Valerie
Location: American Steel Building (1960 Mandela Pkwy #1647, Oakland)
After exploring school and a potential career with the San Francisco Fire Department, Valerie entered an electrical apprenticeship in Alameda County in 1984 with IBEW Local 595. Following a range of both challenging and rewarding jobs, including work at the Oakland Federal Building, she founded her own company, Electric Work Solutions, in 2015. Valerie has led electrical projects for the Unity Council, American Steel, and numerous homes throughout Oakland. With an eye toward retirement, she remains committed to mentoring other women in the electrical trade.
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My name is Valerie Chan. I was born in 1962 in San Francisco. My mom raised me as a single parent. I did not grow up with any siblings, so was an only child. And we lived in the housing projects. We were very poor. Like when I was born, she actually didn't even have a place to live. So I was in foster care for like six months until she could figure that out. She was able to bring me home after about six months. So I kind of got a little rough and tumble experience growing up in the projects. I was there until about 10, and then we moved to Chinatown, to North Beach, Chinatown, to my grandmother's building. And we lived across the hall from my grandmother. I moved out when I was about 19. I was trying to go to school. I was going to San Francisco State, but I was also working full time. I was working at restaurant jobs until like 1:00 in the morning. I really wasn't doing well in school because I was working at night and I couldn't get up in the morning and I just, it wasn't happening, it wasn't working. So I was like, well, I'm going to take a little bit of time off. And that's when I started looking into some other avenues. So the first thing I tried was the San Francisco firefighters. It was the first time they had ever allowed women –allowed – women to take the test. And so I was like, Oh, I want to do that. I'll try. And so the YWCA actually set up a program to help women prepare for the test. So they had a class in the morning at 7 and then a class in the evening at like 5 or something. So I did the morning class and I worked in the evenings. And they taught you how to lift weights, to build your upper body strength and your legs. And then we went out running. Really, it was the class itself and the experience of learning how to lift weights was really important for me. I didn't pass the firefighters test. Not only I noticed, but a lot of people noticed, that it was really geared towards men and tall people, which I am either. So they offered me to take the test again. But by then I had gotten into the apprenticeship in Alameda County. But it's a funny story about getting into the apprenticeship. So I was living in San Francisco. Someone told me about this program called Chinese for Affirmative Action. You know, they give classes, they monitor all of the apprenticeships. So I had applied and then I had gone to the interview and then I didn't hear from them for like a year and a half. And then I get a call one day, back in the day and we had landlines. She said, 'Are you still interested in the electrical apprenticeship?' I was like, 'Yeah, of course.' She goes, 'Well, we didn't hear from you. Classes start tonight.' I was like, 'What?' I said, 'I'll be there. Where am I going?' I mean thank God she called me. She didn't have to do that. But she did. So got into the program, I was like, this is it. Nothing's gonna deter me from this. And that was in 1984. So I started very young, I was 21 when I started. My mom, well she was glad that I was –she was kind of concerned about me having not going to school anymore and like working in restaurant. She was like, I think you should go back to school and study computers, is what she told me. She was right, I should have done that, but I didn't. So I think she was really happy that I landed on something. But sometimes I'd get laid off because that's the way – and she would worry about me, like oh you get laid off. But I've been pretty lucky. I've pretty much worked. I mean, there were several months, I would say, where back in the recession of the early nineties, where I was off for like seven months. I was in the hall, I was at 199 on the list in the hall. And that's when I started learning how to do side jobs. I had bought a house, and I'm like, I have to pay my mortgage. So I just started doing telling people, Hey, I'm available, you need some work. I just started doing stuff.
I ended up moving across the bay in a boat. Just pull up anchor and go across the bay. I moved from Sierra Point Parkway to Alameda in a boat. That's when I first moved to the East Bay. And then eventually I got an apartment in Oakland back in like '86. I've been in Oakland ever since.
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I worked for a while at the Oakland Federal Building when they were still building it. Back in '92 or '93. I worked there for like 14 months while it was under construction. Worked on the security system, the fire alarm system, the lighting system. So I had a lot of kind of high tech knowledge of the systems that they were going to be needing someone to maintain. And I ended up getting a great education. I learned how to use computers while I was there, I learned how to do estimating. I went to all kinds of meetings with department heads and whatnot, trying to figure out what they want to do and coordinating between the building management and all the departments in the building. So I really learned a lot working there, and I worked there for about 6 years.
But then I decided to go out on my own because I was, well hitting my head on the glass ceiling several times and it was just kind of a little tired of the men. Just everything. Just everything.
