July 14, 2025 • 42 mins
The CWB Association is thrilled to collaborate with Skills/Compétences Canada on a special podcast series. This year, we are excited to interview the Skills Canada Executive Directors from across Canada. Tune in as we explore their skills journey and commitment to promoting skilled trades in their provinces and territories!
Carol Ann Ryan's journey with Skills Canada began with a newspaper ad and transformed into a 27-year passion project that has revolutionized how Newfoundland and Labrador approaches trades education. As the founding Executive Director, she arrived with no knowledge of skilled trades but quickly built an organization that would send 83 competitors to the Skills Canada National Skills Competition just weeks after she started. What makes Newfoundland's Skills program distinctive is their pioneering approach to early exposure. Recognizing that career attitudes form before high school, they implemented junior high competitions nearly 26 years ago—starting as young as grade six.
Website: https://skillscanadanl.ca/
Follow Skills/Compétences Canada:
Website: https://www.skillscompetencescanada.com/en/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/SkillsCanadaOfficial
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/skillscompetencescanada/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/skills_canada
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/skillscanada
There is no better time to be a member! The CWB Association membership is new, improved, and focused on you. We offer a FREE membership with a full suite of benefits to build your career, stay informed, and support the Canadian welding industry. https://www.cwbgroup.org/association/become-a-member
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
All right, I can check.
Check, I'm good.
So I'm Max Duran.
Max Duran, cwb AssociationWelding Podcast, pod pod podcast
.
Today we have a really coolguest welding podcast.
The show is about to begin.
Hello and welcome to anotheredition of the CWB Association
(00:27):
podcast.
My name is Max Duran and I'mhere for our wonderful week of
Skills Canada CompetitionsEdition Skills Podcast.
So this week what we're doingis we're recording interviews
with the executive directors ofall the different provinces and
territories across Canada.
Try to get the vibe of thedifferences between the
provinces, what they bring tothe table and how excited they
(00:48):
are to be here in Regina for thecompetition.
Right now I have Carol Ann Ryan, who's the executive director
for Newfoundland Labrador.
Hi, good morning.
Do you go by, carol or CarolAnn?
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Carol Ann, but I will answer to anything as long as
you're friendly to me.
I am friendly and we're goodAll right, Caroline.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
So what are your first impressions of Regina and
Skills so far?
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Well, Regina, I've actually never been to Regina
before.
We've hosted the National inSaskatchewan before, but not in
Regina.
So, it's a beautiful city.
I'm really enjoying the visit,our kids are having a great time
here and, of course, skillswithout fail.
This is always my absolutefavorite event week of the year.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
In every single way.
There's nothing better.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Oh listen, that makes it all the more because the
more nervous people are, themore nervous the kids are, the
students are the post-secondarystudents the more it means to
them.
And to be part of somethingthat means so much to people and
so many and impacts so manylives is a complete gift.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
It is, it is so how long have you been in the role
as executive director?
Speaker 2 (01:53):
I've been here for 27 years.
Oh my God yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
That's the record of all the interviews.
I had a 20 year mark thismorning, yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
I actually was the first I started it in.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Newfoundland and.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Labrador in 1998.
So I had a sentence thatskilled trades and technologies
are first choice options foryoung Canadians.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Okay, that was the vision, that was it.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
And I had the absolute joy and privilege and
freedom of creating.
You know programming to meetthat need and it's been the joy
of my life.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
So how did you get into that spot?
Because there's a coupledifferent routes.
Generally, you're either from atrades background or you're
from some type of businessbackground.
What was your background?
That got you in the skillsworld.
Well, young people listeningwouldn't know what I'm talking
about, but I saw an ad in thepaper and I applied.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
And I am actually the poster child for people who
needed something like SkillsCanada because I knew nothing.
I knew nothing about trades, Iknew nothing about technologies.
I had done you know, I had gonefrom high school straight into
post secondary university.
I knew nothing about any otherstream or path and when I saw
the ad.
I was working.
I had the ad, I was working, Ihad just graduated and I was
(03:07):
working at the Board of Tradecoordinating programs.
So again, I saw the ad in thepaper and applied blindly and it
just seemed like the mostexciting thing in the world to
build something.
Yeah, and like what a learningexperience.
An eye-opening experience itwas for me when I realized so
(03:27):
many incredible career pathsthat I knew nothing about and so
many of my friends had no ideathat these options were there.
So, yeah, I applied and I gotthe job.
And here we are.
I took it for one year.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Yeah, with that one year contract.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Yeah, I took a one year contract and I really meant
it.
I was only doing it for a yearbecause my partner at the time
was finishing up at school andhe had taken a contract in
Ottawa for one year.
So I said I'm going to do thisfor one year and then I'm going
to move to Ottawa.
Oh no.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
A new job, old partner.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
No, well, it's funny, and I mean I, I, I messaged my,
my now husband and said um badnews.
I love it yeah, I don't think Ican move to ottawa, and he's a
an angel.
So he said, okay, I'll movehome yeah, and that was it.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Here we are, 27 years later so if you were the first
yep and you're coming in on ajob posting for like hey, we got
this thing, you're kind of waybehind the eight ball compared
to other provinces who gotfunding and sponsors and
programs and even just theconfidence of being a part of
(04:38):
these existing systems, how didyou start dipping your finger
into that pool?
Speaker 2 (04:43):
So it was a very quick.
I'm not sure if you know howall of the provinces and
territories came on, becausepre-1998, there was I believe it
was, you know Quebec, alberta,manitoba and Ontario.
I believe that had SkillsCanada organizations and Canada
put in a bid to host the Worldin 1999.
(05:05):
, so the federal government said, hey, we should get a little
bit of seed funding to everyprovince and territory to at
least be able to participate inthat.
So, that's how we all came onstream in 1998.
So you know, when we started wehad a little bit of seed money
to bring a team to the Nationalor yeah, to the Nationals in
Vancouver in 98.
