Apprentice ironworker greets the sky

PORTLAND — Cynthia Sanborn’s work as an apprentice ironworker helping to build the $165 million Portland-South Portland Bridge is taking her to new heights.

“I absolutely love [the work],” said Sanborn, 34, of West Bath, the first woman in a four-year apprentice program run by the ironworkers’ union. “You know when you were a kid and you had your Legos and Erector sets … it’s like that, just a little higher off the ground.”

Sanborn was accepted into the program after completing a 14-week course offered by Women Unlimited, an Augusta-based corporation that helps women find skilled trade work.

The rigorous program enables an apprentice to achieve journeyman status. The only other apprentice on the bridge project, Kevin Welch, 21, of South Portland, was recommended for the program by the superintendent on the job, Ronald Raymond.

The apprentices join 12 journeyman ironworkers and one crane operator in building the support structure for the drawbridge over the Fore River, a replacement for the Million Dollar Bridge.

In just two months, they’ve laid nearly 1,000 feet of red steel girders along concrete support piers built on the South Portland side. Targeted for completion by the end of next year, the project will require 8,000 tons of steel and 93,167 high-strength bolts.