"An amazing career"

Women in Construction Week takes place the first week in March every year. To celebrate this week, we are highlighting some of the women who are participating in MnDOT's on-the-job training program. Today, we spotlight Olivia Gillman, pile driver and commercial diver.

Olivia Gillman grew up by a Minnesota lake and began diving at a young age. To fulfill a school essay assignment, she researched water-related careers. Becoming a marine biologist sounded interesting until she learned it was very competitive for very low pay and required four or more years of college.

“So I looked around and I saw underwater welding,” Gillman said, “I thought that looked like the coolest thing I had heard of in my life.”

Underwater welding is done by commercial divers and it’s just a part of what they do during underwater construction. They also drill, jackhammer, torch, perform inspections, pour concrete – they even power wash underwater.

Gillman attended a commercial dive school in California. After dive school, Gillman worked on a short-term project in San Diego.

“I joined the union kind of on a whim,” Gillman said. “I called companies across the country, and nobody was looking for nobody. So I made my way back to Minnesota and started up at Veit in April 2020.”

Welding underwater involves reversing the polarity and working with a supervisor on surface in the dive shack. The supervisor has a knife switch to “make it hot” and bridge the connection of electricity to weld underwater. The welding rod is coated in a wax that keeps it protected until used. Commercial divers in Minnesota do dive year-round. They melt or break an opening through the ice.

“What is really cool about diving in winter, they have hot water suits,” Gillman said. “You have a hose that sticks into the side of you, about hip height, with a valve on there, and from the surface, water is flowing into the whole wet suit. You’re basically in a hot tub. Your own little hot tub. You’re happy when you’re the diver, because you are going to be the warmest one on the job.”

When Veit hired Gillman, they asked if she wanted to do some pile driving work when diving is slow.

“I said sure, why not, whatever’s going to keep me employed,” Gillman said. “And I did not know what I was getting into.”

Pile driving is deep foundation work. There are many different forms of piling and foundation for buildings, bridges, tunnels and more. Driven by the force of a pile hammer, beams can go all the way down to bedrock with ease.

Commercial diving doesn’t have its own union but in many ways it aligns with pile driving. Similar operations can be found between the two. Commercial divers and pile drivers work closely next to each other at points. For commercial divers the international training center in Las Vegas has a handful of advancement classes to further grow your education and tools to bring to the field. Gillman worked her way through the pile driving apprenticeship taking the required classes as well as signing up for extra welding classes. She is nearly a journeyman, needing only 200 more hours of on-the-job training.

“It’s been an amazing career so far and I’ve loved continuing to grow my knowledge and skills in both pile driving and commercial diving” Gillman said.

MnDOT’s on-the-job training program encourages employers to provide mentors for trainees.

“I’ve had a lot of unofficial mentors. My career has been a lot of traveling around, hopping on different crews, going wherever I was needed,” Gillman said. “So, I’ve worked with a lot of different men and women. I found mentorship in the people who were willing to teach me and who wanted to grow the next generation of workers.”

“People are very supportive. We are arm in arm in every condition, cold, hot, terrible, windy, rainy, snowy and you’re in it to win it with the rest of your coworkers.”

Gillman’s advice for women entering the trades? “You get to decide if you are going to allow being a woman to be something that’s going to hold you back or something that’s going to excel your career. I definitely have used it as fuel and have been able to find a career I take pride in.”