So I started in first week ofMay and three weeks later we
(05:30):
brought a team to the Nationals.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
How, how did you do that?
Speaker 2 (05:35):
I actually passed out there.
But I mean the thing is thatthe beauty of Skills Canada is
it's such a simple but perfectidea, and you know, the key to
our success, as usual, isfinding the passionate
volunteers and the partners whounderstand the power.
So you know, first, when Istarted, the initial urgency was
(05:57):
just to get a team together,and we did.
We brought something ridiculouslike 83 competitors to
Vancouver.
How did you get so manytogether so?
fast I called a lot of peopleCalled a lot of people worked
with every single school, everycampus in the province, and it
just came together quickly.
And then, when we returned, isthen really the okay?
(06:18):
Now what do we do?
How do we build this?
So you know, my approach wasjust to go.
I built a board of directors,started inviting people from all
the different educationalinstitutions, all the different
industry sectors, people.
You know different levels ofgovernment.
Even vendors and sponsors,absolutely Just build a board of
people who are interested andwe were just very fortunate that
(06:42):
and again, I really I can'ttake too much credit for the
brilliance of what this is.
You know, you bring togetherexperts who want to share their
passion with the next generationand as long as you can find
those champions, as long as youcan find those people who are,
they're really the ones thatbuild this.
All of those NTCs are PTCs, arejudges, and when you tell them
(07:04):
what the opportunity is, theywant to be involved.
So that was my experience and,like I said, it was a joy
because I had no idea, I didn'thave contacts, I didn't know
anybody in trades, I just didn'tknow the system you didn't know
.
Nope, had no idea, and I thinkthat's one of the beautiful
things when you can acknowledgehow little you know about
something, when you canacknowledge how little you know
about something.
That's right, and the key tosuccess is always finding the
(07:26):
experts.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Yeah, and people love to share.
Don't reinvent the wheel, don'ttry to do this.
Bring the people in that know.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Nope, and so we were very fortunate.
Our school system was veryinterested and excited in
supporting it.
Our local industry, all of thelevels of government were in
right from the start.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
So we've had a lot of success in building programs
that are meaningful in ourregion in addition to
competitions.
Yeah, now for yourself.
You know, when you look atnewfoundland labrador, I'm in
the west.
There's been a a concept forforever, since I was a kid, that
the maritimes was like ahave-not area.
And you know, we always outwest had the Newfoundlanders
coming in, the East Coasterscoming in to work for shutdowns
(08:11):
and summer work, and I think itwas a wrong conception that
there was no work in the eastand that if you wanted to make
money, if you wanted to have acareer, you had to go somewhere
else.
Now, how important is skills inreestablishing the concept that
you can stay in Newfoundlandand have a successful career?
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Yeah, right, yeah, there's always going to be ebbs
and flows in industry and a lotof, you know a lot of people
enjoy the mobility that Red Seala of a lopsided deal that we
had for many years.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
That's now going to bring so many people home coming
back in like it's a huge time,and we are going to need a lot
of skilled well, everyone is,and this is such a stumbling
block right now for employers.
Right Now, do you use thatleverage to get employers on
(09:31):
board with skills?
Speaker 2 (09:32):
To say like, look, get involved and then you get
the pick of the crop I mean youare literally having the
opportunity to see the best inthe province, the best in Canada
, and cherry pick your workforce.
If you want a skilled workforceand we all know that nothing
affects the bottom line, nothingaffects, um, you know, the
productivity of whether it'sgovernment or industry then the
(09:55):
level of skill of your employees, and the number one resource
should be the skill of youremployees, absolutely and I mean
, what better way than to comeand see the literal best of
canada, and not just people whoare highly skilled, because
obviously that's important andthey have excellent training and
they have excellent, excellent,you know abilities, but the
(10:17):
resilience and the the strengthof character it takes to be in
this environment and even justshow up here yeah says a lot
about who that person will be asan employee, what kind of pride
they take, and you know how,how they're going to contribute
to your bottom line.
So I honestly and truly thinkthat any employer who's not
(10:37):
coming to this they are missingout, some people you know
throughout the years I thinkit's a little bit different in
the last number of years, butmany years people would say that
we're the canada's best keptsecret yeah, right and I agree
to with that to some extent,because you know I'm saying this
as someone who that the passionhas never diminished.
(10:57):
I only see it getting betterevery single year.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
The need is still there and, uh, employers really,
really need to be at the tablehere yeah, and I think people
don't realize also because maybethey've never been but
newfoundland, labrador are noteasily as easily accessible as
some people think.
They think oh you can go tonova scotia and just jump over
to newfoundland.
It's not quite that easy yeah,so do you find that there's a
(11:25):
little bit of an isolation issuewith the province you?
Speaker 2 (11:28):
know, one of the challenges we have, as you know,
a program organizationspecifically is that we are a
small population but we are avery big geography, with a lot
of transportation challenges.
It actually costs more for meto fly to Labrador, which is
part of my province, than itwould to Vancouver.
Wow, Right, so you know, wehave a lot of challenges there
(11:50):
and one of the things well, oneof the things actually that
COVID, we tried to find thesilver lining in things.
You know, it really helped usfind ways to do a lot of things
virtually and digitally.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Right.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Now, there will never , never, ever, in my opinion
replace the hands-on thetangible, the tool in your hand
or the face-to-face.
You know networking you'llnever replace that, but we do
have tools now at our disposalto try and bridge some of those
remote areas.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Right, because you look at provinces.
Well, I'm in saskatchewan.
We're a very big province, verysmall population.
The northern area is veryunderfunded, under resourced and
so, like you said, the virtualtools help you open to another
audience.
Perhaps it's not ideal, but atleast there's a something.
It's something that's right.
