- [Announcer] Live from your public media studios, WVIA presents "Keystone Edition: Business," a public affairs program that goes beyond the headlines to address issues in Northeastern and Central Pennsylvania.

This is "Keystone Edition: Business."

And now, moderator Steve Stumbris.

- Hi, I'm Steve Stumbris.

Women could be the key to rebuilding the future through leadership and mentorship in the skilled trades.

Men have traditionally filled these positions, but as people retire, many industries are experiencing worker shortages.

Now, women are emerging as industry leaders.

WVIA news reporter, Sarah Scinto, has more on women in the skilled trades.

- [Sarah] As industries across Northeastern and Central Pennsylvania face a growing demand for skilled workers, women are increasingly stepping up to fill the gap.

With an aging workforce and fewer young people entering these fields, the demand for skilled labor has never been higher, with industries like plumbing, electrical, and HVAC, experiencing a critical shortage of workers.

These are some of the most in-demand jobs in the region, yet women make up a very small percentage of the workforce.

To address this, schools like Pennsylvania College of Technology in Williamsport, Johnson College in Scranton, and Luzerne County Community College in Nanticoke are launching training programs specifically designed to empower women to enter these industries.

The programs provide hands-on experience, mentorship and job placement support, helping women build the skills necessary to thrive in these well-paying in-demand jobs.

These initiatives are not only helping to diversify the workforce, but also offering women a path to financial independence and career growth.

As more women enroll in these programs, Northeast Pennsylvania is building a stronger, more inclusive workforce.

To learn more, visit WVIA.org.

For "Keystone Edition: Business," I'm Sarah Scinto, WVIA News.

- I'd like to introduce the panelists who have joined us to share their perspectives.

Candy Frye is a business development executive at L.R.

Costanzo Construction in Scranton.

Dr. Ellyn Lester is the assistant dean of Construction and Architecture at Pennsylvania College of Technology in Williamsport.

And Dr. Kellyn Williams is the associate vice president of Special Programs at Johnson College.

If you have questions, please ask at Keystone@WVIA.org.

Thank you for joining us tonight.

Looking forward to learning from each of you about your experiences, about your experiences in industry and what you see as opportunities for women ahead in the skilled trades.

So, again, thanks, Candy.

I'd like to start off with you.

We spoke a little bit about motivation and seeing oneself in a career.

Can you talk about what led you to a career in construction?

And that wasn't always the start.

How did you get to where you are now?

- Sure.

So actually my love for the trades started off in my middle school shop class.

I was very interested in, you know, wood shop in particular, and I guess growing up along my dad's side who was not in construction, but very hands on himself, you know, I just learned to love doing things with my hands.

And, you know, I was very good at it.

I was...

I got it easily.

I would help my fellow students cut out things and, you know, explain different concepts to them as well.

So, that's really where it started for me.

- And what was next?

What became a career opportunity building on that interest?

- Yep.

So then after that, around 11th grade, there was a woman from Johnson College that came in to speak to us about future careers in the trades.

And, you know, it got me thinking.

And I always kind of marched to the beat of my own drum anyway.

And I thought, "You know what?

I'm gonna try that.

I'm gonna take that and I'm going to run with it and see what I can do with it."

And I enrolled in Johnson College and went into building construction, and that's where it all started for me.

So... - So as going into building, or from education in building construction, your career has been pretty diverse from there.

Tell us about what you do now and what do you draw still from that experience and that love of the hands-on work?

- Sure, absolutely.

So, while at Johnson, of course, it was very hands-on.

When I went to school, there were like 37 males that I walked in into, and we started side by side immediately from day one.

It was, you know, never an issue.

You know, we accepted each other and we supported each other, and it was really great.

So when I left Johnson, my first job was actually in the fields, or in the trade, rather.

I started with a general contractor and I did roof stack siding, hands on, all of that.

And then, you know, and it really didn't...

I didn't do that very long until my next opportunity came knocking on my door, if you will.

And I went to Home Depot and I started off in the lumber department there.

And then somebody saw something in me that I didn't myself, I guess, and they're like, "You're really good with sales.

Would you like to come to the sales desk?"

And so I went to the service desk and I did that and really found that I really enjoyed people and working with people.

And then I moved on to, I always call them opportunities of growth.

Because every time I moved on, it was to grow, not because I didn't like something or I didn't enjoy what I was doing at the time.

So my next step from there was a door and window company, and I learned how doors and windows were made in the shop, and then I went on to selling them for this company.

And then from there, I went to actually a sheet metal fabricating company.

Again, a job of growth where I took all that previous experience, the measuring, the sales type of environment and worked there.

And then I went into work for a general contractor where I did business development.

I would look for opportunities for us, and I would just, you know, build relationships, nurture relationships.

And here I am today doing the same.

