Co-Founder/CEO, Spectra Supply | PPE Creator | Supporter of Skilled Trades Workers & Workforce Solutions | Product Developer | Supply Chain Professional | Social Media Marketing Specialist
It started with a simple request from a high school shop teacher who needed two hundred toy cars for his graduating mechanic students. Most people would have made a few calls, delivered the toys, and moved on. Sally Morse is not built that way. She saw an isolated act of charity and turned it into a permanent pipeline for the skilled trades.
Sally Morse is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Spectra Supply, a Canadian manufacturer of industrial safety gear. She is also a founding board member of the Alliance of Women’s Safety Apparel Manufacturers and a relentless architect of workforce solutions. Her entire career is defined by a single refusal to accept that the people building our infrastructure should ever be treated as an afterthought.
From the Skid Steer to the Clinic
Morse grew up in small-town Alberta after emigrating from Stockport, England. Her father worked as a master electrician, providing a front-row view of the trades. By age sixteen, she was spending her summers running a skid steer at the local Ram River Gas Plant. She saved enough money from that heavy industrial work to buy her first car, a thirteen-hundred-dollar Ford Tempo. But she also took away a lingering physical memory of the job. The protective gear she was handed never fit.
Instead of staying in the energy sector, she took a completely different route. She earned a master’s degree in mental health counseling and spent years working as a therapist. She counseled at-risk populations in Missouri, and eventually served as an onsite mental health worker for homeless youth at The Alex Community Health Centre in Calgary.
While the jump from mental health counseling to industrial manufacturing appears drastic, the underlying motive remained identical. She spent her early career protecting vulnerable people from systemic failures. She just changed the mechanism of how she protected them. After a period working as a freelance writer, she realized she wanted to build something physical. The memory of those oversized, clumsy work gloves from the gas plant remained. In 2019, she co-founded Spectra Supply to fix the baseline standard of how workers are protected on the job.
The Anatomy of a Better Standard
Today, Spectra Supply designs and manufactures high-quality hand protection for both men and women across agriculture, construction, and energy sectors. The company operates a robust distribution model, supplying retail spaces and wholesale partners across Canada. But their distinct market differentiator remains their commitment to women’s specific personal protective equipment.
Morse led the product creation by conducting extensive biometric research. She developed a proprietary size chart that captures the true dimensions of a female hand, rather than just shrinking a male template. “Women are not small men and need gear made for them,” she explains. That simple biological truth drives the entire manufacturing process. Her designs account for cut resistance, strict industry safety standards, and the specific dexterity required for heavy industrial tasks. She refuses to accept the historical default that safety gear should be uncomfortable.
Her focus is entirely on the end user. “I measure success by looking at how I can make things better for the individuals that build and maintain our infrastructure and grow our food,” Morse says. The financial metrics matter, but they are a byproduct of solving a real physical problem. “When a woman worker first tries on our gloves and her eyes light up because she is experiencing proper fit and comfort, that is my pay off.”
To push this standard across the entire sector, she helped found the Alliance of Women’s Safety Apparel Manufacturers. Serving as a current board member, she drives their three core pillars of awareness, access, and advocacy. She is forcing major distributors to understand that stocking proper women’s gear is a fundamental safety requirement, not a niche category.
That drive to fix broken systems extends beyond manufacturing. Morse is aggressively tackling the labor shortage in the skilled trades. She noticed that while many young people want to enter the trades, they struggle to find companies willing to sponsor their first or second year of apprenticeship. “Companies can’t complain about not having enough Journeymen and then fail to invest in their training,” she notes.
To solve this, she partnered with the Calgary Construction Association to launch the Adopt A Shop program. What began with that request for toy cars became a structured initiative connecting industry professionals with high school shop classes. In its pilot year alone, the program directed sixty-six thousand five hundred dollars straight into classrooms, alongside tool donations and mentorship. She also works with Eventium to provide virtual career fairs, pushing the industry to rethink how it attracts talent. “You can complain or you can become part of the solution, and I chose the latter,” she says.
The Blueprint for What Comes Next
The high school students who received those toy cars are now entering a workforce that is fundamentally better equipped to receive them. Through her manufacturing company, her non-profit board work, and her educational initiatives, Morse is systematically removing the barriers that keep people out of the trades. She is making sure the next generation of workers has the right mentorship, the right apprenticeships, and the right gear to do the job safely. She looked at an industry that expected workers to adapt to broken systems, and she chose to redesign the systems instead.
Sally Morse is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Spectra Supply based in Calgary, Alberta. She creates specialized protective equipment and workforce solutions for the skilled trades. To connect with Sally or learn more, visit Spectra Supply or find her on LinkedIn.
