still exists today as the Pekin Lettes, though no longer sponsored by Caterpillar.

“It is the longest consecutively-running women’s softball team in the world,” declared Kathryn Karol, Caterpillar vice president for global governmental and corporate affairs.

The exhibit consists of seven display cases filled with memorabilia, including uniforms, mitts, balls, pennants and such, and more than 400 photographs. There also is a film that details the teams that won more than 12 state softball championships.

Kerwin, who played for the Dieselettes for 22 years, with a six-year stint as a professional player for the Peoria Redwings baseball team in the middle, was joined by many other former players, including local sports and coaching legend Lorene Ramsey, to open the exhibit during a ceremony Monday at the Visitors Center.

The exhibit was nearly a year in the making and will be open for six months, said Katheryn Spitznagle, manager of the Visitors Center. “What an honor it has been for us to get to know you and your families. We are so grateful to you for sharing your memories with us,” Spitznagle said in welcoming the former players to the exhibit.

The team started as the Caterpillar Girls before changing the name to the Dieselettes in 1940. That also was the year the company started recruiting players, much like it had with the Caterpillar Diesels mens basketball teams. These players, the youngest only 15, worked in different areas of the company during the day and played ball in the evening. After retiring from the game, they had long careers at Caterpillar.

That youngest player of 15, by the way, had a pretty well-known central Illinois name, as well. It was Carolyn Thome, who went on to be elected to the Amateur Softball Association Hall of Fame.

“At a time when women weren’t always given the chance to play sports, Caterpillar offered them a great place to play softball and have a great career. These women were champions on and off the field,” Spitznagle said.

After Caterpillar’s sponsorship ended in 1956, the team continued on, first as the Sunnyland Lettes and then the Pekin Lettes, which they still go by today. They play at Mineral Springs Park in Pekin. In 2005 the team itself was inducted into the Amateur Softball Association Hall of Fame.

The team played across the country and drew thousands of spectators during the later 1950s and early 1960s. In 1963 the team set an ASA attendance record that still stands, with 122,000 spectators for 21 games.

Besides Kerwin, Amy Applegren played professionally for the Rockford Peaches, a team made famous in the movie “A League of Their Own.”

The exhibit includes information about Chuck McCord, the legendary coach of the Dieselettes who vowed to stay one season when he was hired in 1947 and stayed 25 years. There are team jackets and trophies from various eras, including from the powerhouse teams of the 50s and 60s. The 1951 team, for example, won 29 consecutive games.

There is memorabilia from when the Pekin Lettes hosted the Japanese National team in 1962. Both games drew more than 10,000 fans and the Lettes won both. Other items from the Pekin teams include scrapbooks, a book about the game co-written by McCord, and Lorene Ramsey’s ASA Hall of Fame ring.

“The women who plated on the Caterpillar softball team laid the foundation for many women today in central Illinois,” Spitznagle said. “Caterpillar’s players inspired future generations of fast-pitch, competitive softball players. We’re thrilled to be able to honor their contributions to both the sports and their careers with this exhibit.”

The exhibit will be in place through the end of October. The Caterpillar Visitors Center is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Admission is $7; $6 for seniors over 55, veterans and active military. Children under 12 are admitted free.

Research suggests equal pay is decades away

It will be more than 40 years before women in the United States achieve equal pay, according to findings of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research in a new research project.

The first release from Status of Women in the States: 2015 finds that, if current trends in narrowing the pay gap in the states continue, the date when women in the United States will achieve equal pay is 2058. However, new projections for each state find this date is much further out in the future for women in many parts of the country.  

In some states, a woman born today likely will not see wage equality in her lifetime. The report finds that at the current rate, five states—West Virginia, Utah, Louisiana, North Dakota, and Wyoming—will not see equal pay until the next century. The study is the first ever to project when the wage gap will close for every state in the nation.

The report analyzes data on women's employment and earnings and provides state rankings and letter grades based on a composite index first developed by IWPR in 1996. Overall, the best place for women's employment and earnings is the District of Columbia, with an overall grade of A, while the worst is West Virginia, with a grade of F. The grades take into account women's status on the level of earnings, the gender wage gap, labor force participation, and women's representation in professional and managerial occupations.