- Interesting diversity in the types of things that you've been able to experience in your career.

Ellyn, I'd like to bring you into the conversation.

- Sure.

- Your career has also been diverse.

- I guess.

- And there's some similarity in like a young experience that set you on that trajectory.

Can you tell a little bit about that too?

- Yes.

So when I was, like, 17, I would never have thought that I would end up in higher ed or building construction and architecture.

My dad was in construction, my mom was a teacher, and that just didn't seem like either path was legitimate for me.

But when my husband decided to get his master's in architecture, I actually had a conversation with one of the faculty that really just, he outright asked me, "Would you like to be in architecture?"

And it never occurred to me.

So that really made it sort of stuck in the back of my head and made a huge difference to what I thought about in the future.

- So, interest in construction and then the design and, like, the vision aspect of architecture.

How do those connect for you in what your career path has been, and then what you're involved in now?

- Yeah.

So like you said, I think opportunities are really the key.

And there are so many different opportunities no matter what path you choose.

And where you're headed, you can sort of pivot along the way for those opportunities of growth.

So I was in architecture and I had an opportunity, I worked for a lot of firms when I was young and you're kind of in your specific niche.

And then I was involved in a lot of nonprofit opportunities and I wanted to become more of a leader.

And when you're involved with a nonprofit, because it's all volunteers, you get to be a leader much faster.

And that really sets the impression.

So someone offered me a job sort of adjacent to architecture in Design-Build Institute of America.

So then I worked for a nonprofit.

And then when the Great Recession happened in 2008, that prompted us to move to California for my husband's job.

And that's how I got into higher ed.

So my career's not really been about buildings per se and designing buildings.

It's always been more about people and working with people and the marketing aspect or the nonprofit aspect or higher ed.

- Dr. Williams, I see some recognition there.

In education, you have the opportunity to influence lives in a really powerful way.

Can you talk about your experience going into higher ed?

- Sure, no pun intended, but I loved what Dr. Lester said about building people, building them up, getting them to understand their skill sets and then putting them in their trajectory for their career.

- What does that look like in your role?

So, a role of leadership.

- [Dr. Williams] Sure.

- What kind of programs do you have the most opportunity to engage in and how do those build the students?

- Sure.

So the different areas that I kind of oversee is community engagement.

So we try to get the younger population before they get to high school to experience the different occupations that we offer at Johnson College.

So we have afterschool STEM programming.

We do a lot of STEM competitions.

We hold a lot of different summer camps and interactive activities for the middle school population, so that these students, male and female, get to lay the ground and the foundation of, "This is the skills I do have, this is the skills I wanna improve on, and this is the direction I wanna go on with my education and my career."

So when they get to the high school status, they can pick the path that they want to, to hopefully end up at a Penn College or a Johnson College to continue their education.

- So not even just the current students, but thinking back to Candy's experience of being in a middle school shop class.

Those are some of the, well, tangential to those experiences or those ages.

- Yeah, I mean, everybody's kind of heard those statistics that around middle schools when women or girls lose their confidence, and that's a key area to keep them in the STEM fields.

Same with males.

A lot of students say to us that they don't like math, but they don't realize they do math when they're in the construction in the trade fields.

So, really kind of not masking it, but just showing it in a different light so that they understand that they have the skillset.

They just need to continue to pursue it and grow on it so that they can achieve the career that they want.

- How do you help to convey that there are opportunities in the skilled trades to a young woman, to a girl at that age of school?

- Sure.

So, most recently, we just had our Girls on Fire event at campus, which had 120 middle school girls to actually do the occupations on campus.

So, in carpentry, they made tealight candle holders.

In HVAC, they were working with HVAC systems.

They also got to do circuitry.

They learned how to do the circuitry for a outlet.

So we put them right in that position so they can see that they do have the skills.

And a lot of them came back now understanding the backside of the technical piece so that they're like, "Oh, I can do this and this is viable."

A lot of them walked out saying, "I'm gonna be an electrician," "I'm gonna be a carpenter," "I'm going to be..." They get to see outside the normal educational realm of jobs, which is, they always see teachers, they see athletic trainers, 'cause that's what's at your school.

A principal, superintendent, a doctor, a lawyer.

These programs give them an option to see occupations outside of that traditional learning.

And these are the HVAC technicians, the plumbers, the carpenters that have a lot of in-demand jobs and a lot of need.

- Let's talk about that demand, that need.

Ellyn, can you speak to that about awareness of what are trends in the workforce?

Recent and projections into the future.

- Oh, we desperately need more people in the trades and, really, all of the construction world.

You see a lot of people retiring and not as many people coming into that.

We see a dearth in the sort of mid career.

So there's a huge opportunity for young people to come in and advance very quickly.

You know, male, female, it doesn't matter.

