Success in business sometimes means doing it alone. Just ask Andrea Thiel. 

Four years ago, Andrea graduated from Mohawk’s Architectural Technology program. Today, she owns her own construction company which operates the Mister Renovator franchise for East Hamilton and Stoney Creek. It’s a one-person operation with all work contracted out. Andrea was aiming at $250,000 in business for calendar 1985. 

The first to admit it’s unusual for a woman to forge a career in construction work, Andrea says she developed her interest in building as a young girl through helping out with various projects around the family farm at Markdale, Ontario, near Owen Sound. She took drafting for five proficiency awards in the subject. 

She decided to come to Mohawk because she liked the practical nature of the college’s architectural courses. 

Since graduating, two aspects of the program have proven invaluable to her on the job. The emphasis on the building code is “the single most important thing about the course,” she said, followed closely by teaching students how and where to find necessary information. 

In what little spare time her program allowed, Andrea worked in the library/ resource centre at the Fennell campus and played a variety of intramural sports. She also umpired baseball games to help make ends meet even though “I didn’t know anything about baseball.” 

That pace hasn’t changed much since starting out on her own last year. Because of the nature of her business, many appointments are in the evenings or on weekends. When a free night does come up, she says she prefers to “just go home at night and read and be quiet.” She also has taken up golf because she has found it helpful in her business. 

Andrea holds a special distinction in the Mohawk College Alumni Association in the she was the first graduate of the college’s architecture programs to participate in the association’s Gradvisor Program. This program brings current student and potential students together informally with Mohawk Alumni to talk about career options stemming from the college’s post-secondary programs.