Spark something.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Yeah, you can spark an interest and sometimes, when
we're doing some kind of um, wehave an amazing team of program
coordinators who deliverprogramming and sometimes
they'll be doing somethingvirtually and they can even tell
virtually that there's onestudent in that class who is
hanging on to?
Every word and they'll put inthe group.
If you want to reach out to meand oftentimes they do and then
(13:02):
that student, we may be able tocreate an opportunity for in
person, find the funding, figureit out 100%, because that's
what it's all about.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
And sparking that interest.
And, you know, even coming, wehave a lot of kids on our team,
and I say kids in particular.
We have junior high kids aswell as high school students and
, a lot of times, students whoparticipate in some of our
employability skill areas.
They're already theoverachievers, they're the
students who are getting themedals from us.
They're the ones who arewinning the speak offs in their
(13:30):
school.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
And you know.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
So they are over already on there, you know and
you know, some of them alreadyknow what they're going to do
when they finish high school,and it may or may not be a skill
, trade or technology, butgetting them to in this
environment and see you knowpeople on a podium for being an
excellent welder or an excellentgraphic designer.
They bring that back to theircommunity.
(13:53):
Right and that pride and thatjoy.
So if they have a friend or afamily member or somebody in
their school is like oh, youknow, I'm interested in welding,
but welding, but you know, momsays I should go to university
you know, yeah, yeah, yeahthey're like oh my god, look at
this event.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
It was amazing oh, like you have to, yeah, so like
that ripple effect isimmeasurable yeah you know, as a
not-for-profit you're alwaystrying to measure things but
it's you.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
You cannot, you know, you can't, you can't overstate
the impact that every single oneof these participants has on
everybody in their family,everybody in their school,
everybody in their community.
It's just immeasurable.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Now, how big of a team do you have?
What do you got here fromNewfoundland?
Speaker 2 (14:38):
We have 34 competitors.
We also have about 40 coachesand supporters Amazing yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Yeah, 40 coaches and supporters Amazing yeah.
Yeah, so we normally have-, butthis is a little bit smaller
team than normal, right, it isyeah.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
We normally have a little bit of a bigger team.
We normally have about 42, 44competitors.
This year we lost a fewstudents, unfortunately because
their grad was the same weekendand we tried to but the time
difference in the travel from.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Regina, we tried to get them back in time, but we
couldn't.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
And we also lost two students to the Canada-wide
science fair.
But the team we have are justso excited and so motivated,
framed within an inch of theirlives and are just having the
best experience, and our publiccollege is really great.
The College of the NorthAtlantic they actually send a
coach.
Wonderful programs there too.
Oh my gosh, we're so fortunate.
College is really great.
They uh, the college of thenorth atlantic, um they actually
send wonderful programs.
(15:25):
Oh my gosh, we're so fortunateand and they send a coach with
every competitor really yeah,they pay for that unique, yeah,
and it's.
It's like even for the studentsand the coaches can't interact
with them, obviously, whilethey're competing, but even just
knowing that they're there andlooking up and going okay,
because they have such arelationship with these students
, you know, and being able tolook up across the rope and
(15:45):
seeing that your're there andlooking up and going, okay,
because they have such arelationship with these students
, you know and being able tolook up across the rope and
seeing that your instructorsthere and thinking, okay, I'm
going to check in with themlater about this or that you
know, yeah, and just having thatsupport is immeasurable it is
you know so our team are um.
We like to have a little bit offun too.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
You have a little bit of fun everyone knows that the
maritimes knows how to have funwhich is great.
Now, with these competitors,you know when you know the
history you've been there sincethe start basically, what are
the trades or events thatgenerally you guys crush?
That are usually the ones thatyou know.
Every year we're going to havesomeone in the running.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
I'm like, should I jinx things by saying, um,
there's a few areas?
Speaker 1 (16:26):
that we'll get released until after, so no one
will know.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Yeah there's a few areas that we we're always
feeling really strongly about.
I mean cloud computing.
Is is like we're we're sellingthat architectural design nice
um, you know, we often do reallywell in welding carpentry.
You know it's, it reallydepends on the year right On the
industry, on the industry.
(16:49):
And, honestly, there's so manythings that you cannot predict
or control when it comes tocompetition.
You can have the most highlytrained, highly skilled person
on the floor and something couldhappen that throws them off.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Yeah, nerves, anxiety , Anything you know the day
before the girlfriend couldbreak up with them off.
Yeah, nerves, anxiety, Anythingyou know the day before the
girlfriend could break up withthem.
You never know We've had thathappen Dog ate the homework we
had someone whose family dogpassed away while we were on the
you know all these things.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
They're human right, they affect them.
So I try not to predict becauseoftentimes and we kind of the
staff we have this sort of thingthat we do on after day one of
competition, we go out to dinnerand we do our guesses, we sit
down and say, okay, I think thisis what, and then we're always
(17:36):
madly wrong.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
We are always so off way, off base Like we were like
what.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
No every year.
So I mean, I you know, everyyear is different.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
In 27 years.
What are the things that you'velearned, that that skills has
taught you?
Because you know you come intothis with a clean slate, the
learning curve must have beenmassive, right off the top.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
It was ridiculously steep and that's right.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
And, and at this point, so many years later, you
must have learned so much fromskills.
What would be like your top twoor three?
Speaker 2 (18:09):
you know it's funny because I feel like I've grown
up with skills.
You know it's funny because Ifeel like I've grown up with
skills.
So when I started it was justand I'm ashamed to say this, but
what a skill trade was.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
What a red seal is, and you?
Speaker 1 (18:20):
had to have been like early 20s.
Oh yeah, we're trying to do themath here, yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
I was 10.
I mean, I was in my late youknow, I was in my mid to late
20s and I had done a couple ofdegrees, purely out of you know
no burning passion.
Yeah, wasn't like oh, I'mdesperate to do a business
degree, just oh, I need a joband that's what you do.
Yeah, that's what I was told.