"When we looked back at how the states measured up in the past, we found that, despite progress in many parts of the country, women's status on employment and earnings either worsened or stalled in nearly half of the states in the last decade," said IWPR President and MacArthur Fellow Heidi Hartmann, Ph.D. "When half the country is not seeing any gains in women's employment and earnings, it is a concerning prospect for the nation's economy as a whole."

The report shows that a typical working woman in the United States loses more than $530,000 over her lifetime due to the gender wage gap. The losses are greater for women with higher levels of education. By the time a full-time woman worker with a college education turns 59, IWPR researchers calculate that she will have lost almost $800,000 throughout her life.  

Nationally, a woman working full-time, year-round with a bachelor's degree earns wages comparable to a man with an associate's degree, and a woman with a graduate degree earns less than men with bachelor's degrees.

This first report in the series includes data on topics such as low-wage workers, older women, millennials, immigrant women, women with disabilities, women in unions, and women in STEM occupations, and also provides detailed breakdowns by race and ethnicity. Along with this report, IWPR launched a new website, www.statusofwomendata.org, an interactive tool for leaders and the public to access information and additional data for each state.

The report shows large disparities in women's employment and earnings among the states. Southern women are worse off than women in other regions of the country: six of the bottom 10 states for women's employment and earnings are in the South. Louisiana, West Virginia, and Utahhave the highest proportions of women earning low-wages.

Men are more than twice as likely as women to work in the manufacturing, transportations, and communications industries, whereas women are substantially more likely than men to work in health care, education, and other services. Men are also more than twice as likely as women to work in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) occupations, where women are 28.8 percent of the STEM workforce nationwide. Women are most likely to work in STEM occupations in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Massachusetts, which are also the three states with the highest median annual earnings for women.

Women's earnings differ considerably by race and ethnicity. Hispanic women have the lowest median annual earnings at $28,000, well below the earnings for all women ($38,000) and significantly below the earnings of white men ($52,000). Hispanic women make just 53.8 cents for every dollar a white man makes. Analysis of the earnings data on detailed racial and ethnic categories shows disparities within larger racial/ethnic groups. Among Asian and Pacific Islander women, for example, Asian Indian women earn more than twice as much as Hmong women ($60,879 and $30,000, respectively, in median annual earnings for full-time, year-round work).

"Data like these can help us pinpoint, at both a state and national level, how and where we can improve employment and workforce policies to end stubborn inequality by gender, race, and ethnicity," said IWPR Vice President and Executive Director Barbara Gault, Ph.D. "The nation needs to take bold, coordinated action to speed the pace of progress toward closing the wage gap and ending discrimination by sex and race." 

Throughout the spring, IWPR will release additional reports from the Status of Women in the States: 2015 with national and state-level data on Poverty & Opportunity, Violence & Safety, Health & Well-Being, Reproductive Rights, Political Participation, and Work & Family. Data on Violence & Safety and Work & Family are new additions to the 2015 edition. Since the first Status of Women in the States release in 1996, the reports have been used to increase community and private investment in programs and policies that improve outcomes for women throughout the United States. Visit www.statusofwomendata.org for more information about theStatus of Women in the Statesproject and upcoming releases.

The Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR)is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization that conducts rigorous research and disseminates its findings to address the needs of women and their families, promote public dialogue, and strengthen communities and societies.

Research: More women than men live in poverty

More women than men live in poverty throughout the country and far fewer own a business, according to new research released last week.

In advance of Equal Pay Day on April 14, the Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR) released a report showing that women have higher rates of poverty, and much lower rates of business ownership than men in all 50 states, including the District of Columbia, despite having made significant progress over the last 25 years in attaining a college education.

This trend is especially pronounced among the youngest workers. Millennial women are considerably more likely than their male counterparts to have a bachelor's degree or higher (36.3 percent, compared with only 28.3 percent of Millennial men), yet Millennial women have lower earnings than men in all but one state, and higher rates of poverty than Millennial men in every state in the nation.

In this second release from IWPR's Status of Women in the States: 2015 series, IWPR analyzed four indicators to create the Poverty & Opportunity Composite Index: educational attainment, business ownership, poverty, and access to health insurance coverage. IWPR then ranked and graded every state based on their composite scores in these areas. Overall, the status of women with respect to poverty and opportunity has worsened in the majority of states (29) in the last decade. In 21 states and theDistrict of Columbia, women's status in these areas has improved.

