If the competition to recruit top IT talent is any indication, we’re going to need to find ways to get more young people interested in careers in computing. The problem is many kids — especially females — view IT as a daunting field that only a handful of genetic wonders are cut out for. To that, Michele D. Guel says phooey. Guel won a 2016 Anita Borg Institute Women of Vision award (also known as an ABIE Award) and is a distinguished engineer and chief security architect at Cisco Systems, Inc.

Guel told Jeff Frick (@JeffFrick), cohost of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, that she struggled early in her career. She recounted how for years she would go to conferences and she would be the only woman attendee. The sense of isolation made it difficult to keep her morale high in a challenging field.

“What really catapulted my career was I did get a mentor, and I have that mentor to this day 25 years later — Alan  Paller, founder of The SANS Institute,” she said. Guel, who is now involved in mentor and sponsor communities at Cisco for women in tech, said, “I know the importance of the mentor.” She said that her mentor gave her “a platform to learn, grow, make mistakes, and push out of my comfort zone,” and she strives to pay it forward to the young people she now mentors.

The surprising way to measure progress

Guel said that she’s seen vast changes since she began her IT career. She said that in some areas, she sees a female majority in new hires and overall numbers nearly reaching parity with men. But her favorite way to illustrate the change she’s seen is to recount a moment outside the ladies room at a conference a few years ago.

She said the women waiting to use the restroom looked at one another, and, “We all had an epiphany — there was a line for the first time.”

Watch the full video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of the Anita Borg Institute’s Women of Vision Awards 2016.

Photo by SiliconANGLE