“Don’t be afraid to ask questions,” says Ronald Evan Gaskin III. He was born in Edmonton, his home reserve is Saddle Lake, but he grew up and still lives in BC. He currently lives in Port Alberni though he spent most of his life in the lower mainland. He did some of his senior year of high school in Saskatchewan.

He made the decision to leave the province to finish off his high school career because he felt there was a lot of bias against Indigenous students in BC. His aunt was going back to Saskatchewan and he got a ride back with her and finished off his schooling there. With so many more Indigenous students and teachers, he felt right at home. While he’s not an alcoholic, he found support at AA meetings, finding people who were open to talking around the coffee machine or over a cigarette. He got to know a lot of people that way and he thought it was a good idea to connect with people who didn’t want to drink.

When he was in school, he struggled with dyslexia and he was introduced to the Kurzweil 3000 program, a text to speech program that helped with his learning disability. The program sparked his interest in technology and he wanted to learn how it operated. He had the chance to work for NDS Electronics, soldering computer components together and performing quality assurance checks.

Recently, he completed an internship for Indigenous Friends Association, completing tickets that required him to check and send back code. He learned JavaScript and Figma skills. Before that, he worked at an electronics recycling company, fixing computers and sending them out to students. He was fortunate to get his first electronics job because of a connection his mother had with the owner. After that, he was able to secure jobs just by sending out his resume.

While dyslexia was a challenge for him, he learned to turn it into a strength. He has spent the last six years in various post secondary programs, learning UI and UX design programs, web development and programming. Soon he will be going into a computer science diploma program at Victoria College which will give him direct entry into a Bachelor's degree program at UBC upon graduation. He hopes one day to make robots for Elon Musk.

When it comes to obstacles, Gaskin has had to overcome excessive people-pleasing. He’s had to put his studies first and sometimes miss out on family events to prepare for tests. He’s come to realize his family will be rooting for his success even if he can’t be there for everything he wishes he could. His funding also won’t kick in until two weeks into his program studying so he may need to access the shelter system so he can go to school until his funding is available. He is trying to find bridging funding in the meantime.

If he could give advice to his younger self in his elementary years it would be “make friends.” He suggests hanging onto them and having five people you can go out for coffee with. In his high school years he would say, “stay away from parties.” Maintaining relationships in those years is important, he would say, but the party atmosphere leads to unhealthy comparison and alcohol abuse. He would also recommend for those post secondary years not to look for a relationship if you’re not in one.  

Over the years, he’s built relationships with organizations that provide support to Indigenous people and been part of funded programs where he learned welding and computer hardware. He got to be part of a cultural night at UBC where he swapped bannock recipes and smudged with other Indigenous people.

To maintain his wellness, he participates in sweat lodges, drum circles, attends the friendship centre and goes for hikes and nature walks.

When it comes to past mentors, Gaskin looks to Dave Nichols from NDS electronics. Nichols got him into programming and developing his own websites and got him thinking about what users needed from the website when developing them. He also taught him how to solder and about hardware.

His learning challenges sparked his interest in technology and now Ronald Gaskin III’s training for a career that lights him up. He ended up turning his challenge into a strength and he’s pursuing his computer science dreams. He hopes one day to make robots for Elon Musk but until then he’s learning skills that will make him marketable in the tech job market.

Thanks to Alison Tedford Seaweed for authoring this article.