Women make the 'best welders': Ontario programs bring them to the skilled trades

When Kaylyn Roloson enrolled in arts and history at Hamilton's McMaster University, she didn't expect she'd end up as a welder.

But as she advanced through the program, she took a liking to working with steel.

"I was making sculptures out of steel and welding them together, and cutting like using a plasma cutter and cutting everything out," Roloson told CBC Hamilton.

She had hoped to become a teacher but that didn't work out. Then she found out about steel construction company Walters Group, a partner in the Skills2Advance welding program and their Women of Steel initiative. 

"[I saw that] Walters has a partnership with Mohawk [College], and it's a program where you actually get paid co-op once a week while you're in school, so I thought that would be a really interesting way to kind of learn more."

That was eight years ago.

She now works as a quality control inspector at Walters and loves it. But when she started, the company wasn't used to a woman welder.

"At the beginning, I was told I wasn't strong enough … So I had to learn different ways to build things because I wasn't as strong as my other co-workers."

She also said she felt targeted more often than others. 

"If I was caught talking or something, I would always get in trouble compared to other people. I felt like because I was a woman I was always on watch at the beginning. I definitely got past it now. Just figuring out different ways to do things and becoming stronger just by doing it every day. [I started using] muscles that I never had to use … You learn the smarter way to do things."

She said "the hands-on aspect to getting to use the tools, getting to use the drawings, I'm constantly on my feet, and staying active and learning … I'm not often bored."

Despite the struggles, Roloson is still looking to encourage women to join the welding trade. 

"I find a lot of the women in this trade, they pay more attention to detail. They become the best welders, a lot of them. Once they start welding, their welds are better than most of the men because they care."

Skills2Advance is a free program by the Workforce Planning Board of Grand Erie that aims to help people get training for welding, as well as manufacturing and warehousing.