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Three dynamic women who have staked out successful careers in the wood products industry will inspire your female students to explore new career pathways.Female role models help get this career on the radar of women and girls because they’re able to see someone who looks like them on the job. The video reveals the personal experiences and insights of successful women working in this field. Wood products and related industries employ millions of people. Increasing numbers of women are establishing rewarding careers in the traditionally male-dominated wood products field. |
Career Options for Women -- Wood Products:
This 24-minute video features profiles of three women with successful careers in wood products:
- Jodie MacDonald, a sawmill production coordinator who liaisons with sales and marketing
- Marie- Claude Giguere, a composite technologist who tests and fabricates oriented strand boards
- Roxanne Fayant, a crate builder specializing in extremely large-scale work
Additional information from co-workers and supervisors supplements each job profile.
Meet the role models featured in the Wood Products video:
Jodie: Sawmill Production Coordinator
Jodie MacDonald is a sawmill production coordinator. She's a liaison between the sales force at Weyerhaeuser who market lumber and the sawmills that produce it.
Jodie decided on a career in wood products after researching different education programs. She found a wood products course that had a 98% placement rate with high starting salaries. After graduating from the two-year course she landed her job at Weyerhaeuser.
“I like how diverse my job is. There are so many different areas I can go into like manufacturing, sales, public relations, human resources or process control.”
Jodie’s advice to women looking to pursue a career in wood products is to not get discouraged, even if you’re the only woman in the classroom or the workplace. She thinks other women would enjoy her job because there is constant problem solving and every day is new and different.
Jodie likes to meet challenges head on and her work with the sawmills is no different. She really enjoys her job and encourages women to open their minds to other opportunities and try something new!
Marie-Claude: Composite Technologist
Composite technologist Marie-Claude Giguere works on the testing and fabrication of OSB board, otherwise known as oriented strand board. OSB is basically an engineered wood product comprised of strands of wood oriented in a certain way and glued and pressed together to create very strong boards.
Marie Claude’s job is to help ensure the right mix of elements are used to create the boards, in order to create a quality product that meets specifications.
“My job is a nice challenge for a woman who likes physical work...”
Marie-Claude works eight and a half hours a day and only seven hours on Friday, with every second Friday off. In the future, she would like to move up to a technical advisor position.
Marie-Claude orients a lot of her work activities toward evaluating the quality and performance of OSB. She conducts a variety of tests to determine product capabilities, then writes up detailed reports that will be used in the creation or enhancement of OSB products.
Making a difference in the outcome of the activities at the lab is very satisfying for Marie-Claude. However, when she’s not spending time with wood in the lab, she spends it in the forest, enjoying fresh air and the beautiful outdoors. Camping and fishing is her method of getting away from it all.
Roxanne: Crate Builder
If you've ever received a wood crate package, it could have been built by crater and 3rd-year apprentice carpenter, Roxanne Fayant. Roxanne makes crates to specification, then travels to different job sites to crate up whatever item they want to ship. Some crates can be as big as a house!
Roxanne has worked at a variety of carpentry jobs, including renovations, finishing and building decks. Although carpentry runs in her family, she first went to university to study film and video. Then, she went back to the family specialty.
“My favorite part of my job is seeing the work when it's done. I take a lot of before and after pictures.” In the future, Roxanne wants to help out other aspiring women carpenters. She wants to get her journey ticket and take on female apprentices.
Roxanne’s job involves both hands on carpentry and customer service. She deals with a lot of different customers and anything could come up when she’s on site doing a crating job. Dealing well with these kinds of challenges takes the right combination of skills and experience.
Roxanne is a single mom, so the regular hours give her the opportunity to spend time with her son Steven.
Video details:
Run time: 24 minutes total, including three segments of approximately 8 minutes each.
Format: DVD. Closed-captioned.
Year: 2006
Note: Videos are interspersed with Canadian salary and labor statistics, which are similar to the numbers in the United States.
Policies: There is a no-return policy on these videos.
Grade level: Middle School, High School, Two-Year College, Four-Year University