"Despite their significant educational progress, women remain more economically vulnerable than men and this is especially true for Millennials, who represent the future of our labor market and economy," said Heidi Hartmann, PhD., president of IWPR and a MacArthur Fellow. "The inequality between women's and men's wages and their differential poverty rates, at all ages and educational levels, is a significant part of the income inequality story that is not being told."

In general, women in Northeastern states have more access to opportunity than women in the South. Four states in the Northeast—Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont, rank in the top 10 on the Poverty & Opportunity Index, while six Southern states—Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi,  Tennessee, and West Virginia—are in the bottom 10. The District of Columbia has the highest rates of women's educational attainment in the country, with over half of women aged 25 and older holding a bachelor's degree or higher, the highest share of women-owned businesses, and one of the highest rates of health insurance coverage, yet also has one of highest rates of women living in poverty, reflecting the large degree of inequality in the jurisdiction.

Across the United States, 15.5 percent of women live in poverty, compared with 11.9 percent of men. Native American (28.1 percent), Black (25.7 percent), and Hispanic (24.0 percent) women are all more than twice as likely to live in poverty as white women (11.7 percent). If all working women received equal pay with men, who are of the same age, have the same level of education, work the same number of hours, and have the same urban/rural status, the report notes that the poverty rate for working women in the United States would be cut by more than half, declining from 8.1 percent to 3.9 percent.

Today, women are slightly more likely than men to hold bachelor's degrees (29.7 percent of women aged 25 and older held bachelors' degrees in 2013, compared with 29.5 percent of men of the same age), but women's educational access is not distributed equally across racial and ethnic groups or by region. Only one in six Hispanic and Native American women hold a bachelor's degree, compared with nearly half of Asian/Pacific Islander women and one in three white women. One in three Hispanic women has less than a high school diploma, which is more than four times the share of white women without a high school diploma. In the states, only about one in five women aged 25 and older in West Virginia (19.1 percent), Arkansas (20.7 percent), and Mississippi (21.6 percent) have a college education, compared with women in the District of Columbia (53.5 percent of women aged 25 and older hold a bachelor's degree or higher), Massachusetts(40.3 percent), and Maryland (38.1 percent).

"The persistent wage gap, even for women with bachelor's degrees, in addition to high female poverty rates, and lack of educational access for Hispanic, Black, and Native American women, all point to the need for gender- and race-sensitive approaches to addressing income inequality," said Barbara Gault, Ph.D., vice president and executive director of IWPR.

The report finds that women in the United States own a much smaller share of businesses than men. The proportion of women-owned businesses inthe United Statesincreased marginally from 26.0 percent to 28.8 percent between 1997 and 2007, the most recent year for which federal data is available.  In addition to the District of Columbia (where 34.5 percent of businesses are owned by women), states with the highest rates of women-owned businesses includeMaryland (32.6 percent), New York (31.7 percent), Hawaii (31.0 percent), and Georgia (30.9 percent). In addition to Arkansas (where 24.5 percent of businesses are owned by women), the other four states in the bottom five for women's business ownership are in the Mountain West: South Dakota (22.1 percent), Idaho (23.5 percent), Montana (24.6 percent), and North Dakota (24.7 percent).

In analyzing access to health insurance, the report finds substantial increases in women's health insurance coverage following the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Between 2008 and 2014, the percentage of women aged 18 to 24 without health insurance decreased by more than a third, from 24.9 to 15.9 percent. Uninsured rates for women of all ages dropped 18.5 percent between 2008 and 2014, from 13.0 percent of women lacking insurance in 2008, to 10.6 percent in the first nine months of 2014. Data on health insurance coverage by race/ethnicity and state following full implementation of the ACA are not available, but previous data showed that Hispanic, non-union women were particularly unlikely to have access to health insurance in 2013, before the exchanges provided access, with less than half of this population receiving coverage. Of the 10 states ranked lowest for women's access to health insurance in 2013, only three states—Arkansas, Nevada, and New Mexico—have opted to expand Medicaid under the ACA.