It's really about that opportunity.

- I think this is a great time to see an example of a young woman who is just starting into her career.

Alyssa Crawford is a young woman working as a control engineer in Exeter, Lucerne County.

WVIA talked to this recent grad about how she got to where she is today.

(bright music) - I was always that tomboy type of girl that could hang with the boys.

I always knew that my grandfather was an electrician.

But something that I discovered after starting here was he was actually an electrician for a ropery.

So, I ended up following in his footsteps almost exactly.

A ropery is is where we take metal wire and it's wrapped around and made into those big steel ropes that you see used on suspension bridges, mining, they hold up communication towers.

We even send ropes to the navy.

All of these reels here weigh about 20 tons each.

These are shovel lines for the mining industry, and then the blue ones down at the end are for drag lines for the mining industry.

My skills and knowledge are in the controls of machinery.

So whether that be an actual physical push button or a button on an HMI, which is a human interface.

I also program programmable logic controllers, which uses ladder logic.

This is what makes a machine automated.

It's when you can hit a start button and the entire logic within the program will run the machine to the specifics that you want to.

I just love the puzzle that you have to solve in order to make this logic work, to make the machine run.

I've been working here about seven months.

I'm starting to get into that rhythm and really know exactly what steps to take in order to be really productive within my position.

It can be intimidating at times.

You know, you don't know if people are questioning you because you're new at this or if it's because they don't think you're capable of doing it.

And a lot of it is just curiosity.

They wanna know why a woman has chose to do something that mostly men choose to do and that a lot of women haven't chosen to do.

My fiance, he is an excellent carpenter.

He does a lot of renovation work.

And we started renovating our own home, so I got to see that firsthand.

And then we have three children.

Our eldest Max, he's 10.

And then I have a daughter who's nine, Mila.

And then our youngest is Vera, and she's four.

My initial thinking was that I would be a residential electrician, and I did that while I was in school.

And when I realized that there was a lot of opportunities, especially in this area, going in the industrial direction, you are capable of making more money than you would be staying within the residential realm.

Don't be afraid to say, "I don't know."

That can be hard for me because I'm somebody who wants to be the best at what I do.

I'm getting there.

It's been a really great team building type of environment.

I really enjoy the team that I get to work with here.

And I'm not afraid to admit that I have growth and learning to do in this field.

It adds it to the list of, "This is what I'm gonna look into next."

- So, Candy, that must be rewarding for your role on the board at Johnson.

And, of course, Dr. Williams, I know there was a lot of recognition for you of Alyssa and how great of a student that she is and has been.

Amazing to see what steps she's taking in her career.

Candy, I wanted to ask you, for a young woman like Alyssa taking that first step into industry, from your perspective in a company, what kind of things are being done either at your construction firm or others in industry to recruit, to attract, to position those places as a place, like, where someone like Alyssa could see themselves?

- Right, right.

So, in my role, I get to do a lot of community-related events and business type of events.

And the company I work for, L.R.

Construction, is super about promoting that, sending me to career fairs and industry-related events.

And there's different women business associations to expand upon.

And through that, I'm actually on several boards.

A lot of community boards, business boards.

And so, yeah, I think, you know, like, I remember, like, two years ago, I went to a high school, or a middle school rather, to Kellyn's point about that's where the careers are, the women are, you know, thinking about what they would like to do, or the young ladies.

And so I took in, you know, we built spaghetti towers and this and that, and they loved it, you know?

So that's...

I think sometimes I forget because I've been in the industry so long where all of that excitement came from me.

Sometimes, you know, what I...

Hearing Alyssa's story brought back so many memories of how I grew.

You know, when I was at Johnson, I was nominated to the student government.

I was the president of the student government.

So, there were so many opportunities sometimes I think I forget about because as I've, you know, moved forward in my career, there are so many that I think I just have lost focus of where it all started for me.

So... - So, Ellyn, what kind of programs in education, what kind of programs at Penn College do that kind of outreach and help to, maybe help women in the college find their first steps into a career?

What does that look like for you?

- We definitely have the middle school.

We have middle school summer camps, as you mentioned.

We have things that we do throughout the year.

We do SkillsUSA.

We just finished with that recently.

So there's a lot of opportunity.

We have a lot of contractual relationships with two-year programs.

So if you have an associate's degree and you want to come into a bachelor's program and your school doesn't necessarily have that, you can transfer into the college.

And we want to make sure that the middle school and high school students understand that.

We also have a lot of classes that our faculty sort of co-teach with high school.

So we provide the curriculum and we oversee, sort of mentor, help grade the assignments, but they're still being taught in their high school from their high school instructor.

And that's a seamless transition that then they get college credit while they're in high school from our programs.

- Really get a jumpstart on that college career.

- And that's really across the board.

