Page 22 - Careers & Stuff 2021

Making It Work
THESE YOUNG DELAWAREANS FOUND A SATISFYING CAREER START IN THE TRADES
BY MATT WARD
> ANGEL MURRAY
and I just kind of do my job. I think it mainly has to do with the company I’m with. They’re very woman-oriented, and woman-empowering.”
For Murray, that dynamic was a long time coming. Even though she had a keen sense, from early in high school, what sort of work she wanted to do, she did not have support from her father, and that shaped her career path, at least for a time.
“When I got accepted into sheet metal, he threatened to send me to Glasgow High School instead, after I was already at Delcastle for a year,” Murray says. “And mind you, it’s not that he looks down on blue collar people, because my brother is a mechanic. It was because I was a woman that he looked down on it. But I proceeded to do my three years of sheet metal at Delcastle, and probably because of him, I didn’t go out my senior year or further look into getting into sheet metal. As
a teenager, not having your parent’s approval just didn’t feel right. Then, my dad passed [away] a couple of months after I graduated and I just stayed working at Arby’s, and eventually, that got old. I just finally realized that I really wanted to get back into it, and there was nothing stopping me anymore.”
Now, with a year and a half of the apprenticeship under her belt, and having established herself in the job, Murray is looking to branch out — eventually. She’s learning to weld, and has an eye on HVAC and plumbing,
too. Overall, taking the leap to pursue her trade has paid off. “It’s a lot less stress on the mind, that’s for sure,” she says. “And also, there’s just a certain confidence in doing what I do and being happy about it.”
Angel Murray studied sheet metal
at Delcastle Technical High School, graduating in 2015. Now she’s a second-year apprentice at M. Davis & Sons. The years between, she worked in fast food.
“I didn’t do the trade right away
after high school,” Murray says. “I was working at Arby’s and honestly, that’s not a career. I did enjoy doing sheet metal when I was in high school, but because of how disapproving my father was, it kind of put me off, and I tried to find something else to do, but I couldn’t afford college.”
Not long after deciding to make a
20 CAREERS & STUFF | DelawareBusinessTimes.com
change, Murray ran into her old shop teacher at an alumni event. “He helped me meet someone at M. Davis, who got me an interview,” Murray says, “and now I work here and it’s pretty great.”
When we spoke, Murray, 24, was working in the field installing duct work at DuPont Experimental Station. On the job site, among the work crews, and at the corporate level, she says
M. Davis is actively supportive of its female workers. “I thought it’d be more challenging working in a mainly male- dominated field,” Murray notes, “but it’s been great — nobody looks down on me for being a woman or anything,
JOE DEL TUFO/MOONLOOP PHOTOGRAPHY
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