Curtis Kematch

Electrician Apprentice (4th Year), Edmonton, Alberta, From Sapotaweyak Cree Nation, Manitoba · Trade Winds to Success Graduate, 2020

Curtis Kematch came to Alberta with a decision already made. He had spent years in construction back in Manitoba — heavy labour, bricklaying, scaffolding — and he watched electricians on site in the summer heat, barely breaking a sweat, doing work that changed every day. He wanted that. He graduated from Trade Winds to Success in 2020, was hired as an electrician apprentice, and has been building his career in commercial electrical ever since.

He is now a fourth-year commercial electrician who installed the electrical rack for the Mutart LRT guideway — alone, from mid-December to mid-March, in the cold, because nobody else wanted the job. He didn't rush it. Didn't cut corners. "When you make a ninety-degree bend, it has to be ninety, or it won't fit," Kematch says. "We measure to the sixteenth of an inch, not ‘close enough’ but exactly what it's supposed to be."

Fifteen years in construction means Curtis has encountered bias on the job. He doesn't avoid the subject. "I have come across people who didn't admit they were racist but treated me that way," he says. "They'll try and expect you to have a reaction. My best reaction to that is no reaction." He has thought carefully about where that composure comes from. "If you can be disrespected by a word, you give that word more power than you give your own choice, your own free will." He absorbs it, and moves on. "I take it in, and it ends with me."

What he holds onto instead is the work itself. "I'm happy at the end of the day when everyone goes home in the same condition they came in," he says. "I know what I installed is safe and reliable. Someone used something I worked on today, and they're having their life a bit easier because of that."

Carmen Maurice

Apprentice Electrician & Ironworker

Carmen Maurice came to Trade Winds to Success as a labourer. She left as something rarer: a woman working toward journeyperson certification in not one trade, but two. Ironworking first, then electrical — each a separate program, a separate apprenticeship, a separate room to earn her place in. Originally from English River First Nation in Patuanak, Saskatchewan, she's now a first-year in both, dispatched through the union and working commercial electrical while the ironworking years still live in her hands.

The two trades pull in different directions, and Carmen knows the difference in her body. Ironworking is physical in a way that takes weeks to grow into. Electrical lives in your head. What stays the same across both is the height — Carmen has worked at elevation since the beginning, and it's never bothered her. She used to photograph the sunrise from the beams every morning.

She has been underestimated in both — as a woman, and as an Indigenous person, and the two don't always separate cleanly. Early in her ironworking days, a colleague refused to work with her — screamed it across the slab in front of everyone on site.

She was reassigned rather than him. The one who couldn't work with her kept his job; Carmen was the one who moved. It's a pattern Indigenous tradespeople know well — the path of least resistance runs straight through them.

She went back to her foreman, got reassigned, and kept showing up. Two weeks later, some of the same crew admitted they'd expected her to quit. "All that was in my mind," she says, "is journeywoman ticket. So I kept going and I blocked everything else out."

She knows what people assume about Indigenous women in the trades, that they won't show up, that they can't handle it, and she's decided her answer to that is to keep going until the assumption runs out of room.

"I feel that we're mostly looked down upon," she says. "But you just got to prove them wrong and keep going to work every day."

She writes her goals on paper and hangs them where she can see them, because the destination has to stay visible. She wants her journeywoman ticket in electrical. After that, her own business. What she wants for other Indigenous women watching is to know the path is real, not easy, not without its costs, but real. She's a single mother of two. The stakes are not abstract.

Todd Pruden

Carpenter & Master of Architecture Candidate, Edmonton, Alberta Trade Winds to Success Graduate · University of Calgary, M.Arch (incoming)

Todd Pruden sees his life as a mosaic. Carpentry is one piece. His Bachelor of Design in Industrial Design from the University of Alberta is another. And the piece he has been working toward since childhood: an acceptance letter into the Master of Architecture (MArch) program at the University of Calgary arrived in his inbox about a month and a half ago. "This is a lifetime goal and a dream come true," Pruden says.

