Today is the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day.  Meet three women who each pursued their passion and discovered the right fit working in the trades.

Keenan always knew that retail and office work weren’t right for her. With help from the ITA Women in Trades Training initiative, she has found work that allows her to develop marketable skills while exploring her creativity. She loves the tools, the workshop environment, and watching the wood come to life in her hands.  She comes from a long line of carpenters, but she is the first woman in her family to pursue a career in the trades.

Raven, mother of two, tried a lot of different jobs before discovering that a career in plumbing was the right fit for her. She worked as a substitute teacher, payroll administrator, receptionist, care aide and even a hunter before the ITA Women in Trades Training initiative helped her find her true calling.

Keri put everything on hold to take care of her three kids, but when she was ready to go back to work, she decided to pursue her passion and build a career in the trades.

Did You Know?

B.C. is going to need many more trade workers than we currently have.

Where will these workers come from? Females.

• Currently women represent only 3 per cent of trade workers.
• Along with attracting Aboriginals and immigrants to the trades, female trade workers are vital for avoiding a labour shortage.
• The Industry Training Authority (ITA) Women in Trades Training initiative connects women to training opportunities across B.C. with programs providing career counseling, training and financial assistance.
• There are more than 140 trades in British Columbia where you can train as an apprentice.
• Meet Jayme and Carmen. Watch their videos.
• So far more than 200 women, like Jayme, Carmen, Raven, Keenan and Keri, have participated in the program and are on their way to a career in the trades.

Meet Jayme

How’s your job? Been at it for a while? Ever dream about doing something different? These women did.

Jayme and Carmen both needed new careers. Jayme was bored in her job at a sporting goods store. Carmen needed more money to support herself and her young daughter.

The problem?

Neither of them could afford to go back to school. The old expression, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way” was certainly part of their secret, but Jayme and Carmen tell it better in their own words in these short videos.

Meet Jayme and Carmen, and watch the videos to find out how they changed their lives.

Did you know?

B.C. is going to need many more trade workers than we currently have.

Where will these workers come from?

Females.

• Currently women represent only 3 per cent of trade workers.
• Along with attracting Aboriginals and immigrants to the trades, female trade workers are vital for avoiding a labour shortage.
• The Industry Training Authority (ITA) Women in Trades Training initiative connects women to training opportunities across B.C. with programs providing career counseling, training and financial assistance.
• So far more than 200 women, like Jayme, Carmen, Keenan, Raven and Keri, have participated in the program and are on their way to a career in the trades.

Meet Carmen

Deepak Krishnamurthy is well on his way to an honours degree in engineering from one of India’s top institutes of science and technology.

And thanks to his experience as a MITACS Globalink intern at Simon Fraser University this summer, he wants to come to British Columbia to do his graduate studies.

Deepak, who spent three months working on a fuel cell that will fit in the palm of your hand, says the top draw is our dedicated researchers – and our labs with all the bells and whistles.
But close behind is the B.C. lifestyle – including bungee jumping in Whistler, wandering through Stanley Park, climbing the Chief and camping on Mayne Island.

Loving the lifestyle

“So many great outdoor experiences!” says Deepak, who has finished his third year at the Biria Institute of Technology and Science, or BITS, as it’s called.
Every year, 200,000 students write the BITS entrance exam. Only 2,500 of them get spots in one of the institute’s three campuses.

Deepak’s is in Pilani, a small town in the desert state of Rajasthan.  “It’s an oasis in the desert – the only part that is green and has water.”

The nearest city is a five-hour drive through the shifting sands of the Thar. So a weekend in B.C. spent taking two ferry rides to Mayne Island, learning to pitch a tent and kayaking in the ocean was magical.

“The campsite was exquisitely beautiful,” he says. “It was right at the edge of the water, where you could watch the sunrise and see the ferries. A great place, a lot of good friends – you can have the best fun of your life.”

Attracting the best of the best

The friends were some of the other 48 MITACS Globalink students from India doing research internships at the universities of B.C. and Victoria, and Simon Fraser University. The Globalink program, supported by $337,500 from the provincial government, introduces students to the world-class research going on in B.C., while giving them a chance to find out what it’s like to live here. That makes them more likely to return for graduate school and remain to work in B.C.’s knowledge economy.

