Shereika Mathurin Becomes STJ’s First “Linewoman”

It may not be usual to look up and see a woman in a bucket truck working high above on the power lines, but St. John residents are becoming accustomed to it.

Shereika Mathurin, who started training with the Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority in December 2019, has become the first St. John woman to graduate from the Powerline Apprenticeship Program from Electric Cities of Georgia.

She’s now a member of the St. John crew, and she’s the only female working for WAPA in this capacity, according to WAPA’s spokesperson Emmett Hansen Jr., although Ashley Bryan, a local St. Thomian woman, is the head of the transmission and distribution department.

“Some people may have questioned if I could do it; it took some time to show them that I can,” said Mathurin.

Mathurin graduated from Ivanna Eudora Kean High School in 2010; after several years working in a parts department, she decided she needed “another kind of job” and saw an opening for a lineman on St. John.