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March 12, 2025
By: Janine Wine
Communications and Marketing Coordinator
CLARKSVILLE, TN: When you think of someone managing the maintenance of a major manufacturing plant, you typically would not envision a woman, but Ashlie Sayles is looking to break those stereotypes associated with maintenance technicians and make a name for herself in a career field where few women have left their mark.
Sayles earned herself a spot in Trane Technologies Craftsman In Training (CIT) program, allowing her to enroll in special industry classes taught at TCAT Dickson’s Clarksville Campus. Craftsman In Training is Trane Technologies version of an apprenticeship. Currently fifteen Trane Technologies employees are enrolled in the program, but Sayles is the first and only woman to ever be considered for CIT from the Clarksville plant. In fact, she is the first woman to successfully land a maintenance position at the local facility and the second world-wide for the company that has been building equipment to heat and cool residential homes and commercial businesses for more than one hundred years.
“I love troubleshooting and working on things. I have met a lot of people who didn’t have the resources or skills to troubleshoot or solve problems. Those values were instilled in me at a very young age,” Sayles explained adding her dad, who has spent the last 20 years of his career as a maintenance technician, had always encouraged her to find answers to questions and solve problems. “I started out working on my own car. I figured things out watching YouTube videos,” she said.
A resident of Montgomery County for more than 27 years and an alum of Kenwood Middle and High Schools, Sayles also holds a degree in criminal justice with a minor in accounting from Nashville State Community College. Sayles held jobs in food service and at Best Buy before seeking employment with Trane Technologies seven years ago. It was her love of math and passion for problem solving that led her to apply for the maintenance role she was promoted to just three months ago after scoring well on a Trane Technologies aptitude exam that opened doors for her.
Donnie Johnson, Jr., a 31-year company veteran with 22 years in maintenance, is the first shift maintenance supervisor at Trane Technologies. He explained the process for getting into the CIT program. “It’s a union shop and done by seniority. You bid on a job and if you get it, you take an aptitude test. If you score high enough on the test, then you go through interviews,” Johnson explained.
The partnership between TCAT Dickson and Trane began years ago to help upskill Trane employees and provide them with a better understanding of general maintenance knowledge. Employees in the CIT program receive extra technical training at the college and numerous hours of on-the-job training before completing the program. Johnson and the weekend maintenance supervisor Robert Leuenberger, Jr. are both graduates of the program.
“We both started out as mechanics in the CIT program. We went to TCAT, did our 7,500 hours training on the job, and worked for 10 years. We were offered multi-craft (both mechanical and electrical) and did that for 10 years,” Johnson explained. Now both serve the company in supervisory roles.
Trane’s CIT program focuses on three areas including Electrical, Mechanical, and Tool and Die. In Electrical, employees spend 492 hours at TCAT learning various skills and 7,500 hours at Trane completing on-the-job training and an extra 3,750 hours to earn a Multi-Craft designation. The Mechanical program calls for 480 hours of training at TCAT and 7,500 hours at Trane with an additional 3,750 hours at Trane for Mult-Craft designation. Tool and Die is 800 hours at TCAT and 7,800 hours at Trane. Sayles’ plan is to complete the Mechanical portion of the CIT program and then go through the Electrical portion where she can be a Multi-Craft Maintenance Technician.
Sayles began her first class, Blueprint Reading, just eight weeks ago. “January 14 was my first day at TCAT and I have already completed all of my book work (for the first class),” Sayles said. TCAT Dickson Instructor Sal Evangelista has been impressed with Sayles. “She has finished 60 hours of work in 23 hours, so we are doing a deep dive into other sections. She will be the best technician that I have had,” Evangelista said. Because of Sayles’ previous education, she received some Prior Learning Credit for two TCAT math courses which she easily tested out when Evangelista first assessed her.
“Women are better because they pay attention to detail and have better fine motor skills. Ashlie catches on quickly. She’s a one and done kind of person. You show it to her one time, and she’s got it. She’s done. She doesn’t like to be told the answers, she wants to figure it out for herself,” Evangelista explained. “I want women to know there is a place for them in this field,” he added.
