Maddie Lawrie: Women in Drywall

One reason for our limited pool of new talent flowing into the trades is that, unlike many other career paths, there’s not much of a pipeline from public-school curriculum. For instance, there are math classes for future CPAs and science classes for future healthcare professionals, but with fewer and fewer shop classes offered, it's becoming harder to develop future skilled tradespeople from an early age.

So, why should we be teaching young people about the trades as a viable career path? Look no further than Maddie Lawrie, whose education in the trades came by way of a high-school construction class — and, as a result, she "caught the bug” for drywall finishing early. 

Maddie, a 21-year-old taper from around Ontario’s Niagara Peninsula, was pleasantly surprised to find the trades landed at an intersection of her talents and interests: she was able to take all her creativity from art classes and her athleticism of playing on sports teams, and fuse them into one pursuit.

“I found that it was really satisfying and it was almost like doing art,” Maddie told us. “I felt like I was back in grade three painting something. And you could just do it for hours and hours and you didn't realize time would have flown that fast … I had also done sports in high school and I was starting to realize that drywall was not only creative but also physical. I was like, it just keeps getting better! The more I discover drywall, you feel like you're tired at the end of the day, but you also feel like you used your hands and did an art piece for the majority of the day.”