“Before Globalink, I was not thinking about Canada for graduate studies,” says Deepak. “Now I would like to come to B.C.”

Globalink interns work with professors on projects that relate to their studies back home. Deepak is supervised at SFU by Dr. Erik Kjeang, a professor in the mechatronic systems engineering program, whose focus is new technology for sustainable energy conversion and storage.

That includes a small, durable fuel cell, designed to be made from cheap, accessible materials like plastic and carbon. The prototype is ready to be used in wireless sensors; scaled up, it could eventually power cellphones and other consumer electronics.

Strong skills, great potential

“Deepak has demonstrated really strong theoretical knowledge and analytic skills,” says Kjeang, who will supervise the student’s undergraduate thesis before Deepak returns to India to finish his degree later this year.

Kjeang says he would jump at the chance to take on other Globalink interns in future.

“These students are very quick learners,” Kjeang said. “I’m impressed with the breadth of their knowhow at such an early stage in their careers, and I find it really rewarding to work with them.”

How do you get one of the world’s top accelerator physicists to uproot her family and move from a great job in the U.S. to British Columbia? You offer her an even better job in Vancouver at TRIUMF, Canada’s national laboratory for particle and nuclear physics. You hand her responsibility for running the world’s largest cyclotron, not to mention all of TRIUMF’s linear accelerators, keeping them fine-tuned so that internationally renowned researchers from all around the globe can get their work done with a minimum of interruption. Most powerful accelerator And then you ice the cake with a promise that she will oversee the building of a brand new linear accelerator, or linac – one of the most powerful anywhere, which accelerates electrons, rather than protons, to the speed of light. “In my field, the opportunity to build a brand new accelerator does not come every day,” says Lia Merminga, who nevertheless has already been involved in putting together two such projects. “But this time to be in charge of it, where the buck stops – it’s absolutely something I wanted to experience.”

Lia Merminga, the heart of ARIEL

The next-generation accelerator she and her team will build is the heart of ARIEL, the Advanced Rare IsotopE Laboratory, which has just received $30.7 million from the provincial government.

ARIEL will be capable of demonstrating a new way of producing medical isotopes, simulating supernovas to help scientists understand where matter comes from, and otherwise helping to keep TRIUMF at the forefront of particle and nuclear physics for the next 15 years.

Merminga grew up in Greece, studying physics at the University of Athens, and then going to the U.S. to complete two master’s degrees and a PhD at the University of Michigan. At the time TRIUMF lured her to Vancouver, she was director of the Centre for Advanced Studies of Accelerators at the Jefferson Lab in Virginia.

Sleepless in the land of physics

Lia Merminga lives and breathes accelerator physics – even in her sleep. Ideas often wake her up in the middle of the night. Sometimes she jots them down and catches a few more winks; other times, she gets up and goes into work.

As well as designing, building, commissioning and operating the new e-linac, and keeping the cyclotron and existing accelerators running, Merminga’s division does research and development in collaboration with other labs around the world. Her team also trains graduate students – the scientists of the future, some of whom will likely fill the 160 jobs ARIEL is expected to create in B.C.

“My job is fascinating to me – I love it,” says Merminga, who is married to a physicist and has a son, now 16. When he was younger, she developed lessons on the atom for his class. “Spending time in his classroom was delightful.”

Builds B.C.’s knowledge economy

Merminga predicts ARIEL will make important contributions to B.C.’s knowledge economy.

For one thing, TRIUMF’s new process for creating medical isotopes using the e-linac could result in more isotopes being produced commercially in B.C.

And ARIEL will also allow TRIUMF to transfer more technology to industry, like PAVAC Industries, a Richmond company that is selling its products in the U.S., Asia and Europe. “We’ve already built one of our linear accelerators based on superconducting technology established here at TRIUMF, which we transferred to PAVAC,” Merminga said. “We plan to do the same for the e-linac. PAVAC will be one of a handful of companies around the world who build superconducting cavities for accelerators.”