That's what you do yeah and Imean I have no regrets,
obviously because I lucked intoa gift of a job right that I've
(18:47):
loved for all these years, but Ithink for me, learning about
just learning about careers,knowing that I will never know
everything there is to knowabout all of these trades.
I will never be an expert inany of these trades.
I will never be an expert inany of these technologies, but
(19:08):
the joy is finding those thatare experts.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
And then.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
So that was sort of when I was early career,
realizing I have all theseoptions that I didn't even know
about myself, I didn't know Icould do this, like maybe I
would be a good welder, probablyMaybe I could have, maybe I
could have done that, and I hadno idea that was even an option
for me.
So that was a revelation.
And then, as I moved into as aparent, right.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
So then I had a totally different perspective
because I have two children.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
My daughter's 21 and she wants to be a paleontologist
, so that's her path.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
She's digging in the dirt.
Great job oh she loves it.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
And my son is 17 and he's just graduating now and he
is the poster child.
I love you, sweetheart.
He is the poster child for noidea.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
No idea what he wants to do?
Speaker 1 (19:57):
What do you like to do?
I don't know.
What do you want to do?
I don't know.
No, you're not going to be anNHL player.
No, that's not happening.
You'd be on that track by now.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
You would have already been there.
Yeah, no, so.
And so I've sort of gonethrough that cycle and, in
addition, with my daughter andher friends and their families,
that there is still thoseparents.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
That stigma.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Who you know?
No child of mine, no child ofmine.
You know you're going touniversity, that's what you're
doing.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
And what a shame.
And there's a lot of people whohave amazing experiences and,
like I said, my daughter sheknew what she wanted to do.
She wanted to do science.
She wants to be apaleontologist and that's been
great for her but the fact thatthere's, you know, I have so
many of her friends had otherideas and their parents wouldn't
let them do it and that'soutstanding, like outrageous to
(20:47):
me that that's still happening.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
The money, because the money's here, so it's not
like the money's adiscouragement.
Is it the fear of safety?
Speaker 2 (20:55):
like I'm not sure what it is, I just think it's
that it has been ingrained in inmy generation yeah in our
generation that this is the pathto success yeah and we, we
haven't shaken that yet, and soI still see that.
And so with my son, you know, Isat with him and went through
every single program at, youknow, at the public college, at
(21:17):
private colleges, at MemorialUniversity, to see if anything
sparked an interest.
It didn't.
He's going to need time, he'sgoing to go work for a bit.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
See what he hates.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Yeah, exactly.
But I mean I feel like it'sbeen good for me in that my
kids' friends who did have aspark of interest, in something
I'd say hey, come to our event,come with me to our event.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Just try some stuff out.
Yeah, right.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
So I think with that, you know, parents are always
going to be the last nut tocrack, I think because educators
are there, like high schoolteachers when I first started
again.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Science counselors not on the radar, and they were
like oh you can.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
I actually had a teacher in 1998 that I called,
said I'd like to come in andtalk to you about school trades
and technologies.
Told me that I could come talkto the remedial class okay, get
out 27 years ago.
Yeah, that's not 50 years ago,yeah now, that was an outlier
yeah um, now, we cannot get inschools enough yeah, they're
asking you oh we and that's oursuperpower at Skills is that our
(22:16):
access to the schools, becausethey know what we can do.
We deliver what we say we'regoing to do.
And we could, if we had the team, if we had the I was going to
say horsepower.
Now, if we had the manpower andthe people power, we could be
in schools every single daydoing programming, presentations
, you know, skill, futuresactivities, because the need is
(22:37):
there and teachers now are 100%.
In my province anyway they are100% on board in providing all
of that information because theyknow the success their students
could have.
So, that's probably the biggestchange that I've seen over the
last 20, 25 plus years.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
I think the proof is in the pudding, because so many
of ours I'd say we're probablythe same generation, my
daughter's 27, my son's 23.
And we saw because we did it.
I went to university right.
So I started welding when I was17.
I went to university and then Iwent back to welding because
there was no way I was going tomake as much money with my
(23:16):
bachelor's of arts degree that Iever would have made welding.
So it was like it seemed like Ienjoyed university.
But I also took universitydifferently and I always tell
young kids this like do tradesfirst, and if you want to go to
university later, it's alwaysthere.
It's always there and you canafford it.
You don't have to go touniversity later, it's always
there.
It's always there and you canafford it.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
You don't have to go into debt.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
You don't have to mortgage the family future to go
get an education, because youhave this trade that will
support you and keep you yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
One of the things I'm really proud about is in
Newfoundland and Labrador wedon't have a youth
apprenticeship program.
The students cannot do youthapprenticeship in high school.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
They can't get an apprenticeship, oh dang.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Yeah, so we've been working to change that for many
years and just a couple of yearsago, we I'm smiling at people-
is it?
Speaker 1 (24:03):
Yeah, I know People are waving, we know everyone
here.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
A couple of years ago we created something called the
Youth Apprenticeship SummerEmployment Program.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
Like your own version of it?
Speaker 2 (24:13):
Yeah, and we work with the provincial government.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
Good good.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
And so now, for the first time in Newfoundland
history, students can beregistered apprentices in high
school.
So we have a wage subsidyprogram where of course we pay
employers for their wages Oneday a week or something.
Well, it's seven weeks over thesummer.
Okay, perfect, so it's a summerprogram, so we're kind of
dipping our toe in right.
Um, so it's outside of schoolhours, but uh, it's been such a
(24:38):
huge success and we didn't knowwhen we started, we thought well
, maybe we'll have 20 peopleapply, you know um for this
summer.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Uh, we had over 350 students apply you probably
don't have any spot, enoughspots for them no, we didn't.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
No, we we had, because in our, in our you know,
this is a contract we do withthe provincial government we had
funding for 80 wage subsidies,so but I kind of like that
because it made it a competitiveyeah, you gotta earn that spot
you gotta earn that.
