Kaitte’s Biography

I was born in Saskatoon where I lived until my family moved to Lethbridge as I was starting high school. After that, I moved to Ottawa to study space systems engineering at Carleton University. I grew up on hopeful sci-fi like Star Trek and Stargate, and my dream was to make these futures a reality.

My university education had a rough start despite my passion. I entered university with severe social anxiety stemming from untreated gender dysphoria, I could barely leave my room without having a panic attack. Still, I persevered and worked throughout my university career, doing everything from house cleaning to order picking in warehouses and day labour on construction sites. Ultimately, after figuring out my gender, overcoming my anxiety, and working my ass off, I was able to graduate university as a bona fide rocket scientist!

After graduating, I moved to the rural town of Arnprior to work as an industrial engineer (EIT) at an aerospace manufacturing company called Arnprior Aerospace. My job was all about process improvement and increasing productivity, and it was both incredibly easy and unbelievably frustrating. Figuring out ways to make things better turned out to be a simple task, all I needed to do was ask my fellow workers what they needed. Then, after doing my part, compiling these ideas into actionable and quantifiable improvement plans, came the frustrating part: convincing management to act.

We made improvements where we could, but management proved unwilling to make the real investments needed to modernize our tools and fix our structural deficits. Instead, they decided to throw overtime hours at every problem, seemingly convinced that we could power our way out of our downward spiral by working harder. Arnprior Aerospace shut down in 2023, ending a 70-year long history and hundreds of union jobs. It's frustrating, knowing that the company had a real opportunity to turn things around if management had listened to our workers and made the necessary investments to solve our problems.

I moved on to work at Lockheed Martin Canada where I did a mix of mechanical engineering and computational fluid dynamics for our navy, eventually becoming a project lead while earning promotions and accolades. Beyond my technical work, I also became heavily involved in mentoring engineering students and contributing to the company’s mental health employee group. I stayed with Lockheed for nearly 5 years before becoming disillusioned with climbing the corporate ladder. My pride as a worker, my commitment to always do my best, and my desire to build up my community all pushed me to move on.

I returned home to Lethbridge after 15 years of education and work. I am now committing my experience and skill to local non-profit organizations while taking every opportunity to get involved in local activism and community events. In my free time, nothing makes me happier than exploring the coulees on my bike, exercising vigorously, and walking my cat around Nicholas Sheran Park. It truly is here in Lethbridge that I've rekindled my original dream of building a better future for all of us.

Living under the prairie sky, I’m Kaitte Aurora.