"It's A Continuous Learning Experience": How Joy St. Germain continues to grow on the job

Wander around the yard at A.F. Theriault a little while and you will see a woman walk through the workplace, stopping to chat with every person she passes. She is a safety officer, site manager, journeyperson, and more. "I've always enjoyed helping people," says Joy, "my nickname around here is Mama Joy."

From early on she has taken initiative to help the team. "I've been working hard since I was a kid," she says. Hailing from Lake Doucette, Joy was raised by her father and grew up, she says, "very old school. We didn't have hydro or anything like that." She would climb off the school bus and hurry up the hill to stock the wood boxes with wood for the fire.

At seventeen she was manager at a pizza restaurant. As time passed she tried out different places and jobs, from herbalism to palliative care work to joining the military across four different provinces. Eventually Joy came home to Nova Scotia. Needing work, she noticed a nearby business was hiring fiberglassers: A. F. Theriault & Son Ltd. Her father had worked there. She called the boatyard and Arthur Theriault, the owner of the company, picked up. She asked him, "I don't suppose by any chance you hire women to fiberglass, do you?"

"Oh," said Arthur, "women make some of the best fiberglassers."

Soon after, Joy started working, and has been continually growing into various roles ever since.

Joy likes being involved in boat building because, she says, "there's a lot of job satisfaction. I think it's really fascinating how you can take a bunch of raw materials that don't look like much of anything, put them together and create something that helps somebody have a livelihood...Or repairing a boat," she adds, "knowing the people on that boat are going to be safe because you did your job and and you did it well."

From fiberglassing she got a job as foreman. "I said, 'well, seems like I'm getting a little further into this," she remembers, "I should try for the boat builders course." With several years of working under her belt, she decided to challenge the apprenticeship certification through the Trade Qualifier pathway and was certified.

But Joy doesn't stand still. "Then after a couple of years I said, 'I'm going to go one step further.' I did the ABYC Marine Composites Technician. I did that."

Most recently, Joy has gotten into the safety side of things. "I'm doing Safety Officer, outside fiberglass repair," she says, "and recently I got my ticket to become a trainer for WHMIS so I could put on a WHMIS course. It's a continuous learning experience."

She is also active in bringing people into the industry. It's important that she shows other women it's possible to succeed in a male-dominated field. "I take a group of students every year from different schools and tell them about my job," she says, "and encourage them to get into the sciences and unconventional job roles for women. I really enjoy that as well too."

As a journeyperson, Joy has overseen certifications of people at the yard and says her favourite thing at work is seeing her coworkers succeed.

In fact, Joy's proudest moment at work involves an apprentice. A newcomer from Vietnam, Tin Pham struggled at first in Meteghan with a language barrier. But he worked hard, and Joy has liked helping him through the Boat Builder apprenticeship. "He's just doing phenomenal...he's done all 3 levels in the program and he's always happy-go-lucky," she says, "he's my crowning achievement. Quite proud of him."

Joy has been such a supportive force at work that she recently won the Apprenticeship Ally Award of Excellence from the Nova Scotia Apprenticeship Agency.

Joy has a lot of work wisdom to offer. "Don't apply for a job unless you know you can get there and back," she says, "[and] if you want respect, treat everybody else with respect."

Her final piece of advice, she says, is "one of my father's lessons. If you don't like your job, don't stay there, because you'll never succeed."

20 years on, Joy still likes her work. "At the end of the day, I do like my job. And I like what I accomplished. The fibreglass can get a little itchy at times, but it goes away."