Seven years after winning a Skills Canada gold medal in bricklaying, New Brunswick’s Ashley Ritchie hasn’t rested on her laurels.
Ritchie, who has Red Seal credentials in carpentry, bricklaying and construction craft worker as well as a degree in adult education, is now an academic chair at New Brunswick Community College where she’s head of the building and construction department.
She previously worked as a program co-ordinator for the Women in Trades network in New Brunswick in the New Boots program.
She also spent time promoting gender diversity and inclusion in the workplace with the Women’s Equality Branch of the Government of New Brunswick, serving as a mentor at the branch’s Trades and Technology for Girls Career Exploration events.
She still manages to find the time these days to pursue a masters in adult education and raise three children.
No wonder Melissa Young, registrar and CEO of Skilled Trades Ontario and a former New Brunswicker, calls Ritchie “one amazing lady.”
Some people involved in skills trades advocacy might consider it just a job. Ritchie takes it a step further.
“I can’t explain it. It’s like this fire inside of me,” she said. “There’s something so awesome about going in and whether it’s talking to high school students or students in their first year of college or even apprenticeship level students, just offering them support and guiding them through different situations, just promoting the skilled trades as a whole.”
Ritchie seems to have had the same enthusiasm for almost every stage of her career. She took woodworking in high school and later launched her trades career in carpentry but once on the jobsite she began to watch the bricklayers.
More trades the better
“My favourite part of both trades is transforming the exterior of the building,” Ritchie said. “I really love those houses where it’s a mixed media of products, like the stone on the bottom, stone up a chimney or brick, and wood siding on the top half of the house.”
Winning a gold medal at Skills Canada in 2017 and three medals in total taught her how to upskill in a hurry.
“I had to utilize and learn those skills at a much faster pace,” she said.
In the end, “I was just more confident in my ability and skills. I learned that right away, that pushed me to achieve more.”
As Ritchie progressed in her career, she became infused with how the trades are important in building community.
“It’s so satisfying to finish a project, whether it’s a building that stands for eternity in a community or it’s a residential house, it’s going to be there for a long time and you really get a sense of what you do to a community,” she said.
Advocacy for alternate pathways
Soon enough Ritchie realized that if she completed a degree in adult education, switching from another course she had pursued earlier, she could help others experience the same rewards she has.
“I thought to myself, I should really learn more about how other people learn,” she said. “I have this experience in a non-traditional role. I feel like I faced a few barriers because of that…I wanted to help create a path forward in education for other people.”
In her current role Ritchie is involved with such promising programs as the Skilled Trades Techniques program, which allows first-year students to explore multiple trades, and the capstone project, where students are encouraged to pursue individualized studies.
Asked to name one recruiting or retention strategy that has significant potential for success, Ritchie said it’s flexible program delivery — with her diverse background, she fully understands the merits of such an approach.
“An alternate pathway really worked for me,” said Ritchie. “And that opened my eyes. I know if I had unique situations, I can imagine a multitude of other people do too.
“It just expanded my mindset at the time. So now I’m just a proud promoter of that and getting people to think outside the box.”
Follow the author on Twitter @DonWall_DCN.
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