Tag: video

Local 17 (Rhode Island) fifth-year apprentice Kerry Sampson “had no idea what sheet metal even was” when a friend suggested that she consider entering the trade. Sampson, who previously worked as a hairdresser and makeup artist, had taken an interest in welding as she looked to work in a more consistent and better-paying field.

“Then he explained that I didn’t need to have any experience whatsoever, that I would go through a five-year apprenticeship program – for free – while working and making money, and I decided to give it a shot,” Sampson recalled in a Woman In Construction Week profile video. Now, she added, she’s the first-ever female SMART sheet metal worker in Rhode Island.

“I’ve learned quite a bit,” she explained. “I’ve learned CAD, I’ve learned drafting, I’ve learned welding, I’ve learned fabricating ductwork, measuring, and right now I’m learning testing and balancing.”

Like fellow Local 17 sister Adrian Mobley, the SMART video team accompanied Sampson through a day in her life as a union sheet metal apprentice, as she explained her schedule, discussed her journey in the trade and more. Sampson is currently working on a job at Providence College, cutting the exhaust into the bathrooms and the dorm rooms of a new residence hall.

“Depending on the job, I’ll be doing different things,” she told SMART. “Some jobs have a lot of welding, and I might be the ground person or the fire watch. Other jobs I would be installing the ductwork in the air. Some of the jobs I’m just the helper. [Either way] the day really flies by because you’re constantly learning and working.”

Before entering the Local 17 sheet metal apprenticeship, Sampson found a consistent, family-sustaining career hard to come by. Her hair dressing job, she said, didn’t pay very well but had some benefits; as a makeup artist, she made more money but had no benefits. Now, with the strong pay and benefits afforded by her union apprenticeship, she’s able to help her daughter go to nursing school, afford her own place and provide for her loved ones.

“I definitely have better work-life balance now that I’m in the union,” Sampson explained. “I make better money, I’m more comfortable, I have better benefits, I can do what I want to do with my free time. I love fishing; the first year of my apprenticeship I was able to buy a small aluminum boat, and now I own a 20-foot center console.”

Like Mobley’s profile, Sampson also discussed the mentorship she’s received at her local, her favorite parts of being a sheet metal worker, and the advice she would give a woman considering entering the trade. She also described her future plans – shadowing a testing and balancing worker for two years and getting her TAB license – and looked back on her Tradeswomen Build Nations 2022 experience.

“We marched around the [Las Vegas] strip chanting ‘wicked SMART, wicked SMART’” Sampson recalled near the conclusion of her video profile. “It was an invigorating, and empowering, and invincible feeling. It was a feeling of unity, support, togetherness and belonging.”

Local 17 (Boston) sheet metal worker Adrian Mobley took her time entering the trade. She originally attended college on a full-ride soccer scholarship; after leaving to take care of her father, she became a nursing assistant for nine years. But that all changed when she entered the Building Pathways pre-apprenticeship program and met Local 17’s Shamaiah Turner.

“She’s awesome. She is a great mentor,” Mobley explained during a Women In Construction Week 2023 video profile. “She came in and talked to my class, [and] just seeing her and how passionate she was – I was like, ‘you know what? I want to be like her. I can do that.’”

The SMART video team followed Mobley through a typical workday, starting with her 5:40 a.m. commute and ending around 2:30 in the afternoon. She’s currently working on the South Station Terminal project in Boston, installing various pieces of duct. That project, she said, is indicative of what she enjoys about her sheet metal career.

“What I love about doing sheet metal is, honestly, driving past a building that I worked on and being proud, saying: Wow, I did that,” Mobley explained. “I love the welding aspect of it as well … putting the duct up, gunking, sealing, everything that comes with [sheet metal.] The camaraderie on the job … it’s fun, it’s exciting, it’s different.”

She also pointed out the outsized impact that her union membership has made on her personal life. Mobley worked for several different agencies throughout her tenure as a nonunion nursing assistant, and she never had the financial security to move out of her parents’ house. Even worse, none of those companies provided her with health or dental benefits. That all changed, Mobley noted, when she joined Local 17.

“I got into the union, and I stacked: saved money, saved, saved, and now I have a two-bedroom condo and I’m loving it. So I thank the union for that,” she said.

Along with the benefits of her SMART membership and her favorite parts about sheet metal work, Mobley discussed her experience as an apprentice, Tradeswomen Build Nations 2018 and more. She concluded her profile with a word of advice to the SMART sheet metal sisters of tomorrow:

“If a woman approached me right now wanting to get into sheet metal, I would tell her go for it. If you see me doing it, you can do it. I saw another woman doing it, and I convinced myself I could do it.”