Johnson and Leuenberger agree. “Ashlie may be small in stature, but she is willing to go out and do and try and it’s great. She sends a positive message. I think she has made ripples in the plant – positive ripples,” Leuenberger said.
“I am excited about my position. I am excited about the program. I’m picking up things very quickly. My supervisor says I’m learning more efficiently than most,” Sayles beamed. But she isn’t willing to stop there. Currently CIT students attend one class two evenings per week for three hours each day. It’s no surprise that Sayles wanted to do more. “I will be in the TCAT program for the next two-and-a-half years, but I’m determined to get it done faster than that. I asked if I could take two classes instead of one. Next trimester I will be taking two classes so I will be coming four days per week for three hours per day instead of two days per week,” Sayles said.
Since January, Sayles has already learned to read blueprint symbols to follow directions of how equipment or machines work, learned how to wire switches and how to troubleshoot issues when switches are not working properly, and is currently drawing her own blueprints.
“The best part is my instructors here are very willing to teach me new things. They show me things I ask about and go in depth in detail. They are very encouraging,” Sayles said.
“Her work ethic and her excitement for the trade stand out more than anything. I wish I had twenty students like her in my daytime class that had her work ethic and her excitement. She came in ready and eager to learn,” Evangelista said.
Trane Technologies has plans to connect Sayles with the only other woman ever to work in maintenance in the company’s history. That woman has worked her way up to maintenance supervisor in another plant in Colorado according to Johnson.
“Ashlie is doing great. She is doing everything we have asked her to do and is going above and beyond,” Johnson said.
Johnson shared he recently chose Sayles for a company employee spotlight and shared her story with other employees and plant administration. “Sharing Ashlie’s story was a huge success. Our plant manager thinks it is a wonderful thing to have a woman working in maintenance.” According to Johnson there are forty daytime maintenance employees and about ninety on all shifts working in the plant that runs twenty-four hours per day, seven days per week.
In a male dominated trade, Sayles is holding her own. When asked how it felt to be the first woman in the history of Trane Technologies Clarksville plant to ever work in maintenance and the first woman to attend TCAT as part of the Craftsman In Training program, Sayles replied, “It makes me feel excited and accomplished. I want people to know that they can do anything they put their mind too – even if you don’t get it the first time, don’t give up. I like to encourage people. I get so much support from the women on the floor, our HR reps, and the men I work with.”
TCAT offers specialized training courses for local industries and can build a unique program focused on an apprenticeship or a short program to upskill a few employees to address a need from a specific type of welding to a computer course. For more information on TCAT Dickson’s workforce development opportunities, interested parties can contact Warren Thompson at the Clarksville Campus at 931-999-7318.
TCAT Dickson is a Tennessee Board of Regents institution, is accredited by the Council on Occupational Education, and complies with non-discrimination laws: Title VI, Title IX, Section 504, and ADA. Located on Highway 46 in Dickson, the technical training college also has extension campuses in Clarksville, and Franklin. Additional information about the school is located at www.TCATDickson.edu.
Ashlie Sayles uses an AC/DC electrical trainer at TCAT Dickson’s Clarksville Campus. Sayles, an employee at Trane Technologies, is the first woman employed in maintenance at the Clarksville plant and the first woman to attend TCAT classes as part of Tane Technologies Craftsman In Training (CIT) Program.
Ashlie Sayles draws a scaled blueprint of a part during her training at TCAT Dickson’s Clarksville Campus. Sayles is the first woman employed in maintenance at Trane Technologies allowing her to be the first woman enrolled at TCAT as part of the Craftsman In Training program, an apprenticeship type program developed between Trane Technologies and TCAT Dickson where employees get a basic understanding of general maintenance attending classes at the college while completing on-the-job training.
Ashlie Sayles uses a motor control troubleshooting trainer to study ladder logic at TCAT Dickson’s Clarksville Campus. Sayles is the first woman to be employed in the maintenance department at Trane Technologies Clarksville plant allowing her to also be the first woman enrolled at TCAT as part of the Craftsman In Training program – Trane Technologies version of an apprenticeship. Sayles will complete 480 hours at TCAT and 7,500 hours of on-the-job training before completing the Craftsman In Training program.