When I worked for Broadmoor Electric, there was a lot of guys who had been there for a long time and everyone had company trucks and all that. And I had one too. And they had kind of recruited me to work there. After I had established myself there for a few years. They kept on telling me, Oh yeah, we're going to give you some good jobs. We're going to let you run some work, and it just never really material – like everyone else was getting the good jobs. And they gave me all the crappy jobs. They gave me all the jobs that nobody else wanted to do. And then they would have me driving all over the place, like up to Sacramento and up to Placerville and all this stuff in the summertime. And I didn't have air conditioning in my van. I went into the office and the owner was there. And I said, 'I really need to have air conditioning in my van because it's too hot to be driving.' It's like I was getting sleepy, it's not safe. She goes, 'no, we don't have air conditioning in the van.' I go, 'Yes, we do.' Because some of the other guys have air conditioning. Like, 'no, we don't. We don't have to give you air conditioning.' I go, 'okay, well, you don't have to send me to Sacramento either.' And she couldn't believe I said that to her. She just looked at me like, I can't believe you're mouthing off at me like that, you know? So the jobs really never, never materialized for me. I kind of was like, I felt low on the totem pole, even though I had been there for 5 or 6 years. Finally, I quit and I went to work for this other company who headhunted me. So I went down to Santa Clara, the water treatment plant, and I was again, it was a great learning experience for me. But little by little they kept on giving me more and more responsibility, more and more responsibility. But they weren't paying me more. I was working with the tools, I was laying out a crew, I was doing what they called kind of like takeoffs on the plans. It was like, detailing. I was going to meetings and then they laid off the general foreman. I said, yeah, I'm gonna go and talk to the superintendent and tell them that they should make me the general foreman since I've been doing the job for at least the last 6 months already. So I go in and tell the superintendent that. He was like, 'well, we don't really need a general foreman on this job.' Couple of days later, they fired me. They got my check, kick me off the job. Because I asked for, had the audacity to ask for what I was already – get paid for what I was already going. And I was royally pissed. They put me on the safety committee, they were like sending me to L.A. So they were, like, grooming me for something. But then when I finally was like, Hey, what's up? No, you're fired. But, you know, I was like, okay, that's it. I had it with these people. I'm just going to I need to start my own business. But I had been thinking about it for quite some time. But just going to start my own business, I've had it.
When I was younger and I used to get unwanted attention from the men, my philosophy was that you really had to nip it in the bud. And I think sometimes I kind of had a chip on my shoulder because I was like ready for a fight, you know? I was always like, don't fuck with me. Like I said, I wasn't going to let anybody stop me get in my way. I just felt like it was really unprofessional to sleep around with the guy, first of all I was a lesbian. And at the time, not as many people were out. Back in 1984, It was a little different back then. But I wasn't in the closet. I didn't talk about it. But if someone asked me a direct question, I would give him a direct answer. And I did pour a drink over a guy's head [laughs]. We were like, went out to lunch, bunch of us, were having a couple of beers. And he says to me, 'You know, you should really shave your underarms. You would be a lot more attractive.' I go, 'It's none of your fucking business.' So he was just like harassing me and I was like, ‘If you don't get away from me, I'm going to pour my drink over your head.' And you kept it up. So I poured my drink over his head. And I thought he was going to punch me. I was like, Oh, shit [laughs]. This is part of my problem, too. I really don't like to take shit from anybody. It can be a problem when you work for people. So I don't have to anymore because I work for myself. Anyway, so I went out and bought a truck and that's when it became real for me. I bought my van and started outfitting the van. And it was pretty tough for the first couple of years to have enough work to make a decent living. It was tough.
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One of my first big commercial clients was at the Fruitvale Village. I got a call from this guy and he was like, 'Hey, could you come and fix the parking lot gate and the lighting is like not working right.' So I fixed it and then he's like, 'Hey, do you want to bid on this job? We're building the Fruitvale Public Market.' I felt like I was a little in over my head, but I thought, sometimes you got to get out of your comfort zone. You got to at least try. So I was like, I'll try. But it was great. It was great experience. And it was like my first big job that I did. And I hired someone, I hired an apprentice to help me. And then I did like a whole bunch of Goodwill stores. It was kind of during the last recession, during the 2008 downturn, when Goodwill stores were actually expanding at the time because a lot of people were shopping there. So they decided to update their image. So I did like 7 Goodwill stores all over the Bay Area. I guess I've kind of become somewhat of a remodel specialist, residential and commercial.
I think I have an attention to detail and quality craftsmanship. And also when it comes to troubleshooting, I really understand how things work and why things go wrong. Like I could diagnose things on the phone, and I have. Like I can diagnose problems and fix things from home, but nobody pays me for that. And also my craftsmanship is, I make sure everything looks good. And I don't like sloppy work. I don't like to leave a mess behind me. I'm very neat and tidy at work. I want it to look good, work good. And I want to have callbacks. I want it to be right the first time. I like problem solving. That's why it's called Electricwork Solutions. I like problem solving. I feel like I'm a crime scene investigator sometimes. I have to go in there and figure out, like, what they did, what happened, why it happened. I'll percolate on it for a while. I'll let it sink in and then boom, like just the light bulbs go off and I go oh! It's like a computer in there. I feed it the information, I look at it, I think about it for a little while, and then pretty soon the answers come. And I know that I'm going to figure it out. I know I'm going to figure it out. I may not know the answers right away, but I will figure it out.
One thing that's been really great is that I have made a lot of women electrician friends that I'm really happy that are in my life. And we definitely have this camaraderie. You know, we share information and we share tools and we sometimes share a beer. So that makes me really happy. I'm sure it's changed me somehow. I'm not really sure how exactly, because I don't know what it would have been like had I not done this. That ship has sailed. I know that it's shaped me in a lot of different ways. Probably in some ways that I dress, some ways that I talk, even the way I think. It's like everything is like a puzzle. I'm always looking to see, Oh, how is that put together? I can't just look at something without looking at what's behind it. And I'm looking towards retirement pretty soon. I mean, I can still keep working, but I'm like, I don't want to give all of my energy. I mean, I've given a lot. I mean, I have other interests as well. And I do want to explore those other interests. So I definitely want to save some time and energy for those other interests. I've been able to have good life. It's been all because of trade.