This is something special yeahit's kind of like I I applied
and I made the cut yeah, like itgives it a little bit of
(25:11):
prestige, which it should beright, are competitive.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
Yeah, I mean, that's what I think skills really
brings out is that this isn'tjust here, this is the rest of
your career.
You're constantly, you know,comparing yourself to what's
happening in in your trade,what's coming up, the new
technologies, the new sciences,and how it affects your job.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Right, yeah, um, yeah , so many thoughts.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
But if you, you know, because what are your favorite
trades to watch here?
Oh, when you come as a witness,which are the ones you like to
hang out at?
Speaker 2 (25:44):
look, there is no beating landscape gardening
midday day two.
It's just beautiful becauseit's you know, the day one you
start off with a loaded pile ofdirt.
Right, and at the end, it'sthis beautiful oasis that any
one of us would love to have.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
So I was just saying that there was like that's, I
wish that was my backyard.
That's one of my favorites.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
I love robotics just because it's just fun to watch.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
Yeah Cool.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Like those kids who are programming and making these
robots, have a level oftechnology.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
And so fast.
Kids who are programming andmaking these robots have a level
of technology.
When you look at what they gotto do in such a short period of
time, yeah, so that one's reallyfun to watch.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
You know hairstyling, I like baking and cooking,
cause I like you want to eat.
There's so many.
I mean some of the computerones.
You know you don't get to seemuch while they're doing it, but
I love to see the final product.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
So, like graphic design, photography, when they
lay out all the final projectsand see the artistic.
Sometimes I wish that they hadthat at Skills somehow after the
event.
I know it would cost millionsof dollars to do, but they could
film every student and youcould almost see a recap of each
event after, because there'sonly one of you, you can't
follow them all.
And sometimes I see somefinished products and it's like,
oh, that is so amazing.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
I would have loved to have seen the step-by-step of
that build right maybe we shouldset up time lapse of some one
of those categories that reallyhas a big building and dramatic,
you know end, just to see theprocess.
Yeah, um, yeah, but there's so,there's just so many.
I love listening to theprepared, the public speaking,
competition, because, you know,I love the fact that their topic
(27:18):
is always related to skilledtrades and the importance in the
economy, you know.
And so how would you promoteskilled trades to
underrepresented groups, forexample?
I think might be their topicthis year, and I learn, I learn
so much.
I've been doing this a longtime.
I sit in that you know if I'm,if I'm able to sit and listen to
their speeches yeah.
I learn so much I'm like takingnotes.
I'm going to put that my nextspeech.
(27:39):
You're going to put that in thechairs you know, because you
learn, these kids, like theyhave such creativity in their
thought processes, are different, like it's a different
generation, the you know they're.
I'm really impressed by youknow there's a lot of chatter
sort of about the effect ofCOVID on this generation of
students because it absolutelydid affect them.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
It's a worldwide event, right.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
But I think one thing that I've seen the most is the
resilience and you know howthey've taken that awful
situation and sort of have arenewed joy, for you know what
we're able to do.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
It also kind of showed them what world war ii
showed the boomers is thatyou'll get through absolutely
you'll get through work, keep atit, don't stop.
And.
And the essential skills andthe trades are are the fabric of
that.
Yeah, now for for the, for yourorganization to bring together
the ptcs, all the provincialcoordinators, and then your
(28:35):
national trainers, and then theindustry.
How do you source all that?
How important are thepartnerships within your
province?
Speaker 2 (28:43):
We wouldn't exist.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
We wouldn't exist without all of the educational
institutions, without, obviously, our provincial government, all
of our corporate sponsors,federal government, obviously,
our provincial government, allof our corporate sponsors,
federal government.
But the biggest key for us isbecause we're such a small
province and we don't have, youknow, we don't have access to,
say, large venues like this, sowe rely on hosts for all of our
(29:05):
activities.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Industry hosts yeah industry and unions.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
And you know we work with a lot of the different
unions in our province, soanytime, and the doors are
always open.
Like anytime we want to do.
We have a program called SkillFutures, which is all about
bringing students in, and theyspend half the day doing
experiential learning, hands-onon the tools.
And the afternoon hearing frommentors in those fields.
It's a phone call.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
It's a phone call.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Any one of the local you know, whether it's industry
associations or the unions orthe training institutions, it's
a phone call.
We want to bring kids in youname the day and they go be
above and beyond.
So, and of course, to do thatas well, aside from just having
the institution, the volunteers,Like, again comes back to the
experts, oh listen, they are keyright and we would not exist
(29:56):
without that support.
But thankfully, like I mentionedearly, people really get it,
people who know about us get itand they want to be, they want
to support our kids it's like awhirlpool, though like you dip
your finger into it and it'sgonna suck you well, we joke
that we're the mafia becauseonce you're in, you are never
gonna get it and you will wantto right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Well, I asked that in the previous guest because she
had been around for a long timetoo.
And the mafia comment too, I'vebeen hearing that I've been
with skills a long time.
I've also sucked in, but now,with the extent of your career,
how often?
Or how proud, I guess, for thebetter question, or how proud I
guess for the better questionare you to see the cycle play
(30:39):
out from student to mentor totrainer, to you know, on the
exec board, you know?
Speaker 2 (30:41):
You know it's funny.
We actually have someone herewith us this year who's an NTC
for the first time, who competedin aircraft maintenance in I
believe it was 2000.
He was a competitor in 2000 andnow he's back as an NTC.
And you know we joke that.
You know we're too old fogiesnow that you know, and uh, it's
(31:04):
just, it's just so exciting tosee the people who value and
appreciate the opportunity thatthey were given want to give
that back.
They want to come, they want totrain.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
They're not just going to take it and hoard it.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
No, they want to share it with the world and they
want to take what they'velearned and their experiences,
good and bad, their challengesand their successes with the new
student, the new competitor.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Amazing.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Because they want to make it easier for them, and we
have several competitors whohave gone on now to serve on our
board, which I love becausethey've seen the whole spectrum,
they know what it's like, andin our province we actually
offer a competition at thejunior high level.