Poverty rates also vary considerably depending on whether women (and men) have children. Single mothers have the highest rates of poverty in every state, compared with married men and women, single men and women without children, and single fathers. Nationally, 43.1 percent of households headed by single mothers are living in poverty. That is nearly twice the poverty rate of households headed by single fathers (23.6 percent in poverty), and nearly three times the rate of poverty of single women without children (15.0 percent). If working single mothers in the United States received equal pay, the very high poverty rate for families with a working single mother would be cut nearly in half, from 28.7 percent to 15 percent.

More data on poverty and opportunity among millennial women, older women, immigrant women and women living with same-sex partners, along with detailed breakdowns by race and ethnicity, are available at www.statusofwomendata.org.

This is the second in a series of seven releases from IWPR'sStatus of Women in the States: 2015project. Earlier, IWPR released data onwomen's employment and earnings, including projections on when women in each state would receive equal pay. Throughout the spring, IWPR will release additional reports with state-level data on Violence & Safety, Health & Well-Being, Reproductive Rights, Political Participation, and Work & Family. The Status of Women in the States reports have been used to increase community and private investment in programs and policies that improve outcomes for women. Visit www.statusofwomendata.org for more information about the project and upcoming releases.

TheInstitute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR)is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization that conducts rigorous research and disseminates its findings to address the needs of women and their families, promote public dialogue, and strengthen communities and societies.

Cat creates new analytics division

Caterpillar Inc. announced Friday it will create a new division that will unite people and resources for data analytics while driving innovation.

The Analytics & Innovation Division, which will be headed by Caterpillar Vice President Greg Folley, will enable the company to better capitalize “on the growing importance and excitement of data analytics and to drive innovation to support customers,” the company said.

Formation of the new division and personnel changes that will result take effect May 1.

“The division will bring together the people and resources that will foster a culture with innovation at the core, form a broad and connected analytics ecosystem and manage strategic third party relationships with providers likeChicago-based Uptake, a start-up with which the company recently announced a technology and predictive analytics agreement,” the company said in a news release.

Caterpillar and Uptake will create a platform that takes massive amounts of data, combines it with data science to understand patterns and quickly deploys information to save customers money, optimize performance and prevent unplanned downtime.

“The company is also placing resources in the Silicon Valley and has seeded money in a venture capital fund with the goal of investing in emerging technologies that could further enhance Caterpillar's product and service development. All of these activities under the umbrella of the AI division will complement the innovative work that thousands of Caterpillar employees are already doing around the world — a trait that has been critical to Caterpillar's success since the formation of the company 90 years ago,” the release said.

Rob Charter, Caterpillar group president responsible for the Customer & Dealer Support Division, said the new division will enable the company “to be innovative; to imagine, create, and embrace the new and the different, and to be disruptive in our own way."

He continued, "A huge opportunity for competitive advantage lies in the analytics and innovation space, and we have a unique opportunity to connect data from the broadest product line that cuts across multiple industries. We can transform the mountains of incoming data – from a single machine or engine, an entire job site, the supply chain, a shipping location and much more – into valuable information for our customers and suppliers more efficiently and effectively than anyone else. As the vice president of Reman, Components & Work Tools (RCWT) since 2011, (Folley) has led the organization to adopt innovative technologies, making him the ideal choice for this new position."

Folley has been with Caterpillar since 1995 and has held numerous positions including senior labor relations consultant, human resources manager, corporate labor relations manager, U.K. HR Shared Services director, director of Compensation and Benefits and general manager of the Specialty Products Business Unit of Motion and Power Control Division. He was named a vice president in 2008.

With Folley leading Analytics & Innovation, Doug Hoerrwill now become vice president responsible  for the RCWT Division, reporting to Charter. Hoerr is currently vice president of the Strategic Services Division (SSD).

Hoerr has been with Caterpillar for 21 years, starting in accounting, and was named vice president of the Strategic Service Division in 2014.

"Doug's more than two decades of experience ranging from accounting, to business manager in several Caterpillar groups to his work on strategic acquisitions and divestitures are a strong foundation for leading the diverse RCWT group, which must closely collaborate with units across the company," said Charter.

Caterpillar said the functions of the Strategic Services Division will be incorporated into the Finance Services Division led by Vice PresidentMike DeWalt.