He wanted what he calls "x-ray eyes" — the ability to look at a building and understand not just how it should look, but exactly what it takes to build it: cost, scheduling, manpower, craft. He found Trade Winds to Success by serendipity, finished the program, and was given something most apprentices don't get: a company that handed him the full scope of a project, from excavation and footings to framing, insulation, and ceiling work. He has now written and passed his provincial and interprovincial trade school exams.

He was, at one point, the only Indigenous tradesperson out of 200 at a company. He noticed. "I felt it was so bizarre. And I think the more Indigenous tradespeople that are visible, the more we build each other up. There's so much potential here. But we need to be supported — and to support one another."

Cheyenne Day Chief

General Foreman, Ironworker

Cheyenne Day Chief didn't go looking for the trades. She was at the Calgary Stampede, a single mother in the middle of college, when a woman struck up a conversation and handed her a card for Trade Winds to Success. She didn't think much of it at the time. Two weeks later, she called. Two days after that, she was accepted. Nineteen years into the trade, she is a General Foreman overseeing crews of 10 to 20 on some of Alberta's most demanding ironwork sites.

She chose ironworking for the simplest reason: it paid the most. She didn't know what an ironworker was when she walked into that intake meeting. What she knew was that she had two kids to raise on her own and a decision to make. Once she started, she couldn't walk away. "Once the money started rolling in," she says, "I just couldn't get out of it."

What she didn't anticipate was how long she would stay, or how far she would go. For most of her first 13 years, she was the only woman on crews of 15 to 60. She built her way up through every level until she reached General Foreman. It hasn't been without friction. Her leadership role required overcoming gender biases, especially from men who were hesitant to take direction from a woman. Ask her whether being Indigenous or being a woman has been the bigger challenge on the job, and she doesn't hesitate. Being a woman.

She has seen bias directed at Indigenous colleagues — moments where their absences drew commentary that double standards on the same site didn't. She pushed back quietly but clearly, telling coworkers they didn't have the full picture and that it wasn't their conversation to have. It was a constant position to hold — defending people she understood in rooms that didn't, while knowing the situation was complicated. She held both truths at once, and she held her ground.

Now, as General Foreman, she is the one setting the tone. She witnessed unfair criticism directed at Indigenous colleagues, often defending them quietly but firmly. She sets a strong tone on her crews about respect and professionalism, addressing conflicts swiftly.

What she wants employers to understand — what nineteen years have taught her — is that Indigenous workers bring dedication and resilience that go beyond what a resume can show. Indigenous workers give their best effort. They leave what's happening at home at the gate. They take direction without argument. They work hard not because of what the paycheck says but because that's how they show up. "When an Indigenous person shows up," she says, "they give it their all, regardless of what they're going through."

Her children kept her going when the environment was difficult. Her children served as a motivation, and they have followed in skilled trades and professional careers. Her daughter is weeks away from her Red Seal in hairdressing. Her son just graduated from Trade Winds to Success and is working as an electrician apprentice. Cheyenne encouraged him toward electrical, a trade she believed would give him a strong future. "You're going to make more money than mom," she told him. For a young Indigenous person unsure whether the trades are for them, her answer is direct: Cheyenne encourages Indigenous youth to see trades as a viable and expanding path with many resources and opportunities. "You're not stuck," she says.

Leading by example wasn't a strategy. It was just how she lived. She models leadership and perseverance, showing that success is possible despite obstacles.

Paul Gantar

Co-Owner, Stanley Construction

Paul and his brother Dave Gantar have been in construction long enough to watch the trades shortage go from a warning to a reality. As co-owners of Stanley Construction, an Edmonton-based general contractor, finding the right people for complex commercial projects isn't getting easier. That search is what brought them to Trade Winds to Success, and what they found there surprised them.

