CONGRATULATIONS, JEN!

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OTI is so proud of Jen Netherwood who was announced as the “2015 Irwin Trade Professional” by Irwin Tools for her dedication and inspiring work in the trades!

Jen has been working as a carpenter in the construction industry for more than 11 years. She worked for Neil Kelley as a high end residential re-modeler for many years before deciding that she wanted to become more involved in shaping the community.

 Soon after leaving her carpentry career at Neil Kelly, Jen was hired as an instructor for a pre-apprenticeship program in a women’s correctional facility. The program was designed to provide women the training and skills needed to pursue a living wage career once they are released.The program lost funding, but Jen was committed to continuing the work to help these women flourish. She approached the Bureau of Labor and Industries and collaborated with a local community college to work on developing the pre-apprenticeship program for the prison that wasn’t reliant on corporate support. She did this on her own time, unpaid, and from a selfless place where her primary interest was only to continue to provide hope for the women she had worked with in prison.

She continues to volunteer at the correctional facility doing information presentations for groups of women and talking to inmates individually. Jen also works with OTI as an instructor for our Trades and Apprenticeship Career Class, imparting her knowledge and skills to OTI’s pre-apprenticeship students. Clearly, Jen is a teacher and mentor at heart.

Congratulations, again, Jen!

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Business Member Spotlight: NW College of Construction

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Oregon Tradeswomen, Inc. welcomes the support of the business community to help us fulfill our mission to engage more women and girls in the trades.

NW College of Construction is one of our partners in this program and we thank them for their contribution to OTI.

The school is a privately funded, non-profit educational facility with a mission to promote life-long learning by delivering craft, technical, supervisory and management education to workers and managers at all levels in the construction industry.

OTI thanks the staff of NW College of Construction for their support of our programming as a business membership program participant!

If you want to learn more about our business membership program, please send an email to dennise@tradeswomen.net for details on how you can be involved.

Pacific Northwest Combined Federal Campaign

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Oregon Tradeswomen, Inc. is pleased to announce that we are one of the participating non-profits in the Pacific Northwest Combined Federal Campaign.

The Pacific Northwest Combined Federal Campaign is administered by a committee of federal employee volunteers called the Local Federal Coordinating Committee (LFCC). The Oregon Federal Executive Board provides support to and participates in this committee. The mission of the CFC is to promote and support philanthropy through a program that is employee focused, cost-efficient, and effective in providing all federal employees the opportunity to improve the quality of life for all.

The CFC is the only official workplace charitable fundraising program allowed in federal government offices. During a six-week time frame between Sept. 1st – Dec. 15th of each year, the local CFC is promoted and federal employees are given the opportunity to designate a payroll deduction, cash or check donation to any of thousands of charities locally and nationally.

Learn more by visiting the local CFC website to find out how you can support Oregon Tradeswomen, Inc.!

FOR THE HEALTH & SAFETY OF TRADESWOMEN

A Collaboration Between Oregon Tradeswomen, Inc. and Therapeutic Associates East Portland Physical Therapy

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Damage to the back, neck, and shoulders account for over 25% of all construction related injuries, significantly more than any other injuries experienced in the trades (Center for Protection of Workers’ Rights, 2010). Here at OTI, we strive to train women to successfully enter the construction trades with the hopes that they will have long, rewarding careers. In addition to providing classroom and hands-on training, we require students to participate in a fitness component that helps women strengthen their core muscles to prepare them for the physical demands that work in the trades requires. While fitness training is great, we also know that it is not enough to help women keep their number one tool, their bodies, safe from neck, shoulder, and back injuries that can be debilitating.

Enter Therapeutic Associates East Portland Physical Therapy! Early in 2015 the East Portland branch of Therapeutic Associates reached out to OTI with the offer of collaborating to help keep our tradeswomen safe and healthy. Clinic director Peter Dills, PT, DPT, staff therapist Sarah Stuhr, PT, DPT, FAAOMPT, and physical therapy aide Elizabeth Bilotta met with OTI staff and developed a workshop for our Trades and Apprenticeship Career Class (TACC) students that would help them become educated about workplace risk factors and injury prevention.

