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.