Apprentices Tyler Green and Zack Russell represented their provinces and their locals with top-notch skills and professionalism at this year’s Skills Canada National Competition.
Green, an apprentice with Kitchener, Ontario, Local 804, won the silver medal in electrical installation. Halifax, Nova Scotia, Local 625 apprentice Russell took home the bronze in the same category.
“It’s tough to medal at the nationals. It means a lot to have someone from our local win one,” said Local 625 instructor John Harding, who sits on the Skills Canada national committee and the provincial one for Nova Scotia. The organization exists to encourage young people to go into the building trades. “It shows that we have some of the best training in Canada.”
The Skills Canada National Competition comprises more than 40 skill areas that over 500 students and apprentices from all over Canada compete in. Competitors first have to win their provincial or territorial contests before competing at the national event, which was held in Regina, Saskatchewan, in May.
In the electrical installation category, competition lasts 12 hours over two days on a tight schedule — which is part of the challenge.
“There’s a good amount of stress around timing,” Green said. “There’s a lot to do with just enough time to do it, so it’s very rewarding to finish the competition and be able to look at your completed work and say you were able to finish in time.”
The apprentices and students competing in the category need to be well versed in a number of areas, including the general Canadian code, motor controls, programmable logic controller wiring and programming, reading blueprints and spec sheets, and residential wiring.
“It’s a good mix of everything,” said Local 804 Training Director Peter Caesar. “And you need to be accurate.”
Green and Russell both credit the IBEW with preparing them for such a competitive endeavor.
“There was an emphasis on safe working practices and neat, clean work, which I feel the IBEW strives for more than the nonunion companies I worked for previously,” said Russell, who’s in his fourth year of the apprenticeship.
That two of the three medalists were IBEW apprentices proves that the union’s training is among the best in the country, Harding and Caesar said.
“We prepare them better than the colleges do,” Caesar said. “It shows that what we’re doing is working and that taking the time to do proper training is paying off.”
The IBEW presence extends beyond the workmanship of Green and Russell. Members from Hamilton Local 105, Toronto Local 353 and Local 804 set up the competition in Ontario. They also have a booth with the Construction Council of Ontario where they can talk with the thousands of competitors, visitors, industry leaders and others who attend the event.
Local 625 hosts some of the provincial competitions, and Harding creates and plans the electrical project that participants compete in. It’s a job that takes the better part of a year to pull off, he said, and speaks to how massive the event is.
“The national competition takes up the size of three hockey rinks, not including the outdoor components,” said Harding, who’s been involved with the competition for almost 20 years. “There are opening and closing ceremonies. It’s quite a production.”
Both Green and Russell recommend competing in Skills Canada.
“It was a remarkable experience,” Green said. “If anyone has a chance to go and compete, they should.”
Added Russell: “I’m very happy about competing in Skills Canada. They put a great emphasis on striving for great work and safe work. I feel like they’re helping push the trades in the right direction.”
