Victoria has always had a naturally curious and inquisitive personality. As a kid, she describes having a vested interest in how things worked and enjoyed taking things apart, then reconstructing them to see if they would still work.  

As she got older, that curiosity started to inform major decisions, like what classes she’d take in high school and, eventually, the career path she would pursue. 

“As a young child, I remember always wanting to know how things worked. And it just moved from toys to bicycles to cars to motorcycles, and now to buses,” she said.  

In her last two years of high school, Victoria took automotive technology classes before landing an apprenticeship immediately after graduation.  

“I started my apprenticeship and went to Centennial. I took the truck and coach technician apprenticeship. I wrote my license and successfully got it. Then I worked on the floor for a little bit, just gaining some more knowledge of the buses, the trade, things like that.” 

Being a woman in trades 

Throughout the years that Victoria spent in school and the workforce, she has often found herself being one of very few women in the auto classes and garages she has spent time in. And though she’s now grown accustomed to this, she admits it has been intimidating at times. It took time for her to learn how to navigate being a woman in a male-dominated work environment. 

“As a truck and coach technician, things are big, things are heavy, and women are typically smaller than males,” she explained. “There are a lot of learning curves being a female in the trade. But once you get in with certain mechanics, they tend to take you under their wing.” 

The type of teamwork and collaboration Victoria is describing is key to being successful in the trade, and part of what pushed her to seek out a teaching and supervising role where she could help people flourish. 

“To be in this trade, you definitely have to be a team player,” she said. “You have to be willing to share your experiences and your knowledge with fellow employees. In a supervisor position, we need to have that knowledge to help our coach technicians flourish.” 

With five out of her eight years in the trade spent in municipal transit, Victoria says she grew weary of doing the same repairs day in day out and didn’t feel like she had a lot of prospects for upward mobility. But switching to Metrolinx was a solve for both of those issues.  

“When I applied for the position at GO Transit, I knew there was an opportunity to move up. And no two days are the same,” she said. 

A day in Bus Fleet Maintenance 

“A typical day for me is, I come in, I consult with my shift partner who is here during the day. We kind of see where our buses stand to see if this bus is ready for service and if all the repairs have been done,” she explained. “At that point, I assign the coach technicians to perform the repairs, and I do regular audits throughout the day.” 

Victoria also conducts routine quality assurance checks throughout her shifts, ensuring everyone is working safely and doing their jobs correctly. “We go through all the repairs and if the bus is fit for the road, we do an inspection on it and we put a safety sticker on the bus, and the bus goes back into service.” 

There’s also a bit of mentorship involved, which she enjoys offering to coach technicians.  

Like most jobs, hers comes with challenges, but Victoria has developed a pretty good system for making it through a tough day. 

“Sometimes you get that challenging repair, and you need to walk away for five minutes because you're just at your wit's end with it,” she said. “Walk around, take a breath, don't look at it for a little bit and go back to it. And nine out of ten times you will successfully complete that repair. But ultimately you have to be a team player. You have to be a leader as well. That's from a supervisor position and a coach technician position.” 

For Victoria, like all Metrolinx employees, the safety of everyone is her top priority. And though it’s a big responsibility to be so attentive to detail, she says there are a lot of things about the job that make it all worth it, like seeing the results of the work her and her team do. 

“A highlight of my job is definitely driving across the 401 and you see you a GO bus and you recognize that number and you're like, ‘Hey, I just saw that bus in the shop yesterday. Good. It's back on the road. It's helping move the community.’” 

“It is a very gratifying trade to be in,” she said. “It's very nice to see a bus roll down the street with passengers in it that you worked on.”  

 And Victoria is just getting started. 

“The sky's the limit in my opinion,” she said. “This was the best move that I could have done. It's very gratifying to see other women doing the same thing that I'm doing because there's not many of us in this world.”