Nontraditional Employment for Women (NEW)

Congratulations to Journeywoman and NEW Graduate, Keisha Spradley, of Local #3 IBEW the 2021 NEW Tradeswoman Honoree. Watch Keisha and NEW's honorees, Joseph Mizzi, President and COO of Sciame Construction and Peter Meyers, Business Manager - Financial Secretary & Treasurer of Local 580 Ironworkers, and NEW’s Ambassador Council here: https://nontraditional-employment-for-women-equity-award-lu

We want to feature as many NEW Tradeswomen as possible in our virtual luncheon this year! Send us your videos of what it’s like to be a tradeswomen. You can email them to Kate at [email protected] or send us a message on Facebook. We can’t wait to show the world what it’s like be a NEW tradeswomen!

Excited to share @parents and @people feature on Kieli McKoy - one of our inspiring NEW graduates and tradeswomen! After completing NEW's program, McKoy had the opportunity to choose from all different trades and was offered an interview with the New York City District Council of Carpentersand got in. "I became a first year apprentice," she remembers. "I started out making about $19 an hour." That's when she began saving. "I knew that every month, a thousand dollars had to b...e put aside for those bills," she says. And within a year or two, she got to the point where she stabilized her finances. McKoy spent four years of working as an apprentice, after which she became a certified journey level carpenterand hit the six-figure mark. "Ever since then, it's been increasing every year," she says. Now preparing to buy her first home, the mom of four says she feels accomplished. "I feel like my work actually is worth the effort that I put into it," says McKoy. "Even with the first paycheck that I got my first year, it was a lot more than I got working in all the jobs that I've ever worked. So I knew from the first year that I was going in the right direction."

Check out incredible tradeswoman and NEW Graduate Zandra John’s story on @cnbcmakeit - you can watch it here. Zandra John is looking forward to making $70,000 this year as a Local 7 tile-setting apprentice in New York City. Before becoming a union worker, John was a teacher's assistant bringing in about $25,000 a year. She accrued $5,000 in student loan debt and relied on food stamps and Medicaid to get by. John has worked on tile setting in the NYC subway, Hudson Yards, and ...the new Moynihan Train Hall complex. Zandra John is a 28-year-old union tile setter from Flatbush, Brooklyn. But her mother always wanted her to become a teacher. Three years into earning a bachelor's in secondary education with a minor in English, John was unable to re-enroll in her program because she was behind on her tuition payments. She already owed $5,000 in student loans and was making $12 per hour (about $25,000 per year) as a teacher's assistant. Now, John makes roughly $32 per hour as a tile-setting apprentice. With overtime, she expects to make about $70,000 this year and is working towards becoming a journeyman, who make up to $61 per hour in her union, about $126,880 per year. Going from $12 an hour to $32 an hour is a huge difference for me," she says. "I can save more. I can help my mom more." John's first step into construction was enrolling in a free 7-week training program with Nontraditional Employment for Women (NEW) a New York-based organization that prepares, trains and places women in careers in skilled construction, utility and maintenance trades. "That was really the start of a whole nother journey for me. I would TA in the daytime and I would leave there and go straight to NEW," she remembers. In June 2018, she graduated from the program and began an eight-week pre-apprenticeship program in tile setting that lead to an official apprenticeship. She says she was drawn to the program because it combined her interest in construction with her artistic hobbies.

NEW mourns the loss of Lenore Janis, as a founder and president of an influential trade organization, she showed women how to make it in a field that had long excluded them. #NEWStrongWomen Thank you for all your hard work.

Meet the experts from Nontraditional Employment for Women (NEW) the country’s leading program for women in the building trades. Learn more about the program and who it is designed for. How do you enter the program? Get more information that will transform your career and professional growth opportunities. Friday, February 12, 2021 | Via Zoom 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m. www.diversityagenda.com/terminal8

NEW community, as we honor #BlackHistoryMonth, we’d love to share your stories! DM us your answer to this question & a photo of you and we’ll feature you on NEW’s social media. #NEWStrongWomen