So, all of our programs.

One more thing I would like to say is that in engineering technologies, which is, you know, fairly male-dominated, as you can imagine, our dean is a male and every assistant dean is a female.

So, just having to- - Oh, kudos to you guys.

- Yeah, just having that person in that chair talking to a prospective student or a prospective parent that had a background similar and is a woman, I think, says a lot.

- Let's talk about role models then, mentors.

Can you expand on that, the importance of having someone who's a mentor who sees something in you or that you see yourself growing into that kind of position?

- Yeah, mentorship is absolutely critical.

In fact, my dissertation topic was, mentorship is a knowledge management system for the built environment or construction.

So it was really looking at mentorship and how mentorship works and why it works and when it works.

And it is a critical element no matter where you are in your career.

And most of it happens sort of when you're not expecting it.

It's not necessarily when you have that meeting and you're sitting there and talking to somebody.

It's much more ephemeral, much more in the moment.

And I think that, you know, having somebody to look to that is there helping you is the key.

And that's the nice thing about what's happened over the last 50 years or so.

We do have women from, you know, starting out all the way through the C-suite in the industries.

All of the industries have that person that is a leadership.

- Dr. Williams, more about mentorship and what you see, how critical that is for you and for your students.

- Absolutely.

I completely agree with what Dr. Lester said about the mentorship piece and how critical it is.

We started on our campus a women in industry initiative to help with that mentorship and seeing that representation in the building trade area so that more females would feel comfortable going into those fields because they had someone to talk to or troubleshoot with and collaborate with.

It's not just normal networking of, "Here's my business card.

Let's keep in touch."

It's more like, "I'm in a situation.

I need someone to reach out to and have a conversation about."

I need that informal mentorship.

It's not, "Let's meet on a Tuesday and have coffee."

It's, "Let me reach out to you.

I'm having a concern.

I just need to bounce some ideas off you.

I need a little support."

Or "Should I pivot?"

or "What should be my next steps in my career?"

"Where do you see me going?"

So it's nice that the girls and the women have that ability to have that conversation.

It's anywhere from the recent alum to, again, C-suite individuals that can come and have conversations with these individuals to support them.

- And as you said, it goes far beyond just the technical skill or a classroom topic.

It's much more holistic about the person.

- Yeah, anything that they're...

I mean, we're moms.

How do you balance work-life situations?

How do you handle childcare?

How do you handle being on boards and active in community, but juggling your work responsibilities?

It's a lot more than just the technical skills and just being the only female potentially on your floor.

So it's nice to have that supportive network.

And honestly, hearing from other people's stories, not just to validate what you're going through, but to, you know, learn the lessons learned from them and how you navigated the world of business and technology.

- You've had a chance to be involved as a mentor now.

What's that like for you?

What does that mean for you to be able to share?

- Right, yeah.

Absolutely, I do.

And you know what?

To Kellyn, or Dr. Kellyn's point, so I...

So Dr. Katie, who is the president and CEO of Johnson College, you know...

So talking about people seeing things in you you don't see in yourself.

She had given me the opportunity to do a commencement speech for the college.

And that is something I never saw me doing as the child that was wrapped around my mom's leg you know, till I was eight.

So... And I forced myself, my initial decision, or my initial reaction rather, was shocked.

And then I was like, "I have to do this."

I need to push through this very uncomfortable position and zone so that I can get to my, you know, greater self.

And I'm so glad that I've had that opportunity.

- And it's good that they see it because then the students see why public speaking is so important in college.

- Exactly.

- And you never know where your career is gonna take you.

You might be on stage giving a commencement speech somewhere, so- - Exactly.

- Absolutely.

- Yeah.

- Amazing.

So, I think Dr. Williams, let's close with you.

Final note, advice for a young woman with interest.

So, Candy was in middle school shop class.

What can they do to keep on going and find success in a career like this?

- I actually liked your students request, is that, don't be afraid to ask for help.

Don't be afraid to ask for advice.

Don't be afraid to reach out to us.

We're here to support you.

We're not these people in ivory towers that aren't, you know, approachable.

We wanna help you succeed.

And if you have a career path or you see yourself in some kind of position, we wanna help you get there.

So just reach out and contact us.

We're here to support you.

- Being able to reach out to a teacher, a mentor.

So critical.

Thank you for being that person.

Likewise, thank you each for being part of the program tonight and sharing your expertise, your knowledge, your perspective, and hopefully your inspiration for women to pursue careers in the skilled trades.

And thank you to our viewers for joining us.

Visit WVIA.org/KeystoneEditionBusiness to stream these episodes or subscribe to our podcast.

And remember, you can rewatch this episode on demand anytime on the WVIA app.

For Keystone Edition, I'm Steve Stumbris.

Thank you for watching.

(gentle spirited music)