Totally Trades conference
encourages girls to think outside the ‘toolbox’
By Scott Mitchell Johnson
Staff Writer
PRESQUE ISLE — One hundred Aroostook County girls from grades 8 through 12 attended a daylong conference last Wednesday at Northern Maine Community College that was designed to encourage them to consider careers in fields traditionally dominated by men.
CARDBOARD CUTOUT CUTUPS — Posing as a wrench and in the J. Howard Miller “We Can Do It!” 
poster from 1942 are Crystal Keller, a junior at Easton High School, and Jolene Guerrette, an Easton senior. The girls were among the 100 participants at last Wednesday’s Totally Trades conference that was held at Northern Maine Community College.
The ninth annual Totally Trades conference featured sessions ranging from carpentry and bridge building to heavy equipment operation and welding, all providing an opportunity for the girls to experience some aspect of the profession through a practical exercise.
“We do this because we want girls to expand their thinking about careers,” said Suzanne Senechal-Jandreau, conference planner and regional manager of the central Aroostook office of Women, Work and Community, a statewide organization committed to improving the economic lives of Maine women and their families. “The careers we’re exposing them to today are traditionally seen as male-dominated careers, so we’d like them to open up their thinking and do some career exploration.
TIME WARNER CABLE technicians were on hand at the Totally Trades conference to give girls an overview of a day in the life of a cable technician. The workshop featured many hands-on activities such as making cable jumpers, hooking up a TV and connecting telephone outlets to see how they work. Instructing the girls were Time Warner Cable representatives, from left: Glenn Heidorn, Natasha Stanhope and Kate Versleuis. 
“We want to give girls a hands-on workshop experience to spark their interest and raise awareness about some potentially high opportunity and high wage career fields that they may not have previously considered,” she said, “as well as provide female role models — women who can lead by example, having already succeeded in pursuing work that traditionally is viewed as ‘man’s work.’ We want to help area girls think outside the box and explore all their options.”
Students from as far south as Katahdin High School up to Wisdom High School attended the annual event.
Jayne Cousins, a junior at East Grand High School who also attends the automotive program at Region Two School of Applied Technology in Houlton, was a student panelist at the conference where she shared her experiences as a female high school student presently enrolled in the trades and non-traditional career tracts at her school.
“I came today because I wanted to teach younger kids that it’s OK to do a job that’s normally for guys, and that we can do just as much as they can do,” she said. “This is my third year attending. I keep coming back because it’s a chance for me to try new things and learn different things about jobs that guys do that we can also try.
Staff photo/Scott Mitchell Johnson
ALLIE DUSZA, a junior at Easton High School, 
holds the heart she cut out from a sheet of steel following a welding workshop that was offered as part of the ninth annual Totally Trades conference last week. The event is designed to encourage Aroostook County girls from grades 8 through 12 to consider careers in fields traditionally dominated by men.
“I’m the only girl in the automotive program at Region Two. At first the guys were like, ‘Wow! There’s a chick in here,’ but then they actually liked the idea and now they treat me like one of the guys,” said Cousins, who also attended the conference’s emergency medical technician workshop. “I really enjoy automotives. There’s a couple of things that I can do a little bit better than the boys, but I get help from them, too. I love working on vehicles. I can align tires better than they can; I think girls have more patience to sit there and do it. Sometimes the machine will screw up and you have to restart and they get a little aggravated, but I have the patience to sit there and constantly redo it.”
Allie Dusza, a junior at Easton High School, also served as a student panelist.
“I wasn’t originally going to come back since I was here last year, but I was on the panel talking to eighth-graders about what I do for a class. I take auto body at the Caribou Technology Center, so I shared my experiences with the younger girls,” she said.
“The auto body/automotive program is fun and I’m learning a lot. I’m the only girl in the class,” Dusza said. “At the start of the year there were three of us, but two of them dropped out. I stuck with it. At the beginning all of the guys were like, ‘The girls can’t do it. They don’t understand what they’re doing,’ and now we’re all friends.”
Dusza said the conference is very beneficial to the female students.
“It’s really fun and you should totally consider it if you’re a girl. It shows girls that they can do what boys can do, which I feel is totally true,” she said. “My family has a farm, but I don’t want to do potato farming. I’ve got an animal farm — goats and chickens, and I’m planning on expanding that … maybe cows, horses and pigs when I’m older, but automotives is a strong career possibility. We have a shop. My brother does carpentry, but I might use half of it for automotives. We’ll see.”
This was Nicole McHattie’s first Totally Trades conference.
“My friends are interested in exploring different careers and I wanted to join them and see what I’d be interested in, as well,” said McHattie, a sophomore at Caribou High School. “I attended the carpentry workshop where we built our own tool boxes. It went really well and it looks really professional.
“I think it’s a great opportunity to explore different trades and learn more about career choices before I have to decide what I want to do in life,” she said, noting that she is thinking about becoming a surgeon. “It’s been a great pleasure to be here. I’ve met a lot of people today and I would encourage girls to come to the conference next year. I think it shows a great variety of different career choices and it’s not limited to just the males, so females get an opportunity to show what they can do and learn different trades.”
Funding for the conference was made possible through monies and in-kind services provided by the Maine DOT/Federal Highway Administration, Maine Department of Education, Time Warner Cable of Maine and Women Unlimited. Local monetary sponsors include Northern Maine Development Commission, attorney Sarah LeClaire, K-PEL Industrial Services, McCain Foods USA, Soderberg Construction, S.W. Collins, Dr. Donald Cassidy, and Solman & Hunter, P.A. with in-kind support from Rathbun Lumber.
The conference is generously supported by the NMCC campus community, which serves as a host site for the event, and is a featured activity during the college’s recognition of April as National Community College Month.
In addition to attending three of 13 workshops, the conference featured lunch and a large group activity facilitated by Women Unlimited.
“It was very busy, but I think things went very well,” said Senechal-Jandreau. “The girls seemed really engaged in the workshops and excited about the day. It was definitely a high energy day.”
