About Oregon Tradeswomen
Worker to Leader: Construction Leadership
Oregon Tradeswomen, Inc. is very grateful to the Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI) and the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) for supporting activities that increase the retention of diverse women and men of color in the trades. We are excited to offer a course of five 2-hour workshops to introduce tradesworkers to construction related leadership development. Attendees will commit to attending all 5 classes and can expect to be introduced to concepts like project management and becoming a foreman. We know this will be a great opportunity to develop relationships for diverse, experienced tradesworkers to start on their pathway to leadership
Deadline: March 20
Classes will be held Monday evenings from 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm in the Oregon Tradeswomen, Inc. classroom at 3934 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., #101 (in the basement). The dates will be:
- March 23
- March 30
- April 6
- April 13
- April 20
Topics include: Leadership Panel, Basics of Blue Prints, Stepping up to Foreman, Project Management Basics, and Introduction to Project Scheduling.
We have limited slots available for these workshops. If you are interested please call or email Tiffany Thompson. She will need to know a few things to process your application:
- First and Last Name
- Date of Birth
- Trade
- A short, one paragraph statement about your interest in the courses and what you hope to get out of them
- Gender (optional)
- Race (optional)
Applicants should be diverse women and men of color who are:
- In their last term of apprenticeship OR
- Who have completed highway trades apprenticeship in the last 2 – 5 years OR
- Who can provide a reference from a company, union, or apprenticeship
Juan Young Trust Awards Grant to OTI
Oregon Tradeswomen, Inc. is pleased to announce the recent award of $7,500 from the Juan Young Trust for our Building Girls program. In this award cycle, the Eastern Division of the Trust received 43 applications requesting over $411,000. Their grant budget was $200,000.
Our goals for the Building Girls program for 2014-2015 are to serve over 1,600 girls through both hands-on and other educational activities through the Building Girls program. The program encourages middle and high school girls to view careers in construction as exciting and viable options through positive skills coaching, exposure to female role models, career pathways guidance and supervised hands-on construction experiences, well as fun and practical math skill-building activities. Building Girls efforts include five youth initiatives: School-Based Activities, School Partnerships & Collaborations, Women in Trades Career Fair Girls’ Days, Building Girls Construction Summer Camp, and Building Girls Work Crew.
Nationally, women continue to make up less than 3% of the construction workforce. In Oregon, female apprentices are on the rise, but still only 5.9% are women. Apprenticeship, paid-on-the-job training, is the way in which most workers access living wage careers in the building and construction, trades. Not only are fewer women accessing apprenticeship programs, fewer girls are enrolling in career/technical classes. The number of young women enrolled in professional technical classes continues to be far below the number of young men, though Title IX opened the doors of “shop” classes to young women in 1972. Reaching young women while they are still in school and before they decide upon a future career path is critical for the future trades workforce, as well as for the trades industry employers.
January 2015 – Oh, what a month!
All kinds of love headed OTI’s way since my last post about such matters. It is so thrilling to hear from our members how much they love OTI and how they join us in our collective vision to help women pursue work in the trades.
At our recent annual meeting, we visited with almost 70 attendees to talk about what we did accomplish over the past year and all the great opportunity that is available to us in 2015.
Please visit our Facebook page to see more photos from our Annual Meeting!
Our accomplishments for 2014 include:
• 79 women graduated from our Pathways pre-apprenticeship program in 2014.
• We helped 88 women get their first job in the trades or move up to apprenticeship.
• 75 graduates landed their first job in the trades with an average hourly wage of $15.18.
• 1441 girls and educators attended our annual Women in Trades Career Fair.
• 76 girls attended our Summer Girls Construction Camp through our Building Girls program.
We also gave away great raffle prizes! Thanks to Portland Spirit, Tradeswomen, Inc., Miss Zumstein Bakery & Coffee Shop, Ristretto Roasters, and Hankins Hardware for donating some really sweet prizes. A special shout out of thanks to Doris, our amazing volunteer, who did the work at getting most of these goodies into our hands.
We received great news from these foundations as they sent us very generous support for our various programs:
- NW Health Foundation – $50,000 – Building Equity – Creating a Construction Culture that Supports Women and People of Color
- The Autzen Foundation- $3,000 – Building Girls
- The Jim & Dianna Murphy Fund of The Oregon Community Foundation – $10,000 – Supporting programs that encourage girls and women to explore careers in transportation and trucking
THANK YOU!!!
I had the pleasure of hand delivering several certificates of appreciation to a few of our long-time sponsors of our annual career fair. I visited with NW Natural, RR Donnelley, PacifiCorp and Gunderson.
Our 2015 Career Fair is taking place May 14 – 16 — learn more here!
If you wish to make a tax-deductible donation to OTI today in order to support our efforts to promote success for women and girls in the trades through education, leadership, and mentorship, please click here – thank you!
— Dennise M. Kowalczyk (Development Director)
OTI on the Radio in December!
OPB Interview
OPB’s Ellena Rosenthal talked with Steve Malany: President of the board of directors at the Associated General Contractors Oregon-Columbia Chapter, Connie Ashbrook: Executive Director of Oregon Tradeswomen, Inc., and Tia Vonil: an OTI Trades and Apprenticeship Career Class Graduate and a third-year union electrical apprentice in Portland to talk about the national craft worker shortage and what is happening locally to train workers as well as the importance of bringing Career Technical Education programs back into Oregon’s high schools.
KBOO Interview
Kathleen Stephenson at KBOO talked with Dennise Kowalczyk, Development Director, and Katie Yablonsky, Building Girls Program Manager, at Oregon Tradeswomen, Inc. about our focus and programs and about how women interested in the trades can connect with us.
XRAY.fm Interview
On December 17, Katie Yablonsky, OTI’s Building Girls Program Manager, talked with Jefferson Smith about our work with young women.
Oregon Tradeswomen Press Coverage
At Sherwood High School, girls-only class teaches welding, woodworking, computer skills
Great article by Laura Frazier of The Oregonian about “Imagine, Design & Build It — No Boyz Allowed” – girls only classes in welding, wooodworking, and computer technology
The Lucrative Reason Some Women Say It Pays to Ditch College
OTI TACC Grad, Stephanie Ryznar, is quoted in this article about why a career in the trades is such an attractive option for an increasing number of women!
Oregon Tradeswomen hires Dennise Kowalczyk
Thank you to The Oregonian/OregonLive for announcing OTI’s hire of Dennise M. Kowalczyk!