Stanley's projects are complex, multi-trade and multi-phase, demanding problem solvers who can think on their feet without losing ground. When they post a position, they're inundated with applicants. Most don't make the cut. "We need people who are willing to work, show up consistently and have a skill set," Paul says. "We're not satisfied with mediocre."

That's what drew Stanley to Trade Winds to Success. When a Trade Winds graduate shows up on a resume, Paul knows two things immediately: they've already been exposed to the tools and the industry, and more importantly, they want to be there. That second part is harder to find than most employers admit.

Today, 20% of Stanley's field staff are Trade Winds graduates. Some have been with the company for five years or more. All are on their way to becoming journeypersons, with the goal of becoming the site supervisors and superintendents who run Stanley's construction projects.

The culture Paul and Dave have built at Stanley doesn't make room for bias. Their parents immigrated from Europe, built a life from scratch and passed that approach on. On Stanley sites, the standard is the same for everyone. They expect hard work, integrity, honesty and respect. Where you come from is not part of the equation. "We don't care where you came from, as long as you're committed to doing the work and doing it well," Paul says. When disrespect surfaces, from a subcontractor, a consultant, anyone, it gets addressed immediately. Everyone on that site has the right to feel safe enough to perform.

What Paul wants other employers to understand is straightforward: stop overthinking it. Trade Winds graduates arrive with hands-on training, real exposure and the drive to build a career, not just fill a shift. "Give them a try," he says. And beyond the program itself, his advice to any company trying to grow is the same philosophy that built Stanley: take your time, find the right people, teach them properly and invest in them like it matters. Because it does.

Walter Cardinal

Manager, Employer & Community Engagement

Walter Cardinal knows what it feels like to be unwanted on a job site. Not because of his work, not because of his attitude — but because of who he is. He spent years in the trades earning his place in rooms that weren't built with him in mind, carrying the weight of microaggressions that accumulated quietly until they weren't quiet anymore. "I felt like I had to try harder to do the same amount of work to get accepted," he says. "It honestly made me not want to be there."

He stayed long enough to understand the pattern. Racism on job sites rarely arrives as outright confrontation. More often it comes in small, deniable moments — a nickname handed out on day one, a joke that lands at your expense, an assumption made before you've picked up a tool. Walter didn't have a word for it when he first started. What he knew was that almost every site he worked on, he was given a nickname rooted in his heritage rather than his character. "You're not just making a joke," he says. "You're making fun of me as a person."

Those experiences changed him. They changed how he saw the trades, and for a long time they made him feel like he didn't belong in them. Eventually they brought him to a different kind of decision — not to leave the industry, but to change what he could from within it. He found his way to Trade Winds to Success, where he now works as Manager of Employer and Community Engagement. The job is exactly what it sounds like: building relationships with employers, having the hard conversations, and making sure the job sites Trade Winds graduates walk onto are ones they can actually thrive on.

What Walter wants employers to understand is that the cost of inaction is real. Microaggressions accumulate. A worker who feels unwanted will eventually show it — not because they've failed, but because no one can perform well in an environment that signals they don't belong. "If you feel unwanted on a job site," he says, "that will manifest itself in work ethic and probably how you interact with your coworkers and how you view leadership." The problem isn't the worker. The problem is the culture that was allowed to form around them.

The solution, in Walter's view, starts at the top. Leadership sets the tone. Stereotypes brought into a workplace trickle down, fracture the culture, and ultimately cost the employer. Zero tolerance isn't a policy document — it's a daily practice, and silence is its opposite. "Silence and acceptance of what is going on that may be racist is enabling it," he says. "Don't sit around and wait for somebody else to go first."

Alberta is facing a skilled trades shortage that isn't going away. Indigenous youth between 18 and 35 are the fastest growing demographic willing to enter the workforce — and they are trained, certified, and ready. What stands between them and a successful career is often not skill. It's the culture waiting for them on the other side of the hire. Walter has seen what happens when employers get that culture right. Indigenous tradespeople climb. They become team leaders, foremen, journeypersons. They stay. "We partner with those employers," he says, "that want to be part of the solution."