Jamie McMillan, founder of Kickass Careers, offers insight into skilled trades as a pathway to success for women
With notes from NAWIC and International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, edited by Jessica Kirby
For Jamie McMillan of KickAss Careers, inspiring youth from kindergarteners to high school students to careers in construction is all in a day’s work. After all, she spends up to 30 weeks a year presenting to thousands of students, parents, educators, and employers about skilled trades as a first-choice career path, one that offers economic security, practical knowledge, and lifelong skills.
But children aren’t the only ones she is inspiring. Moms and dads who may have zero interest in construction when they come to one of her presentations with their child, reach out to her afterwards saying, “I am unhappy with my job. How can I start a career in the skilled trades?”
“Skilled trades offer a pathway into so many different careers,” McMillan says. “Many people don’t understand skilled trades can lead from being an apprentice on tools to being a contractor or owner of a company.”
McMillan is a self-described passionate advocate of the industry because, she says, the trades saved her life. Though she was raised in a loving and socially conscious home, by the time McMillan turned 18, she was itching to strike out on her own.
“I thought I was a big girl, and I could take care of myself,” she says. “I wanted to drop out of school, but my parents wouldn’t let me.”
So, she left her family, dropped out of high school in Timmins, Ontario, and went to work at a variety of service jobs. Unfulfilled, she decided to pursue additional schooling. She went into healthcare and worked for the Red Cross for a few years, but felt this, too, was the wrong path.
While walking to the grocery one afternoon, a car pulled up to the curb. The woman in the car had just gotten a dispatch from her ironworker local and asked for a pen to jot down the address where she needed to report to work.
After the woman handed the pen back, she looked at McMillan, stared for a minute then asked, “Is your name Jamie?”
Turns out, the woman was her old high school classmate, now smiling up at her—500 miles from Timmons. As an ironworker, she made good money. McMillan’s old classmate had a good life.
“Eight years of searching. Eight years of not being happy with my life, and I had to find out about an apprenticeship from a random encounter with a high school classmate,” McMillan says with a shake of her head. “Crazy.”
A few days later, she looked up the ironworkers and trekked to their hall, filled out an application, and hoped for the best. A letter came a few months later confirming her apprenticeship, but when she showed up at the hall, the Ironworkers were surprised. They’d accepted her into the apprenticeship thinking she was a man, because of her name, but they still accepted her.
An ironworker since 2002, McMillan is now a highly sought after motivational speaker, apprentice boilermaker, outreach specialist, author, visionary, and advocate for skilled trades, technology, mental health, and youth. What began from a chance opportunity to fill in for a panelist at a SkillsOntario event led to presenting the keynote at a conference for 77 school boards in Ontario and resulted in her new career.
McMillan founded KickAss Careers in 2014 to recruit the next generation of skilled trades workers through engaging presentations and hands-on experiences.
According to the KickAss Careers website, through apprenticeship, technical education, STEM programs, and the armed forces, many highly educated skilled professionals are making white-collar salaries designing, building, and maintaining our infrastructure. With the current labour shortage and focus on infrastructure upgrades nationally, skilled tradespeople will be in demand well into the future. Jobs like electrician, ironworker, pipefitter, and sheet metal worker offer quicker entry into a career than many of those requiring a four-year college degree. On-the-job training and apprenticeship programs are well-suited for people who thrive on the challenges of hands-on work and are inspired by seeing what they have accomplished.
McMillan sees that excitement and sense of accomplishment in her students, too—like primary school girls building a birdhouse for the first time or the quiet boy who struggles in school coming out of his shell to lead his peers in building a bridge out of paper. She finds the younger children are braver. Less afraid, they are intuitive and curious, asking the most intelligent questions. Grades 7 and 8 still have “spongy curiosity” she says, but by early high school they are more influenced by peer pressure.
In her work as an advocate, McMillan also strives to break down negative misconceptions and stereotypes and build up women working in construction. For women looking for a successful career path, construction offers competitive wages nearly equal to men and plenty of opportunities for work and growth. Yet, only about 11% of the construction workforce is women, and the number in skilled trades is even smaller.
As an ironworker, McMillan travelled across Canada for contract projects wherever the work took her. Often, she was the only woman on the job, sometimes working alongside as many as 400 men.
“In the field, some men like to try to divide tradeswomen and create chaos,” she said. “We need to be there to support and uplift each other.”
She explains, “There are a variety of different types of people in construction, as with any job, and people you will struggle with, just like in family and friendship circles. But the workplace is different because you need the income to survive.”
That’s where McMillan finds the mentorship and support from other women in construction so important. The internet and social media have opened up more ways for construction women to find connections, too. “If you are having a rough day, you can pop on a group chat and within 15 minutes you have 30 women from all over the world saying ‘Go, Sister!’ and offering advice because they have been in a similar situation,” McMillan says.
“The more antagonistic people are, the more they inspire me. They are the reason I am successful. They are the ones who have pushed me to prove them wrong.” With a smile, she adds, “Success is the best revenge.”
To learn more about Jamie McMillan and the work of KickAssCareers, visit kickasscareers.ca.
Don’t miss Jamie McMillan’s keynote address at the 2023 TIAC Conference in Whistler, BC, August 23-26. “The Workplace Detox: Build It and They Will Come” explores how we can work together to boost retention in the trades and become organizations thriving with reliable talent. Find out why turn-over is so high and companies are losing millions of dollars in lost productivity and supplies because of “toxic norms” affecting job sites across the country. ■
