Agassiz sisters blaze a trail to graduate from UFV’s Heavy Mechanical program

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Tanya, the younger sister, says fixing things just comes naturally to the family.

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“And my uncle can pull an engine apart and put it back together just like that,” Tanya said, snapping a finger.

Mechanics seems to be embedded in the sisters’ DNA. Tanya demonstrated it from the onset at UFV. In the first week of a 36-week program, students were challenged to sharpen a drill bit. She did it perfectly on her very first try.

“Some people took a couple hours to do it correctly,” Tanya says with a grin. “I took four minutes.”

Melodie says she and her sister felt the need to do things just a little bit better than the guys, to prove they belonged. She impressed through meticulous attention to detail, and not settling for second best in her program work. If Melodie wasn’t working on a project, she was reading her textbook, or cleaning up the shop.

Her classroom commitment didn’t go unnoticed.

“A lot of the students come from farming and mechanical backgrounds and knew more about machinery than we did coming in,” Melodie says. “There was stress not wanting to play into any stereotypes about women, but from day one the people here were amazing. The instructors were very, very supportive of us being in this trade because they know there’s a shortage of women in this program, and the trades in general.”

According to Weitzel, there are usually only two or three women per year in a class of 36, accounting for less than 10 per cent of a typical cohort.

Going through the program as sisters helped these women a lot.

“It was nice because we could share our struggles,” Tanya says. “But also, when we learned something new, we could celebrate together.”

Melodie has already found part-time work with a local business, coming in once a week to maintain, grease and pressure wash vehicles.

“It’s a step in the right direction, and one day soon I hope I’ll be able to work alongside a journeyman fixing things,” she says. “I like working on excavators, bulldozers, buses, and agriculture equipment, so I don’t know what I’ll eventually end up doing. But I’m looking forward to seeing where this takes me.”

Tanya hasn’t yet officially graduated from high school, but completed this program as a Regional Career Programs student.

“I’m not closing any doors at this point,” she says. “I just want to see what I’ll enjoy the most.”