Laying Foundations: Second Annual Girls Construction Camp Wraps Up First Week
A Dodecahedron — a 12-sided sphere like object — is a common tool used by NCTWC to teach teamwork and woodworking skills. During the week, the girls made several of these to help hammer in soft skills (Aidan Cahill). See Story pg. 13
The second annual Girls Construction Camp recently wrapped up with girls in middle school learning about trades.
The camp was put on by the Northeast Construction Trades Workforce Coalition (NCTWC) and took place at the Whitbeck Construction Education Center in Gansevoort. The camp was the first of two to be held this year — the second being an advanced course.
Doug Ford, the president of the Northeast Construction Trades Workforce Coalition said the idea for the camp came from State Assemblywoman Cathy Woerner. Ford said that Woerner was looking for a way to bridge the gender gap in the trades by exposing girls to careers in the trades at a young age.
“We really want to make sure that young women know that the trades are an opportunity,” Ford said. “There’s no reason for them not to go into the trades with the technology that exists today.”
Ford said that only 10% of jobs in the trades are filled by women. Part of the mission of the camp was to also show that the trades weren’t just physical labor, according to Ford.
“When you talk about the trades, we always seem to focus on the physical aspect,” Ford said. “But there’s a lot of jobs that are part of the trades that aren’t necessarily physical. Project management, design, logistics — all these jobs associated with the trades that never get talked about.”
Job security was a benefit of the trades emphasized by Assemblywoman Mary Beth Walsh (R-112) who addressed campers during the closing ceremony of the camp.
“Jobs are always going to be around,” Walsh said. “You’re always going to need a plumber, you’re always going to need an electrician, you’re always going to need somebody to do HVAC, you’re always going to need a good carpenter. So, there are always going to be really good jobs in the trades and the jobs are only getting better.”
During the weeklong camp, the girls learned about the trades, went on field trips to job sites, saw firsthand the importance of soft skills like communication and got hands on experience working with common tools and materials.
Nora Chanese, an incoming ninth grader at Queensbury High School, talked about how communication on the job site was one of the major challenges the girls faced in the camp.
“It’s definitely been challenging our communication skills,” Chanese said. “There’s been times where we just absolutely fail at communicating and then we just can’t build.”
Chanese said she learned about the camp through a BOCES program that exposed incoming high schoolers to different paths. While Chanese said she is focusing more on sciences for now, she’s very grateful for the skills she learned at the camp.
“This is obviously a needed skill in the future,” Chanese said. “It means I don’t have to always call someone if something breaks — I can fix it myself.”
Under the direction of Matt Whitbeck, Vice President of NCTWC and owner of Whitbeck Construction, the girls built charcutier boards, Viking chairs, flower boxes, sawhorses and other wooden objects.
In addition, the girls participated in team-based competitions, got a look at quarry operations and cared for their respective mascots — two dogs named Buster and Bella. They also learned that the one naughty word on a construction site is “perfect,” according to Whitbeck.
One of the issues Ford said the camp didn’t have to deal with was distractions from smartphones. He said during the camp, they didn’t have to tell a single camper to put away their phones. This lack of distractions was noted by another camper, incoming eighth grader Joe Kelleherstark.
“It was actually really nice,” Kelleherstark said. “Sometimes in school, you don’t have that much teamwork because you’re normally allowed to go on your phone. You’re never talking to your friends at lunch and stuff. This time there were no phones, no nothing. And we were actually focusing very well on each other and helping each other.”
One of the projects the girls worked on was a viking chair. The chair was comprised of two boards interlocking ( Aidan Cahill).
Both Kelleherstark and Chanese said they were exposed to the trades growing up through their grandfathers — Chanese’s was a general contractor while Kelleherstark said hers was involved in building houses.
Kelleherstark said she was considering carpentry as a career since she’s always been building things as a kid. One of the things she was most happy with was how well people got along.
“I’m pretty happy about how people are working together,” Kelleherstark said. “It’s very exciting to see people working together, because sometimes people are just on their own.”