While millions of women wear out their mouse pads and push piles of paper up the corporate ladder, here on campus, several women have a different take on what it means to be upwardly mobile.

Terri Planiden stepped away from her desk at Allstate Insurance 22 years ago and never went back. Now, she can be reached at the top of a scaffold painting a room in the art building. Laura Garcia left her desk and climbed onto the roof as a full-time electrician on campus. Garcia and Planiden are part of a small but resourceful group of women who have made a place for themselves in the traditionally male-dominated world of the trades.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics, nontraditional occupations include any job in which women make up less than 25 per cent of the work force. Examples of nontraditional jobs include painter, electrician, machinist and sheet-metal worker. Out of the 212 employees in plant operations shops on campus, only 14 women, including Garcia and Planiden, are employed in trade occupations. That’s 11 more than a decade ago, and Facilities Services hopes to bring that number up.

Leslie Nopp, senior superintendent of construction services, attributes the recent increase to a new generation of trades people as well as a more confident female population. "We have some very goal-oriented women here," she says, "and they’re here to get the job done. If that means digging a ditch or moving heavy equipment, they’re willing to do it."

Even so, Nopp is surprised at how few women apply for nontraditional jobs on campus, especially in the skilled trades.

Wider Opportunities for Women, a national women’s employment organization, lists some of the barriers that inhibit women from seeking nontraditional employment: limited access to information about nontraditional occupations, limited opportunities for on-the-job training and apprenticeships, and a lack of role models.

In an effort to address these issues, Nopp participates in Sacramento Works, a program designed to get people off of welfare and out into the work force. Her support includes providing mentors for women who are considering nontraditional employment.

Planiden, who has been a campus employee for six years and a painter for 22, has been tapped as a role model and has been asked to share her experiences with other women.

Stereotypes and support

She remembers how difficult it was when she started out as an apprentice in the late ’70s. She was asked to move some cans of paint at her first interview. "They didn’t think I could pick up a stack of three five-gallon cans of paint," she says, "I did it–no problem. Their mouths fell open. They couldn’t believe a woman could do it."

But not all of her experiences have been bad. She recalls one boss that supported her decision to work in the trades. When she was still a painter’s apprentice, he set high standards for her work. Several months after the job ended, Planiden ran into her previous boss when she was having difficulty finding work and had no money for tools. "He loaded my truck full of tools," she recalls, "and said, ‘Now you go out there and find yourself some work.’"

Today, not only can Planiden carry her own weight, but she can drag scaffolding up three flights of stairs in the art building.

Planiden offers some advice to women who might be considering a trades career. She says not to worryabout being as physically strong as the men. "You can get in shape and work up to it. You don’t have to macho things."

She advises women not to worry about gender differences. "Know that you have strengths and weaknesses," she says, "and that they blend with the males’ strengths and weaknesses. Men and women can work in harmony."

Planiden shares one of her own weaknesses when she admits that she went into the trades because she didn’t think she was smart enough to do anything else. She chose painting because it required the least amount of math. Now, she’s taking algebra and working on a business management degree. When asked what she would have done if she knew then what she knows now, Planiden replied, "I probably would have gone to college and then found out that trades people make more money."

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, women typically earn 20 percent to 30 percent more in nontraditional jobs than in traditionally female occupations.

Room to grow

For electrician Garcia, who spent 15 of her 20 years on campus working in various clerical positions, these are important numbers. "I had reached a plateau," she says, "and there was no place to go up." So, when her boss in facilities set up a six-month training program to give employees the chance to learn a new skill, Garcia decided that her next step up the career ladder would take place in the electrical shop.

In June of this year, she completed a four-year apprenticeship and received her certificate as a journey-level electrician.

She says that she prefers being an electrician to working in a clerical job because it is more task-oriented. "I go home tired everyday," she says, "but it’s different. When I was in the office, it was mental exhaustion and that was much worse than physical exhaustion."

Now, when Garcia takes a break, she sits down with seven or eight male electricians who have tall thermoses full of coffee and a full repertoire of jokes.

But when the conversation turns to job safety, all jokes are set aside. One of the electricians recounts an accident in which he and a coworker were hit with a potentially fatal jolt of electricity.

The men agree that trusting their partner on a dangerous job is more important than whether or not they are male or female. Bill Johnston, an electrician on campus for the past 17 years, emphasizes the importance of developing the kind of relationship in which he knows what the other person is going to do. "It’s like a marriage in a way," he says, "you know what the other person is thinking and how they’re going to respond."

Good rapport among trades people is particularly vital on campus. Unlike jobs in the private sector where people move on after the project is done, campus employees work together on a continual basis. "Most [trades] people come to campus thinking they’re going to spend their careers here," Nopp says. "They can’t bear ill will against individuals because they have to work with them day in and day out."

Enrollment growth brings job opportunities

Nopp believes that other women can be as successful as Garcia and Planiden at working with men in trade jobs and says that training opportunities have increased. "We’re in a significant growth mode right now in just about all areas of the trades because of Tidal Wave II," she says. State-approved apprenticeships will be available for those interested in becoming a locksmith, a roofer or a glazing apprentice as well as a number of other skilled trades.

Nopp offers several good reasons for women to choose trade careers.

"If you like to do work with your hands and see an end-product," she says, "that’s a really good reason to go into the trades."

She says the pay is good and the work is plentiful.

With more and more people are moving away from the trades, Nopp says, "I think that hands-on skilled people are going to become a commodity."

For more information on apprenticeships, contact Ricardo Freeman, Facilities Services human resources manager at 752-8676 or rofreeman@ucdavis.edu.

Virginia Whitney Weigand ’00 was Dateline’s spring-quarter intern.