Girls on the Tools

I started my working life as an electrician in the coal mines in the Upper Hunter and it was a job for boys only. Late in the 1980’s they introduced trade apprenticeships for girls. At the time, companies ran slogans like ‘Give a Girl a Spanner’. Forty years on and I am in another industry - coffee - and you don’t really see women in the role as a coffee technician. I don’t believe it has been a ‘no go zone’ because of equal workplace practice, I think it’s been because of the lack of training courses which encourage skills in this particular role. Most people who are coffee techs have come from a trade

and now a barista in her own café. She chose to do this course to better understand equipment, as her future plans include expanding her operation to multiple stores.

Bonnie again has vast café management and barista experience and now works at multiple university sites in Armidale NSW, where she heads up the coffee side of the hospitality role. Bonnie wanted to know more about the repair and service of coffee equipment, so she could better manage the business’s infrastructure.

Angela was born into hospitality through her family’s cafe business and has recently run her own café business, which she recently sold. Angela was now looking at heading into a corporate coffee position and she saw the technician course as a

way of expanding her knowledge whilst she was between job roles.

The Technician Course is run every few months at the Australasian Café School in Clarence House Port Macquarie, when there is a demand from enquiries. Andrew Veitch is the lead teacher and has been a coffee technician at local coffee company Peak Coffee for six years, with many more years of experience as a coffee tech and before that as an electronics engineer. Andrew runs two different courses, one for new starters and a more advanced course for coffee technicians that are already in the role at a coffee company.

by Sean Edwards – Managing Director Café Culture International.