Cambrian College hosts annual Jill of All Trades event on campus

Read the full Education News Canada article.

In almost every region in Canada, there is an urgent need for more workers to fill well-paying positions in skilled trades and engineering technology.

That message was given loud and clear to female high school students today at the annual Jill of All Trades event held at Cambrian College.

Industry leaders, local sponsors, staff, and faculty from Cambrian College pulled out all the stops to showcase everything the skilled trades and engineering technology sectors have to offer young women considering their next steps after high school.

200 students from seven local high schools as well as from the Serpent River First Nation and the Nipissing/Parry Sound Catholic District School Board, took part in Jill of All Trades this year.

The students experienced trades and technology careers first-hand by taking part in hands-on activities and workshops in a number of Cambrian’s labs.

“Every year this event gets bigger and better,” says Renee Scott, Cambrian’s Director of Marketing, Recruitment, and Student Success. “This event is a win for everyone involved. Female students get an opportunity to explore good careers they may not have considered otherwise, and they are meeting women in the trades who can encourage and motivate them. Employers are already recruiting the next generation of talented employees, particularly young women. We also get to show the quality of the trades and engineering technology programs we have to offer, plus our campus experience.”

Cambrian College and select sponsors awarded seven $1,000 scholarships and two $500 scholarships to students who plan on pursuing careers in trades and engineering technology at Cambrian College.

…Read the full Education News Canada article.

Confederation College once again hosts Jill of All Trades Event

Read the full CBC News article by Nicky Shaw.

College works to empower the next generation of skilled female professionals in Northwestern Ontario

Hundreds of female high school students got their hands dirty in Confederation College’s Tec Hub for a Jill of All Trades event in Thunder Bay, Ont. this Wednesday. 

They were there for a one-day event encouraging more women to go into the skilled trades by providing some hands-on experience. It is part of a larger nation-wide initiative to empower young women.  

Students participated first-hand in three different workshops in different sectors of the trades. There were also mentorship sessions led by industry leaders and alumni and they were able to look at potential careers at a job fair.

Molly Forneri, a grade 12 student from Westgate High School, took part in the event because she’s looking into the trades for the future. She said she ‘really loves welding and really wanted to try it out.’

….Read the full CBC News article by Nicky Shaw.

Cambrian grad’s message to young women in trades: You can do it

Read the full Northern Ontario Business news article by Len Gillis.

Powerline tech’s message to young women in trades: You can do it

Lauren Schandlen addressed high schoolers during Cambrian College’s annual Jill of All Trades event.

More than 200 young women from across Greater Sudbury were at Cambrian College on Oct. 24 to hear stories of how more and more women are finding success in the industrial trades.

But for all the successes, there was also a story of overcoming a challenge.

One of the speakers was Cambrian graduate (2017), Lauren Schandlen, who is now a Red Seal powerline technician for Ontario Hydro. She has worked on hydro line repair jobs across Ontario, which included dangling from a helicopter to install hydro poles in remote locations.

Schandlen went to high school in Bracebridge and now lives in Orillia.

Most recently, Schandlen returned from working in Georgia and Florida, helping to repair hydro lines damaged by hurricanes there.

She also told a harrowing story of working on a frozen, icy hydro tower near Toronto a few years back.

Schandlen said she had climbed about a third of the way up, five storeys high, when she realized she could not reach up to the next spar. Schandlen said it was a terrible moment for her at the time.

“It was February, icy and cold. I made so many excuses in my head of why I couldn’t do it. I’m not strong enough, I’m too short, I’m tired, I can’t do it. As I sat there, 50 feet in the air, everyone else on my climbing crew was already at the tower. I looked down at the guys on the ground and started to tear up behind my tinted safety glasses,” she said… Read the rest of the Northern Ontario Business news article by Len Gillis.

Owens Community College encourages women to explore skilled trades

Read the full The Blade news article by James Trumm.

When CK Kramer talked with high school friends about going into the trades after graduation, they weren’t exactly encouraging.

“That doesn’t sound like a ‘you’ thing,” one of them said.

“My friends said it was a male-dominated profession and wondered where I would fit in,” young Kramer said. “They were also worried about me being in a toxic work environment. And I accepted that at first.”

But young Kramer’s friends are now more supportive as their classmate weighs the question of what path to take after graduation from St. Ursula Academy in May.

“I’m looking into everything,” young Kramer said. “I’m really interested now in operating drilling machinery.”

CK’s interest in the trades got a boost at the second annual Jill of All Trades event at Owens Community College on Thursday. The program seeks to provide young women in high school with hands-on experience in a variety of skilled trades, including advanced manufacturing, transportation, machining, robotics, diesel tech, auto repair, welding, crane rigging, pipefitting, electrical work, and other trades.

Founded in Canada in 2014 by Rosie Hessian, Jill of All Trades seeks to bring down the barriers that have kept women out of the skilled trades. It stresses hands-on experiences, said Ms. Hessian, the director and chairman of the school of interdisciplinary studies at Conestoga College in Kitchener, Ont.

By the end of this year, Ms. Hessian projects over 1,800 students will have participated in the program that promotes awareness of, experience with, and opportunities in the trades.

“There are barriers to the trades for women,” she said. “Many of them don’t have the experience or confidence to try to get in the door. But we want to stress to them that good opportunities are available.”

A variety of companies were present at the event to discuss those opportunities in detail, including Rudolph Libbe Group, The Andersons, First Solar, Hancock Steel, Dunbar, Advanced Technologies Consultants, the Mechanical Contractors Association of Northwest Ohio, and Buckeye Broadband.

Jamie Hooven and Bailey Phommalee work for Dunbar, a mechanical services specialty contractor.

“We’re hoping to get women interested in STEM and the trades in general,” Ms. Hooven said. “The biggest obstacle is that these are male-dominated professions.”

Ms. Phommalee is a pipefitter apprentice who has worked for four years with Dunbar and Local 50 of the United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipefitting Industry. Her apprenticeship has one more year to go.

“Young people don’t see the trades represented in their schools,” she said, “but there are a lot of opportunities in this area. And we need young workers to pay the retirement costs of the older generation.”

“The most common question we get is how much money we make,” Ms. Phommalee said, “and the answer is about $50 an hour.”

Another exhibitor was Advanced Technologies Consultants, whose booth was manned by Chad Whited, the company’s director for business development.

“We like showcasing electrical equipment, automation, robotics, and augmented reality at these events,” he said. “We let the students play with the robotics and augmented reality stuff. We’re not really here to recruit employees for us, though. We’re here to build a bigger pipeline of people coming into these fields.”

Mr. Whited also talks to students about the stigma some people attach to the trades and jobs in the manufacturing sector… Read the full The Blade news article by James Trumm.