When you share with young people the opportunities that abound in the construction industry, you grow the possibilities for their futures and the success of our sector.
By Stephanie Hajducek, SAMSON Controls, Founder of This One’s for the Gals
In January 2020, our family packed up our home in Needville, Texas, and moved south to the Coastal Bend of Texas. A few years prior my husband had taken a job with ExxonMobil as an Electrical Supervisor on their Gulf Coast Growth Ventures Project that was being built in Gregory, Texas.
An industrial electrician by trade, my husband grew up in the craft and has done some very awesome things for someone who left high school and went straight into the workforce. He spent 15 years working for ChevronPhillips, where he held roles of increasing responsibility and eventually made his way into supervision and leadership. He applied, was offered, and accepted a position with ExxonMobil on one of their largest projects in the world. Anytime I have an opportunity to talk to a group of students, I always love to talk about him because he is such a great example of where hard work and determination can lead you.
When the time came for him to hire his technicians, he had a lot of trouble finding qualified technicians in the area and ended up having to Zoom interview people from out of state. This got me thinking about what companies could do to promote their amazing opportunities to youth – and not just those who are ready or recently graduated, but youth as young as those in elementary school.
I started to ask myself and my industry contacts, ‘What have we been doing to help our kids learn about these jobs?’ The more I kept asking, the more I kept finding that the answer was not a lot. For the most part, we hadn’t been talking to boys, much less girls, about career pathways. That’s when I decided it was time to start a long overdue conversation between industry and their local school districts – a.k.a. their future workforce!
I grew up in a small town where, right down the road, there were major industrial companies, but they never came to talk to me. I had no clue that within my immediate area, there were major industrial and construction companies that could offer me (a girl!) lifelong career opportunities. It took me a very long time to find my place in the workforce.
Now I’m doing all that I can to help industry connect with their high schools, their middle/junior high schools, and with their elementary schools so they can start getting youth excited about their future! In October 2021, I spearheaded an initiative to help get a group of students from our area to the POWER Women in Industry Conference, which was held in Galveston, Texas in March 2022. I had attended this conference in 2017 and remember there being school buses outside; they had bussed in local high school girls to attend this conference and I recall thinking, that’s an amazing idea, exposing our girls to these career pathways as early as possible.
I tried to find something similar in our area but there was just nothing else like it. Initially, I thought that I would get 10 to 12 girls to this conference from one school, but by the time I was done over 200 girls from nine different schools came to the conference, supported by our local industry partners in collaboration with the school districts and wow, it was amazing!
What I have found is that industry wants to connect with their local school districts – they just don’t know how. I’ve worked hard to help show them ways that they can engage and support their schools, whether it’s volunteering to be a judge at their elementary science fair, being a mentor for their welding program, or just going to speak to a class and share what they do in their career.
There are so many small initiatives that can make huge impacts. One thing that I did notice when I went to do a presentation for a group of students at one of our local high schools, is I asked if anyone knew someone who worked for any of the surrounding industry partner companies (including major steel, oil and gas, and energy companies). A lot of hands went up and I thought, this is great! Then I asked, ‘do you know what they do?’ and all the hands went down.
That was sort of an “aha” moment for me as well because I quickly asked myself, do my kids know what I do? Parents, we’ve got to start talking to our children! We’ve got to start sharing what we do in our careers. Whether you’re at the dinner table or on a family road trip, we need to talk to our kids about what we do, as well as introduce them to other people so they can learn what they do in their careers.
Building the talent pipeline starts at home! In the last couple of years, I’ve started to notice a lot of great changes in our area. I’ve seen dual-credit programs for process technology, instrumentation, and millwright. I’ve seen school districts partnering together in those programs and allowing other schools to send their students to participate. I’ve seen a lot of industry partners starting to attend college and career fairs at the high schools, and I’ve even started seeing some schools have their eighth graders join in on these career fairs.
We’ve got to get in as early as possible to help our kids with career exploration and workforce development because by the time they start getting into 6th, 7th, and 8th grades, they’re already getting talked to about picking a pathway and having to select classes for high school. In many cases, adults are telling them, ‘you’re going to go to high school in a couple years, what are you going to be for the rest of your life?’ but they have no clue because we haven’t been exploring careers with them.
I personally attend as many career fairs as possible so I can share the work that This One’s for the Gals is doing to help girls with career exploration and workforce development, specifically in construction, energy, and manufacturing, and to let them know how much support is out there for them to learn about these careers. I tell the girls that we’re here to talk to them about careers that not very many people talk to them about, from skilled trades to STEM – and everything in between.
We really want girls to know that they can do hard things and we are here to show them how! This is how we get more youth – and in particular girls – to think of our sector when they’re thinking about what career they want to have for the rest of their lives.
Let me loop back to my husband’s story, which I started this article with. He has built a long and successful career in the sector many of you represent. Sharing his story and accomplishments illustrates how you all should share your stories and accomplishments – at local schools, trade fairs, even around your kitchen table. Youth won’t know of the opportunities if industry doesn’t tell them. So, let’s tell them! Let’s talk about what we’re building, show them pictures and videos – empty lot to something amazing – take them onsite when possible, or bring the tools to them.
Let’s spark their imaginations and in the process, draw their interest to our sector so they can fully visualize and act on the career opportunities we have to offer.
Stephanie Hajducek is a Territory Sales Manager for SAMSON Controls – a market leader in control valves for industrial processes. In January 2022, Stephanie started a 501c3 nonprofit organization called This One’s for the Gals that helps girls with career exploration and workforce development. Focusing their efforts on the construction, energy, and manufacturing industries, This One’s for the Gals likes to say that they talk to girls about career pathways that not a lot of people talk to girls about.
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