We've been doing that now for-.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
So grade seven, or grade six, seven and up Now
there is a grade six student.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
There's a grade six.
Some schools are 6 to 9, butmost are 7 to 9.
They're welcome in grade 6.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
We've been doing that for almost the entire, like 26
years.
Some people will say that's tooyoung, but I disagree.
No, not.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
I'll tell you.
The reason that started waswhen I was doing provincial
competitions.
In the beginning I felt that byhigh school they've already got
their attitude set.
They may not know what they'redoing, but these attitudes that
they have about what a valuablecareer is, that is set before
they get the hot.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
It's there, right.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
So it was important to me to start much earlier.
And one of the fun things aboutour intermediate competition so
at our intermediates, we offer,you know, all of the technology
areas, all of the fun thingsabout our intermediate
competition.
So at our intermediates, weoffer, you know, all of the
technology areas, all of theemployability areas.
We do robotics.
This year we're going to bedoing co2 car races and some
green energy competitions forthe first time.
What I find about that event isthey're still young enough that
(32:46):
they're not too cool yeah sothey show up and schools show up
in like matching costumes andyou know like they can be free,
they have.
So much fun and it's okay to,like you know, be excited by it
and show that excitement.
So the award ceremony is alwaysso much fun because they're
like jumping up and down andscreaming, and and I mean the
high school students and thepost-secondary students, of
(33:08):
course they're excited when theywin but it's kind of this, more
like oh yeah, there's a job.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, got it done, right so?
Speaker 2 (33:15):
uh, but I love the intermediates, because what we
find is how that's benefited usin many ways is that the
competition experience is onethat you can't really explain or
prepare anybody until they'vedone it and because our
competition is much smaller thanmost I mean it's, our
competition will never be like.
You know, alberta ontario,their competition is as big as
this pretty much yeah, closeyeah uh, so ours are, you know,
(33:38):
a small one at a local community.
You know it's a much smallerevent, um, but what I find is
they start now.
In junior high.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
We have some competitors that started
competing in grade seven andcompeted for like six years yeah
, so they got lots of practice.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
They get, get that experience, they get the stress,
they get the time management,they get to learn.
You know how to handle thoseexternal factors that are
affecting them in the moment.
But again, a big key for me isthat those, again those junior
high students go back to theirschools and talk about all the
cool things Because at thatevent they may not compete in
all the the trades, but we havean extensive try a trade yeah,
(34:14):
right where they get anopportunity to try things and
learn about them um.
So again, they bring that backto their school and their
parents and their parent andtheir parents are there and
they're excited, and they're,you know, maybe they've never
seen some of these categoriesbefore, like me you know they
don't know um, so the juniorhigh is really an important
(34:35):
event for us.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
Uh, we're actually moving towards having an
atlantic um well, I was just atskills atlantic there in new
brunswick, uh, three weeks ago,and it was wonderful seeing the
scale of the event compared to10 years ago when it was tiny.
Yeah, now for your group, asyou bring everyone out here and
(34:57):
you get them all prepped.
So which are the ones, or whois, I guess, going for that
world spot?
Who do you got here that youthink is going to be a world
contender?
Because there's, sometimes, ifyou get them young enough, they
get, like you said, to yourpractice thing.
If they can get a couple shotsat nationals, then they got a
real good shot at worlds, right.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Well, we don't tend to have many people on the world
because of the age.
The under 22 restriction whichgoes back to the youth
apprenticeship yeah so most ofour uh apprentices, for example,
are, you know, probably closerto 30 than they are to 20 yeah
right, so we are ineligible,even if they win gold right
(35:38):
they're ineligible.
So because of that, we don'ttend to have that many on um the
team.
Um, now we did have somebody onthe team, uh in france, uh, in
september, and world skills leonin cloud computing, nice.
So we'll see, or they didreally well they didn't they?
Didn't meddle, but theyabsolutely meddling is no very
(36:01):
hard.
Yeah, yeah, but they've had awonderful experience.
And actually, well is alexedwards.
We'll give him a little shoutout um, he won the gold last
year at the nash, or not lastyear, the year before at the
nationals and, as I said, hewent to leon um in the fall.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Uh, he's here now um, but as a mentor he's here as a
coach, nice right, and he's herewith uh to support um this
year's competitor.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
So I mean that's, that's.
I have some hope there, becausehe's actually our competitor in
cloud computing.
Is age eligible, awesome.
So we'll see.
I guess we'll see Saturdaymorning, but otherwise.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
I mean you just never know Right but.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
But a lot of the world categories are areas that
we tend to have people that areolder than the age.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
The world categories are areas that we tend to have
people that are older than theage right.
Hopefully we can get that.
I know one of the things thatthe more established provinces
have is that once you've wongold in their province, they
have basically a full-timetraining program for the next
year and that's that's kind ofthe dream state to get to,
because we know I've been toworlds before.
I don't know if you've gone toworld yeah, several times yeah
(37:05):
you know that those podiumfinishers at worlds, they were
full-time training oh listen.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Full-time years?
Yeah, for a few years yep,that's.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
All they've done is to get on that podium.
You know how far are we fromnewfoundland being able to
establish enough funding and andsupport to get you know some,
perhaps cloud computing, some ofthese key areas that you're
really strong in into, like fulltime training positions?
Speaker 2 (37:28):
I mean that's a Canadian problem.
Yeah, you know it's all acrossthe country it is.
That is a challenge for us.
We all experience.
Now, I mean, some categories.
We're going to have more accessthan others and again, cloud
computing is a great category totalk about because it's, you
know, it's something that, andwe actually have the Canadian
experts in that category.
