Women helping women in construction

By Cindy Chan

For a long time, construction was a boys’ club — but these women are changing the status quo.

Women in Construction, also known as WiC, is a grassroots Vancouver Island network that supports and promotes female participation in in the construction industry, such as in engineering/design consultants, general contracting, project managers, subtrades and insurance. According to Cheryl Hartman, past chair of WiC Victoria and chief estimator for Brewis Electric Company Ltd., WiC was established by a woman named Katy Fairley about six years ago when she sent an email about starting a women’s group together. And the rest, as they say, is history.

According to Leslie Myers, the 2018/19 WiC Victoria chair and associate and professional interior designer for Number TEN Architectural Group, a networking group for women is especially needed because they are the minority in the industry.

“It is getting better, but we are still the minority,” Myers says. “There can be a feeling of isolation and a lack of camaraderie, and WiC provides that. There’s a comfort that comes with being in a room with other women who are experiencing both the highs and lows of the industry we’re in.”

“I’ve been in the trades for close to 30 years and I find it’s always nice to have a support group,” Hartman adds.

WiC has two chapters in British Columbia — Victoria and Nanaimo. “We have group sessions for brainstorming about different ideas for networking meetings,” Hartman says. “For example, some of these women are in an office setting all the time and they don’t get the opportunity to go to construction sites. It’s something they really enjoy.”

One area WiC excels in is providing mentorship and leadership. In fact, Myers says Fairley inspired her in this very aspect.

“I was at a talk where Katy Fairley talked about becoming a partner at Kinetic Construction. She said, ‘You need to voice what you want out of the company.’ That one little sentence gave me the drive to tell my own boss what I wanted, and now I’m an associate at Number TEN,” Myers says, adding that Fairley inspired her to do provide the same motivation, drive and support for other women.

WiC is still a fairly new organization but it’s already proving to be a mainstay on Vancouver Island, having branched off to include Nanaimo.

In fact, the Powerhouse Panel is one way in which WiC plans to lift women up in the industry. The panel took place this past January 2018, in which four women from different walks of life discussed their respective journeys in the industry.

“They talked about how they got to where they are, what decisions they made, all the pros and cons and so on,” Myers says. “Their comments give the other women in the room the drive to say, ‘I can do this.’”

WiC is still a fairly new organization but it’s already proving to be a mainstay on Vancouver Island, having branched off to include Nanaimo.

Holdfast Metalworks Ltd. cut the WiC logo into a wide flange beam.

Tina Webb, associate at Herold Engineering and chair of WiC’s Nanaimo chapter, says the committee aims to help women in and out of construction. For example, their Sip, Savour & Support event, which took place in July 2018, is a fundraising event that donates proceeds to a different cause each year. In 2018, $1,340 went to the Nanaimo Women’s Centre. The Sip, Savour & Support event unfolded at Chateau Wolff Estate Winery & Vineyard, where guests played various games and entered draws.

Webb also says the Nanaimo chapter often carries out site tours, which is popular with the members. Recently, they visited Holdfast Metalworks Ltd., a steel contractor in Nanaimo.

“They cut our logo into a steel beam. It was so cool,” Webb says.

The tours also took them to concrete and aggregate plants. Webb says the tours are important because, first and foremost, they are women in construction, and second, they don’t all work in the same field so they want to know what everyone else is doing. The tours also involve visiting buildings from the beginning stage to the completed product.

“We did two stops at the Eden Gardens (formerly Nanaimo Travellers Lodge); we went very early on when it was under construction. The concrete was in and the wood framing was well underway,” Webb explains. “We went to see the completed building afterwards.” Webb says the next tour is slated to take place in May.

“WiC is important because it’s something we’re lacking in the construction industry for women to relate and connect to each other,” Hartman adds. She recalls speaking with a young woman in a trades outreach program who was trying to figure out what she wanted to do. The young woman had said her friend discouraged her from electrical training because it was too “dangerous.”

“I said, ‘I’m an electrician, and it’s no more dangerous for a woman than it is for a man,’” Hartman says. “When I saw her again, she said she was in her basic electrical training.”

For more information, visit www.vicabc.ca/WiC. n

WiC Nanaimo at Nanaimo Women’s Centre.

66 Vancouver Island Construction Association 2019