When Linda Knickerbocker first started in the distribution side of the industry, the landscape for women was completely different.
“I can’t tell you how many times I had people say to me, ‘Let me talk to a man,’” says Knickerbocker, who started in the industry in 1989 working on the distribution side and now is the national sales manager for Cleveland-based industrial PVF manufacturer/master distributor Merit Brass. “I could give them an answer and they could speak to my supervisor who was a male and he would give them the exact same answer. It was very hard 15-20 years ago to have end users who trusted you and found you believable.”