Sasha McDonald: Women in Drywall

Sasha McDonald is an athlete with the mind of an artist — or maybe it’s the other way around. The 31-year-old drywall finisher from Ontario treats her taping knife like a paint brush, and her workday like a workout session.

“I think, once I found out that literally your job is to make it look as smooth as possible, as perfect as you can, it kind of took the finesse that I already had from painting experience,” Sasha told us about what drew her to drywall finishing. “I would consider myself to be artistic in that sense. So, this is a way that I could, say, use different tools, but still work in a creative format … as well as, at least for me, being such a stay-active kind of person and wanting to be fit all the time. Once I found out that it's like a workout for seven to eight hours a day — almost like strength training for that long — I was happy to do it.”

Sasha grew up in a family full of tradespeople but, she says, this path was never presented to her as a lucrative career choice. She started her journey into the trades by occasionally helping her husband, a drywall mechanic, with the painting work on some of his jobs. Growing frustrated by her job at the time, which wasn’t making her the kind of money she aspired to and, worse, kept her behind a desk all day (as a lacrosse and volleyball player, Sasha says, “I need to get up, get moving!”), Sasha decided it was time for a career change.

While many in the trades get their start by basically training on the job, Sasha chose to enter a training program — one that also set her up with all her certifications and connections to union work. This route, Sasha tells us, allowed her to enter her first day on a jobsite with some knowledge and know-how already in her back pocket.

“I know some people just kind of, depending on the trade, get thrown to the wolves almost,” says Sasha. “You start onsite and you just have to figure your way through the weeds, where I wanted more of a structured beginning to have a better background and understanding of the basics. So, in Ontario, there's a school called IFSTC, Interior Finishing Systems Training Centre. It's three months of training from the beginning and they go get you all your certifications, height, safety, first aid, all that … But having at least the basics — and the knowledge and the support from the school as well — definitely helped me. And I think it made the transition easier to hopping into the trades, where I know some other people maybe didn't have as smooth of an experience.”

By blending artistry and athleticism, craft and instinct, Sasha was able to find her calling in the drywall trade. She’s now been working as a professional drywall finisher for about three years, and she’s “never looked back since,” she tells us. Now, she hopes to help others find their homes in the trades as well, especially young women.

For many women like Sasha, the trades aren’t ever shown as a desirable — or even attainable — option for their careers. To change this, ushering more women into construction (and, in the process, improving our shortage of skilled labor), the visibility of professional tradeswomen like Sasha and other women in drywall can be incredibly powerful. By seeing even one woman thriving in the trades, many more will be able to see themselves in her shoes — or, better yet, her steel-toed boots.

“For me, being a woman in the trades, it means a lot,” Sasha told us. “It gives me a lot of pride in the work I do. Not just because it's helping the building world, and I get to drive by a site that I get to see and be proud of that. But knowing that the numbers obviously are very small for women in trades, and I get to be part of that small percentage that's pushing themselves and showing the world that women are out here, and we can do it … I'm happy that I can hopefully be that image or that person who a random young girl, or young boy, sees when they’re scrolling, and they're like, oh, if she can do it, maybe I can give it a try too.”

Learn more about our “Women in Drywall” series, and meet some of the other awesome tradeswomen we’ve spoken to in past editions, by hitting the button below.