Women forge new paths in the trades

METRO DETROIT — Monroe resident Traci Longenbarger has been breaking barriers for women in the trades for a decade now, working as a female carpenter.

Longenbarger is a business agent for the Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters and Millwrights, a union that represents 14,000 carpenters and millwrights across Michigan. She also serves as a part-time instructor for the International Code Council’s Contractor/Trades examination program, and is a career correction specialist, which grants her the opportunity to speak at career fairs and schools.

She is also a Sisters in the Brotherhood point of contact, which is a mentoring group for women in carpentry.

Having gone from Dundee, Michigan, to Hawaii right out of high school, to South Dakota and then back to Metro Detroit, Longenbarger worked a variety of jobs, from carpet cleaning to corrections in the sheriff’s department, to a 10-year career in security.

After she was let go from her security position, Longenbarger started over again at age 34.

“We had a shift in management. I got fired. So here I am, 30-something years old, 10 years I worked in that field. I was devastated,” she explained.

After a year of struggling to make ends meet, an encounter with her dad’s neighbor led her to find a new passion.

“I went and visited my parents back in Dundee. My dad does what old guys do, and they work out in their yard, and they talk to their neighbors,” Longenbarger said. “I went home that day and my dad’s like, ‘Hey, you should go talk to the neighbor.’  I’m like, ‘I don’t know who your neighbors are anymore. I’m not going to go talk to some stranger. No.’ He’s like, ‘No, you’re going to go talk to this guy.’”

Longenbarger’s dad introduced her to his neighbor who was in the MRCC union, and the rest is history for her.

She explained that it was difficult when she first started out and that it was a hard field to break into because it was predominantly male.

“It was hard in the beginning. I would call places to try to get hired. They would say no because I’m a woman; I’m a liability. It was really hard to get my foot in the door back then,” Longenbarger said.

She said all it took was one “yes” amid all of the “noes” to build the confidence that she needed to break out as a woman in the trades.

When Longenbarger first started out in carpentry 10 years ago, she only had two other women in her apprenticeship program that she rarely saw because their classes were on different days.

“That stigma is still out there, that women shouldn’t be out there in the field doing the work but it’s changing. It has changed so much in 10 years,” Longenbarger said. “Back when I came in, and I’m lucky, I had a few incidences that happened to me, but I held my ground. I knew who I was. I stood up for myself, and I had great guys working around me and saw me for the hard worker I was.”

Now, in her current role, Longenbarger gets to encourage and inspire other women in the trades.

“I get to go to high schools to talk. I get to talk at career fairs, women’s events, anywhere that they give me the opportunity to chat about our facility and our career and our opportunities that we offer,” she said. “I am so more than proud to do that, because the MRCC has given me so much, and I’ve given them as well. It’s a give-and-take relationship, but I get so much out of it.”

Third-year Ferris State University construction management student Paige Sornig always knew that she didn’t want a desk job.

“I like the idea of getting to see the project being built, and helping people, especially with newer buildings,” Sornig said.

As a Rochester Adams High School student, she was granted the opportunity to attend Oakland Schools Technical Campuses during her junior and senior years, where she caught a glimpse at the construction program.

She shared that after touring Ferris State, she was hooked because it was like OSTC “on steroids.”

She said there was some apprehension expressed by some family members and friends when she chose this field.

“My own mom, at first, she seemed kind of against it,” she said. “But I think the more she looked into it, and the more I talked to her about it, she definitely opened up a lot more. And now she even was like, there’s no other job she could see me doing.”

As she heads into her final year at Ferris, she is interested in pursuing entertainment construction, which includes sites like amusement parks, stadiums and venues.

She added that she also likes the idea of building schools.

“Last year, I built a school in Detroit, and I had a parent come up to me, and they were just crying,” Sornig said. “They were like, ‘Thank you for making the school safer for my kids. I feel so much more comfortable and confident with them going here. It means a lot, and it especially means a lot that you’re a female, because I was telling my daughter, ‘Girls can do anything,’ and she saw you and she was like, ‘Whoa, Mom, look at her.’”

Longenbarger and Sornig encouraged other women to find a trade that they enjoy if they’re interested.

“I like to stress to women coming in, we are a sisterhood, and it is a brotherhood, but sisters coming into this, there’s more than one position. You can work with other women. It doesn’t have to be you versus them, like, it should be us united working together,” Longenbarger said.

For more information about the MRCC, visit hammer9.com.

To find out how to apply for a carpentry apprenticeship, visit buildmifuture.com.

For more information about Ferris State’s construction management program, go www.ferris.edu/CET/construction-man agement.