![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/Women-in-Trades.jpg\")
<\/a>Tremblay had an inkling before going into the program that she wanted to become a pipefitter, but says this experience helped solidify her decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy dad and I kind of discussed what was coming up in the trades and what was going to be the future of the trades in our province,\u201d says Tremblay, whose father is a sheet metal journeyman. \u201cPipefitting and gasfitting is going to be a big thing. So, I went, \u2018Well, that\u2019s where I want to go, then.\u2019 And it confirmed it once I got into the class and I was able to do some hands-on. I really enjoyed it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tremblay\u2019s classmate Erika Scherschel has found this experience equally helpful in deciding what trade to pursue.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis process has confirmed that I want to do welding,\u201d says Scherschel, who had an interest in the trade before starting the program. \u201cI have a friend that I used to work with many years ago, and she\u2019s a welder, and she loves it. And I have an aunt who does a lot of art with metal and welding with metal, and that sort of piqued my interest in it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although she didn\u2019t join the program specifically for its marine focus, Scherschel says it\u2019s helped her realize her ultimate career goals.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy dream is to work with Seaspan as a welder,\u201d she admits. \u201cThey\u2019re such an impressive company on paper. Their safety practices are incredible. They really care about their employees and it shows. They also really care about the environment, and that\u2019s something that\u2019s really important to me. And the other thing is they\u2019re really into diversity. They\u2019re one of the sites we saw that had the most girls. They had girls in every department. They had girls talk to us. They\u2019re starting to see the advantages of women in the trades and they\u2019re really trying to get on that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lack of women in the male-dominated trades is a sensitive topic that\u2019s been discussed by these students and their instructors, who are mostly male.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt usually starts, generally, they\u2019ll call us \u2018guys\u2019 and then go, \u2018Oh, I\u2019m so sorry, is that okay?\u2019 And we\u2019re all like, \u2018Yeah, that\u2019s fine.\u2019 We don\u2019t mind,\u201d says Tremblay.<\/p>\n
WITT homeroom instructor Steve Anderson, who spent 35 years in the production shops in the Naval dockyards, was inspired to come out of retirement to be involved in this program and advocate for women in trades.<\/p>\n
\u201cI apprenticed in 1974 and there were no women in the dockyards and the trades at that time. In the shipyards, in particular, they were just non-existent. And now, it\u2019s just mainstream. It\u2019s really encouraging to go down to these shipyards and, whether it\u2019s the older fellas or the new, young apprentices, the males, they just accept them as equal so it\u2019s really, really changed and probably in the last 10 to 15 years, there\u2019s just been a huge change,\u201d says Anderson.<\/p>\n
While all three admit there is going to be the odd person who has an issue with women in trades, the men involved with program have been supportive.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey just want us there. They want to share their knowledge,\u201d says Tremblay. \u201cThey know there\u2019s a gap coming up between skilled workers and those that are retiring. We\u2019re the ones that are going to fill it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Women in Trades Training (WITT) program at Camosun College offers an overview of the trades, helping women trying to figure out their career path or looking to make a change to decide if trades is right for them. The latest WITT program offers a marine focus; 13 women have spent the last 12 weeks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15888,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-webexclusive"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15887"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15887\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15889,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15887\/revisions\/15889"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}