Google looks to women, people of color to fill openings in trade work
Kim Mcbride and Michelle Ericson both came up through the ranks as apprentices and now own their business, Balanced Electric in Junction City. “You got to have a doer,” said Ericson
By Tom Peterson
Brennah Miller, right and friend Zeena Weedman, fishing on the John Day River.
“It's not for everyone. It's a tough career,” said Electrician Brennah Miller on Thursday, July 7. She operates SherCo Electric from her shop in Wasco, Oregon. “It's chauvinistic, you know. You have to want it.”
“On the other side of it, it is so rewarding, especially when someone thinks you can’t pull it off and you fix their problem,” she said.
Nationally, the trades industry is in need of millions of skilled workers as the recession in 2008, early retirement during COVID and a reduction in schooling have prompted the shortage, according to bridgeamerricasgap.org
At the same time, trade industries in Oregon, Washington and the gorge have never been busier as the states continue to rebuild and develop.
Oregon Tradeswomen’s Mary Ann Naylor said it is a perfect time for women and people of color to enter the industry.
Trades becoming more appealing to women. Gabriella Haskins, this years winner of the Wasco County Distinguished Young Women’s Scholarship Program, recently said she intended to pursue a career as an electrician. “I would like to have an all-female business and employ female electricians,” she said. “That would be so cool.” Read her story here.
Trade jobs are here to stay, providing stability for those willing to go down the career path.
“Our trade jobs cannot be exported,” said Naylor a spokesperson with the nonprofit, based in Portland.
Brennah Miller of Wasco, who became a journeyman in 2010, is part of the 9 percent of women in the trades workforce in Oregon and Washington, Naylor said. That number falls to 3 percent nationally.
Miller said there are skeptics, no doubt, of women being able to do the work.
Advice to other women looking at the trades for a career?
“Tell them to be tough-skinned to get through their apprenticeship and the world is your oyster, and you can go anywhere,” she said. “There are tons of opportunities in the trade world. For a long time, they have been overlooked; everything was about going to college, but that does not work for everyone. The money in trades is great… ”
Journeymen electricians, for example, earn more than $41 an hour and apprentices start at more than $18 an hour while learning their trade and getting increases as they become more experienced.
Google drops $150k on Oregon Tradeswomen
With the underrepresentation in trades, Oregon Tradeswomen is working to give women and people of color a shot at the trades, quadrupling salaries, and creating greater equity in the industry.
The nonprofit recently received a $150,000 grant from Google, which relies heavily on the trades for the construction and maintenance of their data plants. The company currently has agreements on the books with The City of The Dalles and Wasco County to add two more data centers in the Port of The Dalles, which would bring its total to five. They must both be built in the next 20 years before the deal expires.
Naylor with Oregon Tradeswomen said they intended to be holding pre-apprentice classes in the gorge within the next year.
Oregon Tradeswomen Founding Sisters Circle: Connie Ashbrook, Elevator Constructor; Kate Barrett, Carpenter; Melinda Koken, Carpenter; Sandy Hay Magdaleno, Operating Engineer; Ann Zawaski, Carpenter. The nonprofit was formed in 1989.
Interested in Trades?
Support Local News
Available for everyone; funded by readers.
Oregon Tradeswomen is currently enrolling women and people of color in one of their informational sessions- 1.5 hours - two are slated for next week, July 11 and July 15. Click here to find out the requirements and more.
If you qualify, they offer free 8-week, 192-hour pre-apprenticeship and employment readiness training programs to prepare adult job-seekers for a career in the skilled construction trades at no cost.
Completion of he class punches your ticket for direct entry into both UA Local 290 and NECA/IBEW Electrical Training Center.
“More women in Oregon can and want to build our state’s future, but we have to remove the barriers that have kept them from these jobs,” said Kelly Kupcak, Executive Director of Oregon Tradeswomen. “This funding will help us reach more people and offer them training and support services that will get them into these jobs even faster.”
Photo provided by Oregon Tradeswomen.
In 2021, 90 percent of those served by Oregon Tradeswomen programs were low-income individuals; 49 percent were people of color, and 18 percent were single parents. The organization has an 87 percent placement rate for participants who often secure well-paying jobs with health benefits and retirement programs.
“With this work, the team at Oregon Tradeswomen is building a more inclusive economy that benefits everyone” said Suzanne Lindsay, Regional Lead for Workforce Development for Google’s data centers in The Dalles. “Careers in construction offer workers a path to family-wage jobs that are critical for building a new economy and building better communities across the region.”
Need for Trades still expanding
Rye Development, LLC, out of Spokane, is working through the federal permit process to create a closed-loop pumped hydro storage that could be under construction as soon as 2025 on the former Goldendale Aluminum plant site next to the John Day Dam. The company would dump $2.5 billion and could create some 3,000 jobs where a fledgling apprentice could gain journeyman credentials at a single location.
With the expansion of renewable energy growing for the foreseeable future and an increased demand to power electric vehicles, it appears trades in those areas are also rock solid.
A little insight on getting going
Michelle Ericson
Michelle Ericson, 55, of Junction City started her career as an electrician in 1990. She is now a journeyman and owns her own business, Balance Electric, with business partner Kim McBride.
But it did not come easy.
In 1990, “I saw a man with a Builder’s Electric jacket on and asked him how I could become an electrician. I thought that it looked so easy and I could totally do that wok. That man just happened to be the owner of Builders Electric, Fred Whitkop, who gave me the chance. He helped me get enrolled in the apprenticeship program and hired me as an apprentice at Builder’s Electric in Eugene.”
Ericson said she became a journeyman in 1994 and she went on to start her own female-owned company, Balance Electric with McBride in 2013.
“You got to have a doer personality,” Ericson said. “You got to want this. You have to be willing to learn and show up mentally every day. You can’t come in hung over. There’s no lolly-gagging.”
“You have to be a problem solver and enjoy puzzles. You have to be smarter than the journeymen who are training you. That will keep you working.”
She said apprenticeships are good when journeymen teach apprentices all aspects of trade, and bad when an apprentice is left to only jobs such as fetching parts or duplicating the same menial tasks day in and day out.”
Quitting and finding the right company to train with is sometimes required.
“You only have four years to learn,” she said. “When I send a journeyman out on a job, I expect them to think on their feet and get the job done.”
“You have to work three times as hard for the same recognition,” she said of being a woman in the electrical field. “You have to be eager to learn, eager to work no matter what the job. If it’s digging a ditch, dig it…”
Columbia Gorge Community College pushing skills
Tristan Stein, currently enrolled in the Manufacturing & Fabrication program at Columbia Gorge Community College. Read her story here.
The City of The Dalles and Wasco County also leveraged Google dollars to do recent additions at Columbia Gorge Community college, allowing for better training in the trades.
CGCC’s 24,000-square-foot skills center supports new career-technical programs, with design flexibility for workforce needs of the future. High-bay interior space is complemented by a design lab, makerspace and two conjoined classrooms.
Advanced manufacturing and fabrication has expanded the college’s existing welding program with training on plasma cutters, metal bending, drill press and other tools, together with CNC design software. In addition to equipment operation and industrial safety, students learn the math, communication and blueprint skills necessary for a variety of careers in advanced manufacturing.
Likewise, a new construction trades program will integrate the tools of carpentry with foundation and framing techniques, and basic building projects, all with an emphasis on safety. Students in both programs learn computer-assisted design software.
Above is an introductory video about Oregon Tradeswomen pre-apprentice classes and general information about working in trades.
