Grade 8 shop class can be a bit of a nightmare.
Mixing kids with power tools first thing in the morning isn’t the ideal scenario for career inspiration to strike, and in eighth grade at Seycove secondary, Maia Koch wasn’t feeling it.
“I’ll be honest ... I hated it,” she says.
Now 26 years old and recently graduated with her B level welding ticket, Koch has unexpectedly found her passion in metalwork.
On Nov. 23 she spoke at the Industry Training Authority’s 11th annual Youth Day conference, surrounded by other intelligent and inspiring women in trades. One thing that stood out to her was the change in tone toward pursuing a career in the industry.
When she was in school, she remembers the expectations from teachers being heavily placed on the importance of getting degrees. “For them it’s kind of a no-brainer: ‘it worked for me so it’s going to work for you,’ and they just assume that everyone is going to go to university,” she says. “All I ever heard was derogatory comments towards the trades when I was in elementary school or high school.”
But after meeting with the women at the conference and hearing teachers try to figure out the best way to promote the trades for youth and young women, she was on board and fired up to add her voice to the call.
Koch’s interest in welding was sparked as she meandered through classes at Capilano University that didn’t hold her interest. English literature, political science, biology, geology, anthropology, women’s studies, and history occupied her first year out of high school but she knew none of these subjects would lead to a career for her.
“I tried harder in high school than I did in university, and I was paying for university. I knew that I wasn’t in the right place.”
She knew she wanted to work and make some money of her own so she turned to family for advice. It was her dad who recommend trying a trade, a thought that hadn’t crossed her mind and an option she had never considered.
Her parents are musicians and none of her extended family work in trades. Her brother is a carpenter, but after seeing what he goes through every day, she knew that part of the industry wasn’t for her. Then the idea of metal fabrication and welding struck, and she was pulled in.
“It immediately totally resonated with me. I could picture myself welding and something about it, right away, I was just drawn to it. A big lightbulb kind of went off in my head.”
A trades discovery course at BCIT introduced her to a first real foray with metalwork. The metal fabrication foundation course was a challenge initially as she tried to turn blueprints into working creations and fought to visualize how computer models could come to life.
“I mean, I could wrap Christmas presents, and I don’t do that really well, but that’s the most dexterous, hands-on thing I could do before that. I can’t even fold clothes very well,” she says with a laugh.
“Trying to build stuff with my hands from a piece of paper and trying to visualize it, for me it was a steep learning curve but in the end I fell into it, especially with welding.”
Welding was where she really caught her stride. Her hands-on attitude and strong mind for problem solving was put to work as she was able to get lost in twisting and cutting pieces of metal into whatever she imagined.
“I like metal because you can’t screw it up. You can just melt it down or weld it back together or bend it back to where you need it to go,” she says. “When I went into the welding, it felt good; it felt natural. There’s just something about being able to lay a really nice bead and you don’t think about anything else because, being the kind of person I am, I tend to overthink.”
In her courses at BCIT Koch was the only woman in her class of about 21 students, but when she moved on to get her B level training at the UA Piping Industry College of B.C. she found herself alongside five other women entering the male-dominated industry.
The number of female apprentices in trades – carpentry, automotive service and heavy duty equipment technicians, plumbing, metal fabrication, and millwrights – sits at about five per cent or less, according to the ITA.
Seeing more women attending the programs at UAPICBC reinforced Koch’s drive. She found that her instructors and male classmates really rooted for her and she found support in more places than one would expect.
“Everyone wants to help each other,” she says. “The guys, they don’t challenge you. No one is demeaning. No one was harassing or being sexist.
“It’s really nice to get that support. You know, it’s a dog-eat-dog world and some guys are old school, and I’ve dealt with that too.”
Before Koch started her training, she went out and got a job to earn some experience and was met with the resistance that many might expect.
“Definitely it was the case of being the girl and having more experience than someone, but because he’s a guy he’s going to get a dollar more than me, or get more work than me. That was just because I didn’t have a ticket or anything, or that’s what I thought,” but it soon came to light that some of the men didn’t have certification either.
“I’m not the only girl who’s experienced that and I know that there are girls that have experienced way worse than I have.”
But instead of dwelling, stalling, and getting caught up in her negative experience, she turned around, got her B level ticket and is swearing off non-union work. Koch says she doesn’t like advertising the animosity. She prefers to offer the advice to go to school first and not to jump in before you can hold your own.
“It’s not a good way to encourage people, especially girls, to get into a trade. ... I say: it’s good for you to go to school, get the ticket and go from there.”
Mentoring is a new endeavour for Koch but she sees the value in promoting trades as an option for young girls, a message that was never broadcast to her. Many of her high school peers who she watched follow the path to university or college are now working at Starbucks or are waiting tables to get by, she says.
Working minimum wage can be tough, and Koch says she wants to show young girls and other women still figuring out their next step that if they take up a trade, they’ll have those skills, and most likely a job, for life.
“If you’ve got the attitude to get in there and put your foot down and say, ‘screw you guys, I’m going to do this,’ then definitely, own it,” she says. “Being able to share my experiences with people, even though it’s not much right now, but talking to younger girls especially about what you can do … telling them that there’s nothing holding them back other than themselves. They have to do it for themselves and it’s a great opportunity to work hard and make good money.”
In September, the province announced new funding for youth trades training programs to allow students the chance to discover an alternative route for post-secondary education, and potentially a new passion.
The investment of $7.8 million will allow the Ministry of Education to double the number of seats in ACE-IT (Accelerated Credit Enrolment in Industry Training ) programs, which includes subsidies for students looking to relocate. It will also provide funding for apprenticeship trades ambassadors to visit students in their schools and communities; increase trades scholarships by 25 per cent; and work toward reforming Grades 10-12 graduation requirements.
The updated programs should be implemented in all school districts in B.C. by the fall of 2017, according to a provincial press release.
In addition to the government investment in schools, Windsor secondary received a donation of new welding equipment from the Canadian Welding Association Foundation, the Dennis & Phyllis Washington Foundation and Seaspan. The new equipment was revealed on Nov. 15 with students demo-ing the fresh tech.
Koch was excited to learn that further steps are being made that reinforce the positive message she heard at the Youth Day conference and says she would’ve loved to have the option to start welding sooner.
“I knew that Handsworth had an automotive class when I was in Grade 12 that I wanted to go to, but you had to drive yourself there and I wasn’t that committed to driving myself around at that age yet,” she says.
“If I had known that something like that was happening and I was able to do that, I would’ve travelled to Windsor so I could specifically do that kind of stuff.”
Dreams of owning her own shop and running small welding classes for kids are ideas for the future, but Koch says right now she’s absorbing all the experience she can get in order to receive her Red Seal certification and discover where she wants to take her education in the industry.
“It’s all about the knowledge and learning and meeting people and figuring out where I fit. Say I might want to do small-scale art stuff but I might be really good at welding pipe, I really have no idea yet in terms of how I’ll be able to perform out on the field.”
Female empowerment and self-sufficiency is a loud message she’s happy to promote to young girls and Koch says she’s looking forward to being the queen of her own castle one day soon.
