She began her career on a total whim. She went to college and realized sitting at a journalist's desk wasn't for her. She was hired on as a landscape labourer in the summer of 2013 to create beautiful outdoor spaces for clients in the Lakeland area north of Prince Albert, SK. I never looked back.
Born on Treaty 10 lands and raised on the value of hard work on the farm, working outside with her hands as a career feels like home. Her parents were both in blue collar jobs, forestry and mining, but nobody directly in construction working as a carpenter. After her mother died when she was a teenager, she felt lost. Unsure of where life would take me.
Now with more than a decade of experience, she regrets not starting sooner! What started out as a career in commercial and industrial concrete formwork, she switched gears to home renovations upon starting her contracting business. She received both her red and blue seal certifications from Sask Polytech in 2017. Her resume of projects built goes from slip forming grain terminals from Vancouver to Ottawa, to milling up maple trees and building a custom handrail.
She is also an instructor with the Women in Trades & Technology program to help our next generation of young ones succeed. Entering into the second year of the Jill of All Trades day has truly become the highlight of her year. THIS is her calling. Being in a gymnasium, surrounded by young women who were just like her, wanting to try something new but were maybe too afraid to commit, is soul cup filling. Her motherly instincts wants to help every single one of them. She signed up for woodshop in grade 10 year and left within the first week because she was so uncomfortable in that space. She reflects on that time and Imagines where she’d be today, if young Whitney had today’s Whitney to guide her.