Brent Lambert is a member of the Paddle Prairie Metis Settlement and a master electrician with 25 years experience. He joined the Newo team last year to learn the solar side of the trade, and is looking forward to teaching and sharing his knowledge with a new generation of Indigenous electrical apprentices.

life story so far

Brent Lambert was born and raised in his northern Métis community of Paddle Prairie, Alberta, located 45 minutes south of High Level.

He was surrounded by family who inspired him and showed him early on the importance of community. His dad taught him how to hunt at a very young age, and Brent recalls how harvesting a moose would be a family event, where everyone helped in the process and shared the meat. His grandmother had a beautiful garden where the grandchildren would sneak sweet peas, and his grandfather taught him the importance of hard work and trying your best at everything you do.

turning points

Brent’s uncle, George, a respected community member, was a significant mentor in Brent’s life, helping Brent and his younger brother, Blaine, cultivate a love for softball and travel across Canada, playing the sport competitively.

“He would take the community kids and just play ball in my grandma’s yard. It was great. That’s what I mean by a mentor. It wasn’t organized. It was just, show up here at my grandma’s house and play ball.”

In his late teens, Brent was working at a hardware store when an electrician got to know him, liked his work attitude and asked Brent to come work for him. It was the start of a 25-year career that led to becoming a master electrician, owning his own business in Grande Prairie, and mentoring apprentices, including his younger brother, Randall, along the way.

Brent also has two daughters, Kesstyn and Rhylo, born on the same day four years apart. They are both talented volleyball players and students, and his older daughter is doing her third level of environmental science at Lakeland college.

“I’m very proud of them,” he says.

Since moving to Edmonton in late 2023, Brent has learned the solar side of the trade, encountering in Newo the opportunity to exercise his passion for passing on trade knowledge through mentorship.

core values: kīwētin (the north wind)

Brent is a strong advocate for Indigenous rights and spends the majority of his free time on the land, nurturing his relationships with the natural world. The values Brent recognizes as having been passed down through his family are respect for the land, hard work, community, and leadership. Brent grew up surrounded by people showing him how to be the kind of person he wanted to be, and now his mission is to be that person for the next generation.

“I always had people to look up to, and I think Indigenous youth need somebody like that,” Brent says. “I have come to realize empowering Indigenous communities is huge. The next generation has to be empowered, and education and mentorship are big components of that.”

Brent’s mentors not only made time for their younger relatives, they were skilled workers and respected community members who passed on their formal and traditional knowledge, and he is keen to do the same for young Indigenous people.

rooted in people or place

“My roots are everywhere. They’re in Paddle Prairie, they’re in Grande Prairie, they’re in Edmonton now. I’m planting seeds of knowledge for Indigenous youth,” Brent says.

Moving to Edmonton has been a major change for Brent, but along with solar, he has found another new passion — mountain biking in the River Valley. He also has a new puppy, Dusty Bear, who has been keeping his hands full.

While his location has changed, his enthusiasm for his career has not. Brent loves being an electrician and wants to show young people the way into an “awesome, awesome, awesome, trade.

“There’s so many ways to go, so many career paths: being indentured and getting your blue book is the biggest one, but then you could venture off. For example, you can do solar, there’s residential, there’s commercial, there’s service, there’s industrial,” he says. “You can pick a path, anything you like.”

And that’s exactly what Brent is doing.