Welcome, Emerging Leaders By / Natalie Bruckner
How do you attract the younger generation to the industry? Ask them! “If you want to talk about how to get youth excited to enter the trade, the last person you want to ask is a 68-year-old man,” says Bruce Sychuk, executive director of SMACNA-BC. Sychuk recalls one presentation he was giving where he was asked the best way to bring women into the trade. His response? “I said, ‘Well, we have one in the audience, so why don’t we ask her?’ She gave an amazing off-the-cuff presentation. To get people to listen, you need someone who speaks the same language.” Over the years the Best Practices Market Expansion Task Force behind the Partners in Progress Conference has increased its efforts to get younger people to attend. This year, they have stepped up their game by introducing the Emerging Leaders initiative. In an effort to include the next generation of leaders in the 2022 Partners in Progress Conference, SMACNA and SMART are giving Chapters and Locals the opportunity to register two emerging leaders from their area (one labor and one management) to attend the conference by waiving their respective registration fees. In order to obtain a free registration for an emerging leader, the selected leader must be younger than 35 and one or more current representative(s) from the Local or Chapter must be registered to attend the conference. There is a strict limit of one future leader from the labor side and one from the management side that may receive free registration per Local and Chapter. This is music to the ears of apprentices and young sheet metal leaders across North America. “Our generation can gain so much information from the conference that we wouldn’t otherwise hear,” says Amy Lagendyk, third-year apprentice 4 » Partners in Progress » www.pinp.org
with Local 280. “You learn a lot about how SMACNA and SMART work and what they are doing to keep the trade advancing and diversifying. You also get an inside look into what goes into keeping the trade as successful as it is and growing with the times. Plus, you meet a lot of people in the industry that you wouldn’t usually meet.” Lagendyk was chosen by her Local to attend the 2020 Partners in Progress Conference in Las Vegas after her bosses and teachers heard great things about her. “The union thought I could represent well and benefit from attending,” she says. And benefit she did. Lagendyk says that seeing behind the scenes has helped her better understand the industry and feel more involved. “Some of the highlights for me were learning how involved women are in SMART and SMACNA and their Locals, seeing how we are preparing for the future of the trade with upcoming technology and relationships, and getting to attend many informative seminars. Standout seminars for her included Brent Darnell’s Emotional Literacy talk, a workshop promoting women and diversity in the trades, Mentorship 101, and one on mental health and substance issues.” Tyler Crowder, fourth-year apprentice with Summit Sheet Metal in British Columbia agrees. Crowder attended the conference in Las Vegas and says it increased his passion for the trade and provided an invaluable experience. “The younger generation are the future of the union,” he says. “It is essential to have young workers attend these conferences. It opens your eyes and makes you realize this union is not just us, it’s a giant group of people working together. It’s important to see how the leaders present themselves so we can use that as a benchmark for professionalism and to better understand the initiatives they are getting behind. It expands our perspectives. Until the conference, I didn’t realize how much the older generation
