MAKENNA PEARLMAN
Job Title: Journeyman Electrician
Company: Brattan Industries
Location: Leominster, Mass.
Age: 23; Years on the Job: 5
Interests: Spending time with family and friends, traveling, hiking, fishing, four-wheeling, and spending time with her boyfriend, Kyle; dog, Rocky; and cat, Luna
Electrical wiring and the work come easy to Makenna Pearlman, who went to a trade school to train to become an electrician.
“I was able to understand the work fairly easily and quickly, and the money is also really good, so that helped with my decision,” says Pearlman, who is the first in her family to work in the electrical trade.
Born in Colorado and raised in Massachusetts, she learned about basic wiring with Romex and MC and how to write wire diagrams and bend EMT at her technical high school.
During her junior year of high school, she started a two-year training co-op program with Wayne J. Griffin Electric. She also attended night school Code classes at Monty Tech and says her training with different people helped the most in her training for the trade.
“Everybody has a different mindset that can lead to more efficient and easier ways to complete a task,” she says.
As a licensed electrician, she starts work at 6 a.m. and ends her work day at about 2 p.m. Before working on a large commercial project, she was doing rough-in, finish work, and underground. Now, she is focusing on conveyor work.
“My favorite role is getting to see the conveyor up and running,” she says. “The most challenging part is going through the schematics and the prints to figure out device numbers and which devices go where on the conveyor.”
In the future, she sees herself with a master’s license and possibly owning her own company.
“I will be going back to school shortly to continue my education to go for my master’s in a year,” she says. “As far as my own company, I plan on figuring that part out in a few years from now when I get more settled.”
