Building a brighter
Peninsula Woman
Peninsula Daily News
Sunday, April 10, 2011
3
Future Student follows path quickly opening up to more women
By Diane Urbani for
Diane Urbani
de la
Paz/for Peninsula Woman
Vanesa Stoken, a student in Peninsula College’s composites program, says the composites fabrication trade is ideal for women.
de la
Peninsula Woman
Paz
PORT ANGELES — Vanesa Prince Stoken took a chance on a wholly unfamiliar course — and found her path forward. Ask her to explain composites, the program she began last fall quarter at Peninsula College, and she turns to a counterpart from about 70 years ago: Rosie the Riveter. That “We Can Do It!” poster, showing the red-kerchiefed World War II factory worker flexing her muscles, is one of Stoken’s favorite pieces of artwork. She’s a 21st-century version of the riveter with the rolled-up sleeve — updated on many levels. At the North Olympic Peninsula Skills Center, Stoken is learning to build ultra-lightweight equipment, from surfboards to windmills for wind energy farms, with fiberglass. The technology she’s mastering will enable her to find work with Port Angeles operations such as Westport Shipyard and Angeles Composites Technology Inc., aka ACTI, where a newly awarded contract with Bombardier Aerospace will mean 50 added jobs over the coming year. Students in the composites program may also choose to take their Peninsula College degrees and travel. The standards are universal in this trade, says Dan Sweetser, Stoken’s instructor at the skills center. “Composites are the wave of the future,” he believes. “You can move around, and do this in another state or country.” Turn
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