Pilot, architect, entrepreneur, mechanic, engineer, athlete — the sky's the limit for girls.
Introducing nearly 250 tenth grade girls from around the Traverse Bay Area Intermediate School district to a host of non-traditional careers, GirlTECH 2006 was a resounding success. For the sixth year, the program matched women working in fields that involve math, science and may not readily identified by girls as career paths.
Jenny Pierick, a tenth grader from Central High School, attended GirlTECH 2006 because she wants to be a commercial airline pilot. When she saw that a pilot from the United States Coast Guard Air Station Traverse City would be one of the speakers, she immediately signed up, determined to learn more about this career path.
With her sights already set on what can be a non-traditional career for women, Pierick has years of math and science classes ahead of her. This does not worry her in the slightest.
"I love math, it's my
favorite part of the day,” she noted.
The goal of GirlTECH 2006 was also to introduce attendees to local programs at both the high school and college level that will help them prepare for desired professions.
"The reason we selected tenth grade is because when we started this program six years ago it was kind of a combination where both the ISD and the college [Northwestern Michigan College] wanted to advertise programs offered where students could get training,” said Carol Smith, a counselor at the TBA-ISD Career Tech Center and co-chair of the event. " If they have an interest we want to encourage that interest and give them training opportunities.”
Basic confidence building was also a fundamental goal of the event as speakers reinforced for attendees the concept that what they dreamed they could achieve.
"They stressed that if you put your mind to it you can do anything,” said Elle Bodner, a tenth grade student at Central High School considering a career related to anesthesiology.
"This gives us a good idea of how many choices we have,” she added of the conference.
Grand Traverse County Sheriff's Department Detective Dawn Wagoner shared her session with Sharon Whitcher, a mechanic with the Michigan National Guard stationed at Camp Grayling. Both have presented at the conference every year since it began in 2000 and noted to their audience that when each entered their respective fields it was still mostly the purview of men.
"Law enforcement was still pretty much a male-dominated field when I entered the profession but I don't see that as the case anymore,” said Wagoner, who has been with the Sheriff's Department for 12 years.
Serving currently as a child abuse and sexual assault investigator, Wagoner has also been a school liaison officer at each of the Traverse City junior high schools as well as an evidence technician.
"Law enforcement is a pretty interesting job, your days are never the same,” she said. "Even though people might not want your help, they need your help.”
After years working in heavy mechanics, fixing everything up to the Abrams tank, Whitcher now works in subsystem mechanics — radios and other components. Not only being in the military but working as a mechanic gave her a non-traditional twofer, though Whitcher would have it no other way after a 17-year career.
She appreciates the opportunity that GirlTECH provides every year to share her experiences with the next generation of women just beginning to choose and train for a career.
"I never saw any of this when I was growing up,” she noted. "Just getting the awareness out is the best thing just because some of these girls can come from a more traditional background and for them to see this can be helpful.”