(37:49):
So training for that, though itwon't be a full-time, paid
experience he will haveexcellent training, but, yeah,
that is one of the biggestchallenges that we have as Team
Canada, I would argue isaccessing the ability to train
them the way that some of theother competitors are right, I
mean, and some trades have a lotmore um access, right like?
Speaker 1 (38:11):
I mean I speak for welding, like we're a welding
association for Canada.
We sponsor welding across kindof every province.
We we do camps and all thestuff.
We support skills, but we alsoput money up, so, like when a
gold medal winner is one chosenon sunday or on saturday morning
, we have cash to support them.
We make sure that they have allthe tools.
(38:32):
They're not paying for nothing,right?
So we have these opportunities,but this is a niche.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
If only we could have that for everything you got to
replicate, we got to replicatethat now we got to get you up,
uh, get your story out with andthe success and the reason which
I know you are.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
We got ninth in the world, but then we got third in
the world.
Yeah Right.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
And to show that and see if we can replicate that in
some of the other categories andSAIT industry associations and
to you know there's a lot ofyou're getting everything back
from your investment.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
Absolutely Well.
If you fortify your industrywith these type of success
stories, it increases theability for your entire industry
to elevate absolutely, andthat's and, and elevate is such
a great word, because that'swhat we do yeah, right that's
what it's all about.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Right is, you know, and and elevating their
experience as well and theirsense of pride in what they're
doing.
You know that's invaluable.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
Awesome, yep.
Last two questions.
Okay, question number one Ifyou had to pick a trade to start
over, Okay, you're a17-year-old kid and knowing what
you know now of all the trades,which is the one you think
you'd sign up for?
Speaker 2 (39:42):
Okay.
What I would do and what Iwould be good at might be two
different things.
I think I would love carpentry.
I don't know if I'd be goodbecause I'm not great with my
hands, but if I were good, Iwould just love that concept of
just literally building anddriving through a city and
(40:03):
saying I built that and I madethat.
That's probably one I wouldlove.
On a technology side, I thinkI'd like something probably like
graphic design, somethingcreative.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Are you artistic?
Speaker 2 (40:15):
No, that's why I said I couldn't do either of those
things, because I have no skillat all.
But if this was an alternateuniverse, I think that would be
a really fun pathway to follow.
Speaker 1 (40:27):
Awesome.
Last question Knowing what youknow and being such a great
director that you are, whatadvice would you give to a young
competitor looking to get intothis world?
Speaker 2 (40:37):
Get into competitions .
Speaker 1 (40:38):
Get into competitions .
Speaker 2 (40:39):
Listen.
Testing yourself is one of thebest ways to grow as a person.
Yeah, we already discussed that.
I'm going to get emotional,okay, and I almost made it.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
Yeah, I was waiting for this at the end.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
It's just whether you win a gold medal, whether you
place at all, whether you messsomething up day one,
challenging yourself and puttingyourself by choice in that
stressful environment vulnerableis going to create a resilience
in you that will help you inanything you do for the rest of
your life you're always going tolook back and say I did that,
(41:16):
yeah, I was brave yeah and youknow even the way that the
competitors interact with eachother is.
Speaker 1 (41:23):
You see, that camaraderie.
Like I told the welders, lookaround this room.
You guys are going to befriends for life.
Whether you know it or not, youreally will.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
And I personally would value seeing one of our
competitors showing kindness tothe other competitors and
creating those relationships.
That's even more valuable to methan them taking a medal,
because they will have thatcontact, that friendship, that
shared memory.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
Because this is an experience right and their life
will be so full of success.
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (41:51):
And no matter how they perform, no matter where
they are in the standings,they're going to come out of
this a better person than theycame here.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
Yeah, love it, love it.
That was fantastic.
I saved the juicy one for theend there, so, yeah, awesome.
Well, thank you so much forbeing on the show with us this
has been fantastic.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
I appreciate it.
Thank you so much, and thankyou for all the support for
skills canada.
We really appreciate everythingyou do for us awesome.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
Well, thank you, and for all the people following
along these skills episodes,remember there's a whole bunch
of them.
We're going to be recording fortwo days straight, plus some
online, but when you, if youhappen to stumble into this one,
watch them all.
They're amazing stories, fromprovince to province to
territory, all three coasts ofCanada, all right, and so I'll
catch you at the next one.
We hope you enjoy the show.
(42:35):
Bye.
All right, I can check.
Check, I'm good.
So I'm Max Duran.
Max Duran, cwb AssociationWelding Podcast, pod pod podcast
.
Today we have a really coolguest welding podcast.
The show is about to begin.
Hello and welcome to anotheredition of the CWB Association
(00:27):
podcast.
My name is Max Duran and I'mhere for our wonderful week of
Skills Canada CompetitionsEdition Skills Podcast.
So this week what we're doingis we're recording interviews
with the executive directors ofall the different provinces and
territories across Canada.
Try to get the vibe of thedifferences between the
provinces, what they bring tothe table and how excited they
(00:48):
are to be here in Regina for thecompetition.
Right now I have Carol Ann Ryan, who's the executive director
for Newfoundland Labrador.
Hi, good morning.
Do you go by, carol or CarolAnn?
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Carol Ann, but I will answer to anything as long as
you're friendly to me.
I am friendly and we're goodAll right, Caroline.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
So what are your first impressions of Regina and
Skills so far?
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Well, Regina, I've actually never been to Regina
before.
We've hosted the National inSaskatchewan before, but not in
Regina.
So, it's a beautiful city.
I'm really enjoying the visit,our kids are having a great time
here and, of course, skillswithout fail.
This is always my absolutefavorite event week of the year.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
In every single way.
There's nothing better.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Oh listen, that makes it all the more because the
more nervous people are, themore nervous the kids are, the
students are the post-secondarystudents the more it means to
them.
And to be part of somethingthat means so much to people and
so many and impacts so manylives is a complete gift.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
It is, it is so how long have you been in the role
as executive director?
