INSPIRE – Elsie MacGill (1905-1980) - Canada's First Female Electrical Engineer

As I was creating my list of inspirational people, I knew I had to start with Elsie MacGill – Canada’s first
female electrical engineer (U of T Class of 1927). Then, to my surprise, my daughter’s scholastic book order had this book about her.

Imagine what it would have been like in the early 1900’s for a woman gifted with strong math and science abilities. The strength and courage it would have taken her to enroll in engineering, graduate, obtain her master’s degree, advancing to become the chief aeronautical engineer and lead designer for the Hurricane fighter planes, that helped win World War II. This was Elsie MacGill!

She inspires me for so many reasons:

• She was a highly skilled design engineer - her aircraft designs were second to none, she found ways of building the planes more efficiently, and trained the workers.

• She was determined - overcoming polio and continuing to build her career, while her body healed.

• She was confident and fearless – riding in her planes' inaugural flights.

• She was influential - using her influence to help bring down barriers so that todays women face fewer.

  WOW!

Larsen Engineering:  DESIGN + POWER + INSPIRE | 3 of 52