Ontario engineering graduate Glen Arthur chose British Columbia.

How do you get a recent graduate from Queen’s University to move to British Columbia? Just ask Glen Arthur.

“At the time I was evaluating my options, two things drew me to British Columbia—its beauty and its economy. There’s a lot of building and growth in B.C., which equates to a lot of opportunities.”

Arthur moved to B.C. in September 2008 to work on the $2.46-billion Port Mann/Highway 1 Improvement Project. He puts his skills to use as a contract administrator and estimator for the various elements of the province’s largest infrastructure investment ever. The project is also creating over 8,000 jobs!

Like many others, Arthur sees the B.C. economy moving and offering a lot of long-term career benefits.

“By hosting the 2010 Olympics and continued investment in infrastructure, B.C. has positioned itself well in terms of attracting young professionals.” The Port Mann/Highway 1 project is part of a growing transportation network promoting the movement of people, goods and services throughout the lower-mainland. Investments in rural transportation. The 37-kilometre project spans from McGill Street Interchange in Vancouver to 216th Street in Langley. The new bridge will be finished one year earlier than expected, moving people and goods by 2012.

Visit the Port Mann/Hwy 1 project web camera

So what’s the big deal?

• a new 10-lane Port Mann Bridge
• travel times cut by up to 30%
• a new RapidBus service with 23-minute travel from new Langley transit exchange to Burnaby SkyTrain
• HOV lane in each direction

Roland and Christiane Baumann own and operate RR Ranch, a 728 hectare cow/calf ranch at the base of Sinkut Mountain located ­16 kilometres southeast of Vanderhoof in northern B.C. The Baumanns immigrated to Canada from Switzerland with their two sons in 1992, and with very little knowledge about farming, they started their endeavour in Vanderhoof with two calves. Over the next 17 years, they grew their cattle herd to a ranch operation that includes 150 head cow-calf/yearling.

Roland and Christiane absolutely cherish local food production. Growing and enjoying good food is a priority in their lives. They have built a solid reputation for providing quality beef and are immensely proud of the cattle they raise.

“B.C.’s ranchers have a proud heritage,” said Baumann. “That’s why we’re looking ahead, and making sure we have a strong industry so the next generation can benefit from it as well.”

The industry is worth over $250 million to B.C.’s economy. More than 4,000 ranches provide jobs and income for thousands of British Columbians.

Not only does Baumann know the ins and outs of cattle ranching as an owner-operator, in 2009 he served as co-chair of the B.C. Ranching Task Force.  He’s also the immediate past-president of the BC Cattlemen’s Association. Thanks to the Ranching Task Force report, the provincial released a four-point action plan in May to improve the competitive environment of B.C.’s cattle sector.

As a province, we are investing $2 million in B.C.’s ranching industry, with the potential to leverage up to $3 million in federal funding to develop market opportunities and invest in research. The future is looking up for this industry and British Columbians are celebrating ranching like never before.

If you’re travelling through the province this summer, see if you can spot places where the cattle industry plays a vital role in other things we value, such as grassland preservation and agri-tourism.

The setting is a busy construction site on the Vancouver waterfront. Workers hustle in and out of a skeleton that will one day be a swanky, new hotel. Vehicles buzz back and forth. Dr. Jack Mintz, Canadian economist and tax expert, steps forward to talk about job creation in B.C. “The impact on jobs is quite large. In fact, taking into account all of the tax changes that are to take place over this coming decade, I expect that jobs will rise in British Columbia by 141,000, and the HST alone will lead to 113,000 extra jobs by the end of this decade.” 113,000 jobs. That’s more than the population of any city in northern B.C. And the North will reap the benefits of the HST. “We’re an export-based, goods producing economy,” says Initiatives Prince George Development Corporation President Tim McEwan. “The HST is going to be a very positive measure for northern B.C.” “For British Columbia and northern British Columbia it means more jobs, more wealth and higher incomes for people.”

Watch the video of Initiatives Prince George Development Corporation President Tim McEwan: