Like a lot of kids coming out of high school, there were a tonne of life-changing options facing Elijha.
She had already been offered early entry into uni, and her parents had even raised the idea of a good ol’ Aussie gap year.
A third option, however, presented itself with her brother – Jock giving rave reviews of his apprenticeship with Essential Energy.
“If he’s done it, why can’t I give it a go?” Elijha pondered.
She applied to undertake her apprenticeship with the major NSW electrical distribution company and before she knew it, her sparky career was off and running.
Fish outta water
So Elijha ventured from rural NSW – around Armidale/Walcha way – to Lismore in north-east NSW.
As an Electrical Technician for Essential Energy, Elijha’s work in maintaining infrastructure ranges from cross-arm pole work, managing planned and unplanned outages, preventative maintenance such as tree removal … her team even conducts shock investigations on faulty installations.
“No two days are the same and you’re never in the same place twice in a week,” she said.
“It’s something new every day which makes it exciting.”
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But Elijha’s favourite job is fault and emergency work – helping to get Lismore locals’ power back on.
“It sounds terrible to say that I love switching peoples’ power off,” she joked.
“But there’s certainly some satisfaction when there’s been an outage and you put the power back on.
“I was on-call over Christmas and there were a lot of people fretting about keeping food cold, and when you turn the power back on they’d say ‘you’ve saved Christmas!’.
“It’s going home at the end of the day knowing that our customer’s power is in good working order.”
Powering up
When Elijha was going through her apprenticeship, she was one of a handful of women.
She considered herself very lucky to have had the support network she had through her co-workers at Essential Energy.
Elijha now finds herself in that support role as well, helping more youngsters – including women – get into trades.
This includes heading to nearby TAFEs to give talks at apprenticeship inductions.
“I’ve seen more females coming through the ranks … it’s great to see more apprentices coming through both in the company and more broadly which is great to see,” she added.
As well as participating in Essential Energy’s Women from the Field quarterly meetings, Elijha also attends the annual Women from the Field conference.
Both the group and conference are aimed at promoting women in electrical infrastructure, and to continue to grow female participation in the sector.
Coastal convert
When Elijha’s not on the tools, she can usually be found competing both in CrossFit and Rugby Union with the Lismore Rugby Union Club.
“I’ve [also] been going out fishing with my partner on the weekends,” she added.
“I’m getting more and more fishing mad which is funny to think because I never thought of myself as a crazy fisher lady.”
Elijha is determined to grow her skills as a technician, and will soon be double qualified after completing a Cert III in ESI – Distribution Overhead.
One thing she is optimistic about is the future of women in trades; encouraging everyone to give it a go if they’re curious.
“My experience through Essential Energy and the people I’ve worked with has been just out of this world,” she said.
“I don’t think I could ask for a better career.”