Hattie Hasan, founder of Stopcocks Women Plumbers and the Women Installers Together conference, has been awarded an MBE in the 2020 New Year’s Honours List for her work supporting and promoting tradeswomen in UK.

Hattie left a job in teaching to enter the plumbing industry in 1990. However, unable to find a job with an existing company, she employed herself, day releasing herself to college until she qualified.

Some years later, she realised that the small numbers of women in the industry meant that they were all encountering similar obstacles. After starting a website in 2007, women began to contact her for support and information on how to enter the industry and gain qualifications and experience. She still receives emails and calls every week from women asking for her help.

In 2017, Hattie relaunched Stopcocks as a national franchise, before launching the Women Installers Together Conference in September 2017 (now an annual event) for female heating engineers, plumbers, and their allies.

Hattie is reportedly delighted at the recognition receiving an MBE will give her and the increased ability it will give her to highlight the issues facing women in the plumbing and heating trade, who remain seriously under represented.

An MBE, which stands for Member of the Order of the British Empire, is the third highest ranking Order of the British Empire award, behind CBE and then OBE. They are given to people to recognise a positive impact they have made in their work.

King George V created the Orders of the British Empire awards during World War I to reward services to the war effort by people in the UK (i.e. not on the front line). Now, twice a year, awards are submitted by a committee to the Prime Minister and then the Queen for approval.