Virginiabetts

Linda Kelly isn’t shocked when someone asks her to pick up 1,050-pound hogshead of tobacco and move it a mile. Mrs. Kelly, an industrial electric forklift operator for R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company and one of 135,000 females in the United States who operate a motor vehicle for a living, considers such a request a routine part of a day’s work.

"Driving a forklift truck is no harder than other work," she notes. "You simply have to know what you’re doing and pay attention."

Mrs. Kelly grabbed the opportunity to become a forklift operator three years ago after working 10 years as a seasonal tobacco processing employee. She was the first female hired by R. J. Reynolds as a full-time forklift driver, says she doesn’t consider her occupation unusual for a woman.