Terrazzo Finisher Wendy Bautista has been training for a career in the trades her entire life, even though she didn’t always know it. The Brighton Park native spent much of her childhood alongside her father, who worked various construction jobs. “I would go with him and help him. And even if I just handed him a hammer, I felt like I was a construction worker,” she says.
Bautista says her father taught her a little bit of everything, but admits she never thought about a career in construction of her own. “I was working three jobs, and none of them had anything to do with construction,” she says. But it was a visit to Chicago Women in Trades that changed her mind. She felt immediately at home in the company of like-minded women and was surprised to find the support she received went beyond career advice. “It’s an amazing sisterhood. I felt like I had a second home there,” she says. “We could talk about anything, even if it didn’t have to do with construction.
Bautista finished her classes at CWIT in 2017, but she didn’t begin working in construction right away. “I took a couple of exams and failed,” she says. “I was kind of upset with myself, and I almost gave up.” But through it all, Bautista says her parents were incredibly supportive. “My dad always encouraged me. He would tell me that being a woman in the trades should empower me,” she says.
Despite the early setbacks, Bautista persisted. And she credits CEC with helping her get her first big break in construction. “I wanted to be a painter, but I was open to anything. I just wanted to get into a good career that was going to help me take care of my kids,” she says. “I applied for every position I saw.” Her tenacity paid off, and within three weeks, Bautista had landed a job.
Bautista is happy to have found a rewarding career, but she admits that as a Mexican-American woman, not everyone is rooting for her to succeed. She does her best to ignore the naysayers and focus on completing the job she was hired to do. She believes that much of the resentment is rooted in the idea that the traditional image of a tradesperson is changing, a fact that many older workers have a hard time accepting.
The job is physically demanding for Bautista, who is a petite woman. “You’re on your knees all day and hunched over. You have to hold heavy machines in the air, so carpal tunnel is common,” she says. “There’s a 52-year-old woman who works for the company. I tell myself that if she can do it, I can do it. Hopefully, I’ll even be able to run jobs someday.”
Bautista’s current schedule doesn’t leave her a lot of time to unwind. But when she’s not working, she’s spending time with her three children, ages 2, 5, and 11. Although the pace of her schedule can be exhausting, she says she’s blessed to be working during the COVID-19 pandemic. And she is laser-focused on providing for her family. “I look at it as a mental thing. I have to take care of myself, but I also have to take care of the people I’m taking care of,” she says.
In addition to being a single mom, Bautista supports her mother, an undocumented immigrant, as well as her younger brother. “Thankfully, my mom is like an angel sent from Heaven. She understands my job, so if I’m tired, she’ll take care of the kids for me while I rest,” she says. She doesn’t see a vacation on the horizon any time soon, but if she could go anywhere in the world, she would visit Bora Bora.
Bautista says she wishes more young women knew they could have a lucrative career in the trades when they are in high school. “I wish they would give you the option of going to college or learning a trade. It would help [students] be free of debt, and let them reach their dreams a lot quicker,” she says. She advises any woman wanting to get into the trades to stay positive and dream big. “I had zero knowledge about what I was getting into before I started, and now I have things I never thought I would get,” she says.