She weighs less than some coils of cable, but Danielle Arts is well on her way to earning her ticket as an electrician and is loving every step.
“I need 9,000 hours,” says the 31-year-old mother of two from Brampton, Ont.
“And, boy, those hours add up slowly. I’m in my third year of the five-year apprenticeship and I really do love it.”
Arts always knew she wanted to get into a trade and tried her hand at interlocking brick work, HVAC and solar panel installation before spotting a call for applications to a trade school program.
Perhaps it’s not surprising she started gravitating to electrical since it’s the number one trade registered at the Ontario College of Trades for women.
“The YMCA was offering free trade school to 20 girls,” she says. “So I applied along with 400 others. We all wrote the test and I came out on top of the 20.”
Her strong ability in math carried her through and after two months of basic training she also got a job placement with an electrical contractor.
“They were all Korean and English was a bit of a problem but we all found out we could communicate around electrical design using pictures,” she says.
After that it was a struggle with odd jobs and Arts knew she needed to get into the IBEW but their apprenticeship programs are tightly controlled and she didn’t have the prerequisite sciences.
Arts had never done well in physics and sciences at high school but on learning she would need some sciences to qualify for the IBEW she started trying to learn physics at home.
“I bought a book and started studying, which wasn’t easy with two kids running around and you don’t have anyone explaining things to you,” she says.
More recently she landed a job with DSK Electric where she’s joined the Christian Labour Association of Canada trade union.
“I’m lucky to get in,” she says. “And it’s been great. I see electrical as the glamorous trade because it’s a lot less physical than say, brick work which is good for me.”
There were some physical challenges at first, given her petite size but she soon overcame them.
“I got tennis elbow when I first got on the job,” she says laughing.
“I had a special brace but that’s all cleared up now. What I love about it — and I like ICI more than residential, which I’m doing both right now — is that I get to problem solve every day. I get a problem and I figure it out. I really enjoy that.”
Arts’s determination to get into a trade had to overcome some hurdles even back in high school.
“I went to an academic school where they say, ‘if you’re dumb, learn a trade,’ but of course now they say ‘if you’re smart, learn a trade,’ because after five years you’re caking it, earning all kinds of money,” Arts says.
“At first I thought my being a girl would make it harder to get a job but every time I’ve been out of work, by the time I hand out five resumes, all five will call me back.”
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