Mission: Recruitment By / Tiffannie Bond Photos by / Sheet Metal Workers Local 20
If you happen to live in the Indianapolis area
and are approached by a spunky, 5-foot-2-inch-tall young woman about considering unionized sheet metal as a career path, you’ve officially met Catie Rogers, apprentice for SMART Local 20 and self-proclaimed recruiter of female apprentices to building trades. Rogers’ current mission is smashing stereotypes in the gender arena, and her long-term goal is to help disadvantaged high school kids see the myriad opportunities in trades careers. She brings optimism and confidence to the table with a clear message: “Your life is a blank canvas and you have a paint brush. You can paint it any way you want.” Her passion is her guiding force. As a fifth-year apprentice, Rogers is the only female apprentice at her local in Indianapolis. She believes women can do the work, but they don’t know it exists and is readily available to them. “Sheet metal work isn’t for everybody, and I’m not going to push it because that’s the career path I chose,” says Rogers, who is 25. “The goal is to get more women into the building trades as a whole.” Along her daily travels, Rogers’ friends and family aren’t surprised when she stops a waitress or female mechanic who has 8 » Partners in Progress » www.pinp.org
provided good customer service to encourage her to consider the building trades as a career. Rogers also works with local female journeywomen and women’s organizations such as Oregon Women in the Trades, Chicago Women in Trades, and others to put her energy behind the movement. She volunteers as a cast member for Built to Succeed, a collective partnership between building trades in Indiana to showcase the education and opportunities behind apprenticeship. “I want to be the girl I needed when I got in the trade,” Rogers says. “I want to make it easier for women to get information about construction.” When she isn’t working, going to school, or participating with other organizations, she compiles pamphlets and folders for women she meets and delivers the information to them wherever they need. In 2017, Rogers spoke to 30 women about the trade and conducted a tour at the Local 20 training center and at Poynter Sheet Metal. The USG and U.S. Chamber of Commerce Commercial Construction Index released its 2017 fourth quarter numbers on Dec. 11. The index showed 57 percent of contractors expected to hire skilled workers in the next six months and a large number reported stable or increased revenue expectations for 2018.
