![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Freeman-Fabrication.jpg\")
<\/a>But her upbringing came calling one day when she was helping her uncle out in his shop around Christmas.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe asked if I wanted to try welding,\u201d she says. \u201cI was instantly mesmerized and drawn to the trade, and started doing more research about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, five years later, Freeman sees her profession everywhere she goes. It\u2019s hard to go into a home or office building without being drawn to something; she\u2019s always looking under tables and desks to check out the weld.<\/p>\n
\u201cI realized how versatile it was,\u201d she says. \u201cI originally thought, \u2018I don\u2019t want to be in the oil rigs; I don\u2019t want to be doing that type of work.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Welding wasn\u2019t something Freeman was exposed to a lot as a child, but as she got more and more into it, the creativity began to draw her even further in.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s why the business started out as a furniture company, but we\u2019ve gradually transitioned into more custom metal work\u2014gates, railings, stringers; all that good stuff,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Freeman pays particular attention to a product\u2019s finish and the details of the look and feel of it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe spend more time on the grinding, or the polishing,\u201d she says. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of attention to detail. I\u2019ve always wanted to offer that.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Freeman, being part of an industry that is still largely male-dominated means boundaries are of the utmost importance, but roadblocks and inequalities are present in all industries, she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s something that we do encounter as women in the trades, because we are still a minority on worksites, and still a minority, especially, as business owners,\u201d she says. \u201cPersonally, I just like to focus on being myself. I like to let my work speak for itself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Freeman says that Camosun played a big role in the connections she made, not just in terms of gender equality in her program, but also because the instructors worked really hard to make sure that students made industry connections so they could get a job once they graduated.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Women In Trades Training] were huge in making connections and opening doors for you outside of school,\u201d she says. \u201cI think that\u2019s huge for women to utilize that program.\u201d<\/p>\n
Freeman says she now sees how heavily integrated steel work and welding is in society. She also says that, like anything, becoming a good welder takes a lot of work.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re not just a good welder all of a sudden. You have to work on your skills,\u201d she says. \u201cFabrication is a totally different element to welding; learning how to build things, and learning the proper steps you need to take to build a box. You think that building a box is easy; it\u2019s not\u2026 As soon as I became familiar with welding, it\u2019s everywhere\u2026 you can\u2019t really build a structure without it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When Camosun College Women in Trades alumnus Bront\u00e9 Freeman\u2014who took trades Foundations Level C in 2016 and Level B in 2017\u2014was growing up, there was always tools and equipment around. Coming from a family of fix-it-yourself entrepreneurs, Freeman isn\u2019t surprised she ended up where she did\u2014as lead fabricator and business owner of local welding company […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20487,"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":[9,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-webexclusive","category-campus"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20486","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=20486"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20488,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20486\/revisions\/20488"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}