OVERVIEW

To kick off season 4, we’re back with Maggie Rogosienski, aka Electric Mags. Back home in Wisconsin by way North Carolina, Maggie is working as an electrician in Milwaukee. Not only is she moving swiftly through the ranks of her trade, but she has grown a following of almost 14,000 on her Instagram where she talks tools, the trades, and being a mom. Listen in as Jeremy and Eric talk with Maggie about switching careers, being part of a union, and being a woman in what is largely a male-dominated industry.

ABOUT MAGGIE

Born in Wisconsin, Maggie escaped down to North Carolina where she planned on going to medical school but ended up getting into personal training instead. After some time in the South she ventured back home to the midwest and eventually fell in love with Crossfit, enough to open her own gym. She even double-dipped into the fitness world as a USA Weightlifting-certified lifting coach. After some big life changes and a bit of time off, she was inspired to join the trades by her cousin, who works as a seam-fitter. Though she was skeptical at first, she and her brother jumped into electrical work head-on.

“You could never have paid me enough to believe I would actually be here talking to you about being in construction, but it fits perfectly with what I feel like my personality is. I'm pretty, pretty much a tomboy, got two brothers that beat the hell out of me. And so I've learned to be humble, and also just stand my ground.”

A year after her brother joined, Maggie got an apprenticeship with a union in Milwaukee and is now years into her work towards her journeyman’s card. She speaks on her experience as a woman in a male-dominated career:

”I know that as a woman, I got to prove that I'm not here to just take it easy, and let the guys you know, pick up the work, you know, whether or not they choose to do more, whatever. I never said no or, oh, ‘I can't handle that’ before. I've actually busted my ass to try to do something.”

After some uncertainty surrounding the future of the trade and what things would look like during (and after) the pandemic, she has found a place she wants to be for the foreseeable future. Along with her apprenticeship she has found a steady crew of followers on Instagram who keep up with her life in the trades through workplace memes, tool reviews, and her life as a mother.