Jennifer Green, director of competitions at Canadian educational nonprofit Skills Ontario, recently posted a photo on LinkedIn that prompted quite a few comments. The self-proclaimed “women in trades advocate” shared a picture of an elevator at Guelph Collegiate Vocational Institute (GCVI), a public high school in Guelph, Ontario, that was used to promote the GCVI Pathways program for careers in the skilled trades. Next to the elevator doors was a sign with a long list of trades, including elevator mechanic. Also on the list, to name a few, were miner, driller, welder, software developer and electronic assembly technician.
Green thanked the Upper Grand District School Board for collaborating to “make this elevator happen.” She said that “students and people in general do not know what goes into the creation of the world they utilize every day. Why not show them, while they use it and — literally — wait for it?”
The creative promotion received praise from people including Gabby De Souza, a mechanic at Delta Elevator of Markham, Ontario, who studied at Durham College and is now a parttime instructor there. She was also profiled in ELEVATOR WORLD. “Love this!” De Souza said. “You should see people’s faces when they hear about elevator mechanics. No one thinks of the people who keep up the things that keep us moving.” Another commenter said he thought such displays should be in every high school. Green’s post also prompted fond memories, such as from software sales manager Bill Bradford, who said he spent 22 years in the elevator trade. He remembered rescuing four people from the 40th floor of a stalled elevator in Pittsburgh, and described his career as an elevator mechanic as “the best.”
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