Conditioned for a new career: Joan Bailey reinvented herself at Algonquin
Posted on Friday, March 9th, 2018
When fate closes a bank vault, it opens a ball valve.
That lesson wasn’t exactly on the curriculum of either the HVAC or the Plumbing Technique programs Joan Bailey completed at Algonquin in the last couple of years, but it’s one the former banker takes to heart.
When Bailey began a career in banking and financing years ago, she thought she was set for life. But then her company reorganized and downsized, and she found herself jobless in mid-career with few prospects. Maybe it was time for a change, she thought.
Meanwhile, the maintenance on her home wasn’t going to get done by itself. Cue the epiphany.
“I was fixing a leaky faucet and the taps needed to be replaced,” Bailey recalls. “And the taps didn’t match the sink, so I replaced the sink. And I said, ‘I should get paid for this.’”
When she checked with Algonquin in 2015, plumbing was one of the few construction trade programs the College didn’t offer. Still, it seemed like a good place to reimagine herself. “My daughter said, ‘You know, you’re really good with people. You should do event planning.’”
Bailey wasn’t overly enthusiastic when she spoke about Event Planning to an intake consultant at Algonquin’s Experienced Worker Centre, which counsels adults changing careers. “The young man at the intake office said. ‘That’s not your first choice, is it?’ And I said, ‘No, I wanted to do plumbing.’”
The consultant suggested a degree in heating, refrigeration and air conditioning. Working with pipe fixtures and electrical components at the same time? Bailey was sold on the HVAC diploma program almost instantly, and loved it from the start.
“The professors were awesome,” she says. “At Algonquin, especially in construction, you’re not just sitting in a class killing your brain neurons. The most important thing, and Algonquin always emphasizes this, is hands-on (experience). … You can see components in books, you can read about the formulas and calculations . . . but until you get that first shock from putting the wires in the wrong place, it really doesn’t stick. So the hands-on at Algonquin is amazing.”
While Bailey says achieving technical mastery in the operation and maintenance of heating, air conditioning and refrigeration equipment was the heart of the program, it didn’t end there. The program teaches students to concern themselves with the people the equipment serves, she says. “It’s about the comfort level of the occupants of each dwelling. (The HVAC instructors) teach you more than just being a technician. They teach you the value of the environment as a whole.”
Bailey’s experience at Algonquin didn’t begin with the HVAC program — she was able to take some high school upgrade courses to qualify her for the trade program — and it didn’t end there. Halfway through her two-year-diploma program, the College introduced Plumbing Techniques, a one-year certificate program. She signed up for plumbing before finishing HVAC, and went seamlessly from one program to the next.
“Our main project was to install a complete bathroom — toilet, sink, tub, shower, the whole thing, and the under-plumbing that goes with it. One of the HVAC professors came by and said, ‘Oh, she’s still here?’”
The work was challenging at times, she says, but “at Algonquin they don’t really give you the option to quit because they are so encouraging. They go out of their way (for students).”
Having successfully completed the entrance exam for the Ottawa-area plumbing union, Bailey is now taking interviews to find an apprenticeship with a local firm. “I believe that Algonquin College gave me the courage and the knowledge to just go into the workforce with confidence,” she says.