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Peter, Sarah, and Elizabeth put on a four hour workshop on August 22, which included classroom education about risk, prevention, and what steps to take when a tradeswoman realizes she has been injured. In addition, they provided individualized training to 14 women, observing them lift and carry common objects found on construction sites, such as lumber, sheets of plywood, and table saws. The Therapeutic Associates East Portland Physical Therapy team observed TACC students’ lifting and carrying techniques, provided instruction on the mechanics of lifting/carrying and assisted them in beginning to develop safe habits to utilize on the job site. The workshop finished up with the practice of a daily stretching & foam roller recovery routines as well as instruction on techniques for self-managing minor injuries.

The class was a tremendous success. TACC students and recent graduates that attended reported that they were grateful to be receiving this training before they began to develop unsafe habits in the field. Peter, Sarah, and Elizabeth stated that they were impressed with how engaged our future tradeswomen were with both the classroom and hands-on training.

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This important partnership is one that we are looking forward to continuing to build upon and fine tune for future classes and, potentially, for tradeswomen that have been in the field for a while but may not have had instruction in developing safe lifting/carrying habits. We are looking forward to another workshop for our October – December TACC students.

We are so excited to continue this work with the amazing staff at Therapeutic Associates East Portland Physical Therapy. Keeping our tradeswomen safe and healthy so they can have longevity in the field is of the utmost importance to us. So, from all of us here at OTI, a huge thank you to Peter, Sarah, and a special shout out to Elizabeth for initiating the conversation about a partnership between our organizations. We look forward to a long and fruitful relationship!

Congratulations September 2015 TACC Graduates!

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On September 3rd, I attended our Trade and Apprenticeship Career Class graduation celebration and once again, was blown away on so many levels. Seeing how the classmates connected with one another after a rather intense seven weeks translated into well wishes and gentle ribbing. It brought a few smiles to many faces to witness these exchanges. Listening to two of the graduates tell their stories about how their lives have changed in such positive ways during those rather intense seven weeks brought tears to my eyes. Witnessing their genuine love and appreciation for the Pathways to Success staff with words of gratitude warmed my heart another ten degrees.

This happens at each celebration. Four times a year, women enter our pre-apprenticeship program with dedication and intention to change the course of their lives. They leave ready to start a career as an electrician, a carpenter, a laborer or in another trade.

During last week’s celebration, the group gave a card to the program staff and in it were words of thanks and well wishes for all the staff. It also included a donation that the women pooled together to give back to OTI.

THANK YOU!

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Well wishes and much success to Gabiela, Hannah, Darla, Jessica, Crystal, Sabryna, Monalisa, Ashley, Gecel, Tricia, Lynn, Amanda, Ash, Desiree, Terrica, Jamie, Letty, Alex, Cinsera, and Madyson!!!!

Dennise M. Kowalczyk, Development Director

U.S. Bank Foundation Grant Award

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Oregon Tradeswomen, Inc. (OTI) is honored to have been selected as a recent grantee of the U.S. Bank Foundation in support of our Pathways to Success program.

This $1,500 grant will help fund Pathways to Success, OTI’s job training and employment program which fosters the economic self-sufficiency of low-income women by providing job training, support services, job placement and retention services for women entering high-wage trades careers. These grant funds will pay help for student support services (such as hard hats, rain gear, boots, and tools), student transportation (for field trips to apprenticeship training centers and construction job sites), and staff time of our employment services team.

U.S. Bank contributes to the strength and health of its communities through the U.S. Bank Foundation and Corporate Giving. Through the U.S. Bank Foundation, the Foundation provides cash contributions to nonprofit organizations in grant priority areas of education, economic opportunity, and artistic and cultural enrichment. In 2014, the U.S. Bank Foundation provided more than $23.5 million in grant funding.

Thank you again to the U.S. Bank Foundation for their ongoing support of our work to train and educate women about living-wage trades careers. Learn more about the U.S. Bank’s charitable giving by visiting their website at:
www.usbank.com/community/charitable-giving.