{"id":485,"date":"2019-09-27T09:12:26","date_gmt":"2019-09-27T09:12:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/?p=485"},"modified":"2021-08-24T15:44:01","modified_gmt":"2021-08-24T15:44:01","slug":"joining-the-brotherhood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/2019\/09\/27\/joining-the-brotherhood\/","title":{"rendered":"Joining The \u2018Brotherhood\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

JOINING THE \u2018BROTHERHOOD\u2019<\/span>
\nMidwest native turns to the trades for a new start<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\"brotherhood1\"

Courtney Newberg (left) celebrates with classmates last summer at a graduation ceremony for her Oregon Tradeswomen Inc. pre-apprenticeship course. From there she went on to join Ironworkers Local 29 and enter an apprenticeship.<\/p><\/div>\n

By JOSH KULLA
\njkulla@djcorprod.wpengine.com<\/a><\/p>\n

In many ways, Courtney Newberg\u2019s story is typical of many skilled craft workers starting out in the construction industry in 2019.<\/p>\n

The 29-year-old Michigan native is now a union apprentice ironworker with Portland-based Local 29 and an employee of REFA Erection, one of the region\u2019s top steel erection contractors. But finding this kind of career opportunity took her quite a bit longer than she might have preferred.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went to college right out of high school,\u201d said Newberg, who grew up in Rockford, Michigan, and went to Grand Valley State University. \u201cThat\u2019s your option, and if you have the grades you just go to college. I think about being 18 and what I knew about potential career options and it didn\u2019t even scratch the surface.\u201d<\/p>\n

Newberg majored in history with an emphasis on becoming an educator, combining two of her favorite subjects. Yet after finishing school she moved to the West Coast and found she wasn\u2019t really using her degree in the manner she envisioned.<\/p>\n

While she wound up enjoying her job with We Are Camp, a Government Camp-based organization that hosts ski and snowboard camps, it reached a point where the prospect of advancement hit its limits. And it left her searching for answers<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a poor knowledge of available jobs,\u201d she said. \u201cYou just deal with what you have, and as you grow up and experience the world a little more you realize there are so many things that you can do.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Newberg didn\u2019t know exactly what the future held, she was sure it did not involve a future of cleaning up after summer campers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went on a road trip,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m not capable of a job that I\u2019m not passionate about, so I saw people building stuff and I was like I know nothing about that, I have no idea how to build anything and that\u2019s what sparked my interest.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"brotherhood2\"

Courtney Newberg (left) helps a high school student try her hand at welding at the Oregon Tradeswomen Inc. Career Fair held in May at the NECA\/IBEW Local 48 Electrical Training Center in Portland.<\/p><\/div>\n

She had friends working in the skilled trades and asked for advice. That led her to enroll in summer 2018 in Pathways to Success, a pre-apprenticeship program offered by Portland-based Oregon Tradeswomen Inc. There, she learned about becoming an ironworker, one of the most physically demanding trades, and even after being exposed to a variety of other trades decided that was the path for her.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t think of it until my late 20s that that is an option,\u201d she said. \u201cI looked at different trades and what my personality lends itself best to, and ironworkers are tough, gnarly dudes and there\u2019s something that\u2019s very glamorous about that. I\u2019m attracted to being a part of that tough group of people. I wanted to work up high in the air, work on building big things and work with fire from time to time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Upon finishing the eight-week pre-apprenticeship course, she was accepted into a union apprenticeship with Iron Workers Local 29 and was soon hired by REFA Erection.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first year of your apprenticeship you\u2019re doing a lot of the real basic, sweeping up floors type of stuff,\u201d she said. \u201cBut occasionally you have a good day and learn a lesson. And the longer you\u2019re in the more and more skills you have. They want people who are serious about what they\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

And little wonder. Newberg estimated that roughly half of ironworker apprentices drop out during the first year alone.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me that\u2019s not even on my radar,\u201d she said. \u201cBut I got in with a friend from OTI and she\u2019s super great and very skilled and she found out it wasn\u2019t for her. A few months in she dropped out and went over to the carpenters.\u201d<\/p>\n

So far, Newberg has no regrets about her choice, particularly her decision to join a union, which brought her affordable health care coverage for the first time in her adult life.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think our leadership is definitely heading in the right direction and have a good idea of what we need as workers,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s always going to be a good ol\u2019 boys club, and being the woman out there you\u2019re never going to fit in 100 percent like the other guys. But having said that, I\u2019ve still been treated so well by everybody and taken into this brotherhood that it\u2019s been a really good experience overall. I\u2019m really proud to say I\u2019m in the union.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now she\u2019s looking forward to the next three years of apprenticeship and then journeying out.<\/p>\n

\"brotherhood3\"

Courtney Newberg gets high-fives from fellow pre-apprenticeship graduates last summer after finishing Oregon Tradeswomen\u2019s Pathways to Success course.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a clear, straightforward way to advancement,\u201d she said. \u201cYou see the chart and know how much you\u2019ll be making four years from now, where everywhere else you\u2019re playing politics and needing friends in the right places.\u201d<\/p>\n

All that\u2019s needed, she added, is hard work and a willingness to keep learning.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a true entry-level job, which I think intimidates many people,\u201d she said. \u201cBut if you have the willingness to learn you can walk into a union apprenticeship and say \u2018Hey, I don\u2019t know anything,\u2019 and if you show up every day they\u2019ll teach you everything you need to know.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JOINING THE \u2018BROTHERHOOD\u2019 Midwest native turns to the trades for a new start By JOSH KULLA jkulla@djcorprod.wpengine.com In many ways, Courtney Newberg\u2019s story is typical of many skilled craft workers starting out in the construction industry in 2019. The 29-year-old Michigan native is now a union apprentice ironworker with Portland-based Local 29 and an employee …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":494,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18615],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}