Recruiting and retaining women in skilled trades

Image:  Massie Calvin spent seven weeks climbing up and down 40- and 80-foot poles for about seven hours a day and learning how to set and repair electrical lines as part of a training program at Calhoun Community College. She climbed up and down a 40-foot pole about 25 times in a single day, as part of what’s known as “hell week.” The program was hard, but Calvin stuck with it and became the first woman to graduate from the Alabama community college’s pre-apprentice line worker...