Final Highlights of 2023 Women’s History Month

ASP’s Kennady Gales and Allison Lewis Impact Lives in Automation Industry.

Kennady Gales

Employer Program Manager

By:  Ally Gearhart, ASP Marketing Communications Outreach Coordinator

Allison Lewis

Apprenticeship Program Manager

As we do one last celebration of the accomplishments of women this month, Automation Strategy & Performance is proud that the leadership in our company includes some very successful and outstanding women. 

Kennady Gales, our Employer Program Manager, is on the front lines of bringing our workforce solutions to the Automation Industry.

Kennady works closely with companies and organizations, systems integrators, and facilities managers in this role to help upskill their best employees and fill vacancies. She helps employers enroll their staff in the right apprenticeships using Career Roadmaps that meet current and future opportunities.

She works with employers with employees in apprenticeship to give them monthly updates on progress, helps them keep their leadership up to date on the program, and delivers ASP services such as the Hiring Smart from the Start programs and using managing rising labor costs tools.  

We’re also so excited to have Allison Lewis on our team as ETA’s Apprenticeship Program Manager.  

Allison manages one of the fastest-growing national apprenticeships in the country, designed especially for the automation controls smart infrastructure industry. 

At the beginning of the process, Allison helps enroll students. She works with them to fully understand what is expected of them and what they can expect from being a part of the program, including understanding their wages while they are an apprentice.

She helps the mentors develop their mentorship skills and truly understands the importance of being a mentor, saying, “mentorship skills are what really set leaders apart from others.”

Finally, she works with the various government entities supporting apprenticeship programs, ensuring her programs comply with all requirements and standards.

And we are so happy to celebrate the end of March Women’s History Month with their successes and impact on our automation industry.

What does ASP provide to employers that sets it apart?

Kennady:  We are truly changing the game for workforce solutions and how data is used to build our employers’ teams. Our solutions create the results required to strengthen and grow a business in our industry. Because we’re backed by real market data, our employers can have confidence that the solutions we offer with tools for managing rising labor costs, for instance,  will positively impact their productivity goals and employee satisfaction.

Companies that don’t open their minds to A.)  investing in a career path for their existing team and  B.) growing their teams with new talent outside the industry will quickly be left behind. There is a whole network of new workers who are excited to do work that makes an impact, and the only way to find those people (and get them to stay) is by showing them a clearly defined future within your company.

Allison: The determination and perseverance that apprentices show who are enrolled through ASP Programs are traits that can’t be taught but are often essential for the types of people looking to further their careers through an apprenticeship in critical infrastructure.

A great example is one apprentice Lewis says she admires in the program.

“All on his own, he had signed up for an apprenticeship program he found through the ASP partnership with his control systems employer. He thought it was a free service, but his employer received an invoice for the training.

Of course, the employer asked for more information. The employee’s mentor reviewed the apprenticeship program and gave it a strong endorsement telling the employer it was unlike anything he had seen and had even learned something himself.

This apprentice completed the first level of the apprenticeship program just earlier this month.  

“He has the characteristics people need for success, self-driven to grow their careers, but humble enough to accept mentorship,” Lewis says.  “That’s what excites me about being in this apprentice program manager role.”

Approximately three percent of the field techs in automated systems companies are women. How do we improve on bringing more women into the field?

Kennady:  The automation industry leadership has to look internally at their teams and ask themselves, “do we have the mentorship and career ladders in place to make a new-to-the-field person successful at our company? If you can’t for certain say, ‘yes, a new employee knows A.) their exact 2-year/5-year/10-year plan with our company and B.) who is their mentor responsible for their success,” then you can’t have confidence in bringing in new people into the industry.

Allison:  I’m passionate about competency-based learning being the No. 1 method of instruction from day one for people tracking towards a profession.  In my role today, I work with the apprentices and the mentors to ensure they are successful in the program.  About 33% of our applicants looking for apprenticeships are female.

What would you tell someone who wanted to be in the automated systems industry? 

Kennady:  Do it. There isn’t a more job-secure industry right now. The need for safe, smart, and secure buildings is never going away, and you might be surprised how experience in a completely different industry might correlate with this one. 

Allison:  Apprenticeship is the pathway to promotion because it provides the competency-based training needed for career advancement. This is a great industry to be in right now because of all the advancements in “smart” technology that continues to be integrated into operational technology critical infrastructure.

What’s the impact of women in the Automation Industry?

Both Kennady and Allison believe that women are driving success in the industry. Today 24% of decision-makers are women, and 26% are in leadership positions, such as CFOs in companies within the automation industry. Apprenticeship should help automation employers begin to draw from the growing numbers of women career seekers who have the attitude, appetite, and aptitude for automation-related jobs.   

And ASP is proud that Kennady and Allison are helping employers and apprentices succeed.