Michelle Dunn, a Knoch High School junior in the auto body program at the Butler County Vocational Technical School, wet sands a car she painted. A growing number of teens are training at the vo-tech for nontraditional careers.

Vanessa Morrison of Slippery Rock was running a skid loader when she was 10 years old.

It's no wonder she was attracted to a nontraditional career such as heavy equipment repair. As a junior at Slippery Rock High School who is in her first year of study at Butler County Vocational Technical School, she doesn't think it's a big deal to be the only girl in her class. But there are some advantages.

"They say it's a good career," she said. "There's a lot of scholarships for girls who want to go to technical schools."

However, her interest came long before thoughts of college or technical school.

"I think a lot of girls would like to do this," she said. "I like to learn hands-on. I like to learn about what we use for our lives."

So far, her favorite part is working on brakes for the big trucks.

"It's like a puzzle when you put them back together," she said.

The only challenge Morrison has found so far is lifting some of the equipment she's fixing. At just about 100 pounds herself, some of the items outweigh her. When she gets in a bind, her male classmates are helpful, she said.

For Michelle Dunn, a Knoch High School junior in the auto body program, her childhood status as "tom boy" and her father's interest in cars led to her nontraditional interest.

Now, she's on the right track to a career in the auto body field, with time left in her senior year to go into a co-op program so she can work for a shop for half the day. She hopes to go to college for business and open her own shop someday.

"I want to be a body man," she said. "I've always been a tomboy and most of my friends are guys. Even though I grew up with more sisters than brothers, I was the one who used to rip the Barbie dolls' heads off."

Chelsey Dunbar of Saxonburg just started the computer aided drafting program at the vo-tech. She hopes to get a job in the mostly male-dominated field someday to fund her law school classes.

"This will be my side job," she said.

Since CAD is a well-paying technical job, Dunbar hopes to finish law school sooner than if she would get a minimum wage job out of high school, she said.

That is one trend that's attracting many teens to train for nontraditional careers at the vo-tech, according to director Joe Cunningham.

"It's becoming more common," to see girls in a male-dominated industry or vice-versa, he said. "There's a plethora of jobs for health care workers right now. The pay is very rewarding, leading young men to become nurses, for example."

There are also a lot of good paying jobs in the automobile industry now, according to Cunningham.

"Kids here seem to have a good focus on what they want," he said.

One girl student a few years ago excelled in her nontraditional field, traveling to national competitions for sheet metal work, he said.