| A Profile of Women Locate Technicians Catherine Carver, [email protected] |
| Women locate techs are a rare find in Canada and the United States. In places where they can be found, there is a following of friends and a supportive community! During this past March, the National Assocation of Women in Constrction, NAWIC, promoted its first ever 'Introduce a Girl to Construction Day.' This caused me to wonder about the make up of the utility locate workforce, a construction trade service provider. According to NAWIC data, the number of women in constrction grew from 762,000 in 1995 to 816,000 in 1999, to 915,000 in 2000. But how many women locator techs are there in what I know to be a field dominated by men? To find out I asked several member companies of NULCA and found that women have been making entry into this field for some time and with very positive results. Unfortunately, I was not able to get enough specific data to estimate a precent of women working as techs. I did hear from Jim Gregory who oversees CLS's mid-Atlantic region. CLS currently employs thirty-seven (37) female locate techs in this region. Wanting to know more about what their attraction to the business was, I set out to contact a number of women techs directly. I wanted to learn more about their background, their work experiences and overall job satisfaction. Based on the response to my request for names of women in the business, I issued a small survey. A dozen women responded to the questions. I also called a number of them to discuss what it was like being a female in a construction related environment. I found that the ages of the women respondents ranged from 23-46 years and their educational levels ranged from a high school equivalency to a junior college degree. They have worked in the locate field between 3 and 15 years with an average field time of 8 years. Only three of the techs from Northern Virginia Electric membership CoOp acknowledged even knowing about the Common Ground Best Practice study and it's predecessor, The Common Ground Alliance. NOVEC, ironically, has used third party training annually for the past seven years to assess employee skills, and apparently a side benefit was hearing about national information regarding their profession. These women work for companies from coast to coast and each got started in a different way. Most of the women were looking for a challenging career and they loved the outdoors. Locating supplied them with both. Pamela Newman who works for TBE Group, Inc. states, "I was getting a divorce and it was the only job (with my limited education) that paid halfway decent so that I could support myself." SM&P Utility Resources in St. Paul, MN trained Pam at the entry level. Barbara Tortorelli from TBE offered the following, "Initially I moved into locating to get out of the receptionist position and make more money." Senior locate techs at So-Deep trained her on a fast track program and she was on her first project, (solo) in about 3 months. She states she was closely supervised for a good time after the training. Janice Sayce of On Target Locating filled out an application responding to an ad in her local paper. She was attracted by the job specifications seeking a self-motivated person, who would be required to work independently, most of the time. Janice had worked as an electrician in Florida before coming to the northeast. "In my previous life I had to call for locates to find buried wires prior to completing my own work." Janice found it fascinating to watch the One-Call folks do their thing and 'run.' When the opportunity to switch careers came, she did so without hesitation. Janice is now a senior locate tech with On Target."I enjoy the outdoors, the traveling from location to location and meeting new people, " Said Sayce. Janice did experience a notable change in her hourly wage as compared to her former electrican pay. She does however, feel more satisfied with other aspects of the locating industry, aspects that she knows would not have been present as an electrician. The women I spoke with all feel that the locate industry has been challenging, rewarkding and satisfying and that opportunities (limited as they might be) do exist for career growth. They all admit that in the contract-locating arena, advancement positions are limited to crew supervisors or specialist position that require particular skills. A couple of the survey respones suggest that some individuals are trained to use more 'specialized' equipment such as GPR, though this is not at all commonplace and does require more supervision. A number of the locate techs have advanced from locating firms to Sub-Utility Engineeirng (S.U.E.) firms; a specialty locate service which has exploded over the past several years. According to Tortorelli, as a S.U.E. locate tehcnician, "You have to be able to think technically and be comfortable with two dimensional drawings or this business will eat at you." Many of the women reported that the biggest challenge is organization and time managment. |
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