Diane Coppini is Director of Technical Engineering Services at UC Berkeley Facilities Services. (UC Berkeley Photo by Julian Meyn)
I am the youngest of my parents’ seven children. I was born and raised in Northern California in Humboldt County, Fortuna. My father was a truck driver. The logging and fishing industries were huge back then, and Dad mostly hauled logs. My mom was a waitress who eventually bought her own restaurant.
I planned to go to Humboldt State University and study journalism—my grandmother was a first-year grad student at Humboldt State University—but I became a housewife. I eloped with my boyfriend in 1987 after high school. My parents weren’t too keen on me for running away and getting married, but they got together and jumped in quickly. They were Depression-era kids: my father left school for WWII, came home and married my mother, and she dropped out of high school before graduating.
A year later our first son was born and two years later identical twins and then five years later we got divorced.
I needed to find a job but had no marketable skills. I hadn’t gone to college and was mostly unemployed.
It was before computers back then, so I picked up one of the free weekly newspapers and saw ads for a receptionist and a plumber’s worker. I didn’t have the wardrobe to be a receptionist and basically all I needed to become a plumber was a pair of work boots. The man who did the hiring looked me up and down and said, “Today I have nothing, but tomorrow you can come and dig a ditch.” At the end of each day, he would ask me how I was doing and if i want to come back At the end of the first week I said to him, ‘If this is a real job, you don’t have to invite me back. I’ll just show up. Is that a real job?” He said yes.” I showed up Monday morning.
I dug trenches for sewers and water pipes. I got stronger and better at it. I got a lot of training on the job. I ended up in Sacramento and worked for a number of different engineering companies. Construction jobs were easy to come by if you showed up and worked hard.
I’ve worked for 15 years, alternating between projects in prisons, building malls and hospitals, and high-end remodeling in San Francisco. I wasn’t in a union and I wasn’t on vacation or sick leave. Taking time off meant not making any money. I was always the only woman on the job. I was often sexually harassed. When I was doing a youth home extension, there was an old boilermaker, a welder, who thought I couldn’t do anything right. I was his apprentice. He yelled at me every day. I would get in my truck and cry all the way home. But in the end he shook my hand and said, “I let a lot of men run away, and you stayed.”
Diane Coppini on Mother’s Day 2018 with her sons. Alex is beside her, Chris is behind Alex, and Chris’ twin Nick is behind Diane. (Photo courtesy of Diane Coppini)
I’ve always been who I am and if my parents were still alive they would tell you that’s how I came, but working in the field made me tough. I have thick skin. I like to think that I treat people the way I would like to be treated. I don’t think I’ve ever treated anyone the way that boilermaker treated me. I wasn’t abusive.
When I first started working at East Bay MUD in 2004, there were three other women who were plumbers. The first step to getting the job was a three-hour video test with about 200 other people in a Cal State East Bay auditorium. The test was carried out simultaneously in two lecture halls. If you pass this part of the test, you will be invited to the physical exam. It consisted of shoveling sand into a raised bed within a specified time, making sure it was level and above a line drawn in the box. If I remember correctly, there were eight stations with different time tasks. If you made the cut, there would be a panel interview that would end up with a list of applicants. I was voted 12th on the recruitment list by 450 people who started the process.
When I was a plumber at East Bay MUD, they had a tuition reimbursement program and I was able to move into management with 24 college credits. It was a clear path out of the ditch and into the office. So I went to school at night.
It took me two and a half years to go to community college. I started at Berkeley City College in 2005. I found it super interesting. They had an adult learner program called PACE and I got an AA in liberal arts. I remembered how much I liked school when I started and I decided I wanted to switch and graduate. So in the fall of 2007 I applied to UC Berkeley.
A friend of mine who worked in facility services said that there were a couple of plumbing positions open, one in the home and food department and one in facility service. He told me to apply. I heard about the apartment hunt within weeks. I did an interview but they hired someone else. In April 2008, someone called Cal and said, “Do you still want to be interviewed?” I said, “Sure,” because I didn’t know how to go to Berkeley when I arrived and worked for East Bay MUD. There was no night shift, and classes at Cal were mostly during the day. On May 1st I received an email saying “Congratulations, welcome as a transfer student” and the next day I got a call saying I had gotten the job. I started work at the end of May and worked through the summer, then I started classes in the fall of 2008.
My twin sons and I went to the welcome reception at the Pauley Ballroom and heard Chancellor Birgeneau talk about how many transfer students applied to Cal and how many were accepted. I think about 6,000 applied and 2,500 were accepted. My sons were finally impressed by my performance.
“Even on bad days,” says Coppini, “I still love my job, I’m still trying to make things better, to fix things. It’s about supporting research and education.” (UC Berkeley photo by Julian Meyn)
My major was Media Studies. I was really only in school for personal growth and happiness. I didn’t think it would advance my career. I took a lot of undergraduate courses in sociology, anthropology, political science, and media studies, and they were all really good. I read the research my instructors had done and it was amazing. At this point I was in my 40s and taking a class in work boots and carhartts. I had great support from my superiors and colleagues. They allowed me to have a flexible schedule, attend classes when they were available and just work earlier or later as needed.
At weekends. I wrote essays, studied and hung out with the kids as much as possible. I had no life beyond that. My oldest son was already grown and out of the house. The twins were 17, went to school with their father in the South Bay and visited me on the weekends.
After graduating in 2010, I stayed with Facilities. I worked at the campus plumbing shop for about 18 months, was head of the interior plumbing shop for a few years, and then interim manager of a fire and safety group. And then for a couple of years I was the interim director of what I’m doing now at Berkeley. It’s been a quick 15 years at Cal.
In 2010, I waited for the Affordable Care Act to pass. My oldest son, Alex, had a chipped tooth, and I thought, “When this is over, I can put him back on my (health) insurance.” And so I put him on my insurance during open enrollment. Then, on Christmas Eve, he had a massive seizure. We drove up Highway 80 almost to Truckee. His health insurance coverage was due to start on January 1st and I figured if I took him anywhere his diagnosis would become a pre-existing condition. So I asked him, ‘Do you want to go to the hospital? But he said, “No, I just want to go to sleep, I have a headache.”
It was Christmas, we came home and on January 2nd we made an appointment with him. He hadn’t had another seizure. But after an MRI and CT scan, my phone rang and the neurologist we saw that morning said Alex had a brain tumor.
Part of staying with Cal was knowing he would have health insurance until he was 26, and he was 22 at the time. Over the course of his illness he had two craniotomies, chemotherapy, radiation, cyber knife radiation, experimental light therapy that required him to wear a cap with electrodes… all kinds of treatments. He was a soldier. He died at home a week after his 30th birthday with me and his best friend by his side. It should be noted: we had one hell of a birthday party which he thoroughly enjoyed.
At the onset of his illness, I knew I could unclog sinks and toilets at Berkeley for the rest of my career if it made the environment more conducive to learning and research. I wanted to do my part to help someone find a cure for cancer. But I’m also not the type to just settle down.
Today I feel like I’m at the peak of my career. In my position as Director of Engineering and Technical Services at Facilities Services, I enjoy being the glue that holds my teams together – the Energy Office, Energy Management Systems (EMS), Engineering and Technical Services, Combined Heat and Power Plant, Fire Life Safety Services and Preventative Maintenance – working together and keeping our power grid and buildings operational and secure.
Even on bad days I love my job, I’m still trying to make things better, fix things. It is about supporting research and education.