Speaker 2 (01:53):
I've been here for 27 years.
Oh my God yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
That's the record of all the interviews.
I had a 20 year mark thismorning, yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
I actually was the first I started it in.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Newfoundland and.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Labrador in 1998.
So I had a sentence thatskilled trades and technologies
are first choice options foryoung Canadians.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Okay, that was the vision, that was it.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
And I had the absolute joy and privilege and
freedom of creating.
You know programming to meetthat need and it's been the joy
of my life.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
So how did you get into that spot?
Because there's a coupledifferent routes.
Generally, you're either from atrades background or you're
from some type of businessbackground.
What was your background?
That got you in the skillsworld.
Well, young people listeningwouldn't know what I'm talking
about, but I saw an ad in thepaper and I applied.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
And I am actually the poster child for people who
needed something like SkillsCanada because I knew nothing.
I knew nothing about trades, Iknew nothing about technologies.
I had done you know, I had gonefrom high school straight into
post secondary university.
I knew nothing about any otherstream or path and when I saw
the ad.
I was working.
I had the ad, I was working, Ihad just graduated and I was
(03:07):
working at the Board of Tradecoordinating programs.
So again, I saw the ad in thepaper and applied blindly and it
just seemed like the mostexciting thing in the world to
build something.
Yeah, and like what a learningexperience.
An eye-opening experience itwas for me when I realized so
(03:27):
many incredible career pathsthat I knew nothing about and so
many of my friends had no ideathat these options were there.
So, yeah, I applied and I gotthe job.
And here we are.
I took it for one year.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Yeah, with that one year contract.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Yeah, I took a one year contract and I really meant
it.
I was only doing it for a yearbecause my partner at the time
was finishing up at school andhe had taken a contract in
Ottawa for one year.
So I said I'm going to do thisfor one year and then I'm going
to move to Ottawa.
Oh no.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
A new job, old partner.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
No, well, it's funny, and I mean I, I, I messaged my,
my now husband and said um badnews.
I love it yeah, I don't think Ican move to ottawa, and he's a
an angel.
So he said, okay, I'll movehome yeah, and that was it.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Here we are, 27 years later so if you were the first
yep and you're coming in on ajob posting for like hey, we got
this thing, you're kind of waybehind the eight ball compared
to other provinces who gotfunding and sponsors and
programs and even just theconfidence of being a part of
(04:38):
these existing systems, how didyou start dipping your finger
into that pool?
Speaker 2 (04:43):
So it was a very quick.
I'm not sure if you know howall of the provinces and
territories came on, becausepre-1998, there was I believe it
was, you know Quebec, alberta,manitoba and Ontario.
I believe that had SkillsCanada organizations and Canada
put in a bid to host the Worldin 1999.
(05:05):
, so the federal government said, hey, we should get a little
bit of seed funding to everyprovince and territory to at
least be able to participate inthat.
So, that's how we all came onstream in 1998.
So you know, when we started wehad a little bit of seed money
to bring a team to the Nationalor yeah, to the Nationals in
Vancouver in 98.
So I started in first week ofMay and three weeks later we
(05:30):
brought a team to the Nationals.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
How, how did you do that?
Speaker 2 (05:35):
I actually passed out there.
But I mean the thing is thatthe beauty of Skills Canada is
it's such a simple but perfectidea, and you know, the key to
our success, as usual, isfinding the passionate
volunteers and the partners whounderstand the power.
So you know, first, when Istarted, the initial urgency was
(05:57):
just to get a team together,and we did.
We brought something ridiculouslike 83 competitors to
Vancouver.
How did you get so manytogether so?
fast I called a lot of peopleCalled a lot of people worked
with every single school, everycampus in the province, and it
just came together quickly.
And then, when we returned, isthen really the okay?
(06:18):
Now what do we do?
How do we build this?
So you know, my approach wasjust to go.
I built a board of directors,started inviting people from all
the different educationalinstitutions, all the different
industry sectors, people.
You know different levels ofgovernment.
Even vendors and sponsors,absolutely Just build a board of
people who are interested andwe were just very fortunate that
(06:42):
and again, I really I can'ttake too much credit for the
brilliance of what this is.
You know, you bring togetherexperts who want to share their
passion with the next generationand as long as you can find
those champions, as long as youcan find those people who are,
they're really the ones thatbuild this.
All of those NTCs are PTCs, arejudges, and when you tell them
(07:04):
what the opportunity is, theywant to be involved.
So that was my experience and,like I said, it was a joy
because I had no idea, I didn'thave contacts, I didn't know
anybody in trades, I just didn'tknow the system you didn't know
.
Nope, had no idea, and I thinkthat's one of the beautiful
things when you can acknowledgehow little you know about
something, when you canacknowledge how little you know
about something.
That's right, and the key tosuccess is always finding the
(07:26):
experts.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Yeah, and people love to share.
Don't reinvent the wheel, don'ttry to do this.
Bring the people in that know.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Nope, and so we were very fortunate.
Our school system was veryinterested and excited in
supporting it.
Our local industry, all of thelevels of government were in
right from the start.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
So we've had a lot of success in building programs
that are meaningful in ourregion in addition to
competitions.
Yeah, now for yourself.
You know, when you look atnewfoundland labrador, I'm in
the west.
There's been a a concept forforever, since I was a kid, that
the maritimes was like ahave-not area.
And you know, we always outwest had the Newfoundlanders
coming in, the East Coasterscoming in to work for shutdowns
(08:11):
and summer work, and I think itwas a wrong conception that
there was no work in the eastand that if you wanted to make
money, if you wanted to have acareer, you had to go somewhere
else.
Now, how important is skills inreestablishing the concept that
you can stay in Newfoundlandand have a successful career?
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Yeah, right, yeah, there's always going to be ebbs
and flows in industry and a lotof, you know a lot of people
enjoy the mobility that Red Seala of a lopsided deal that we
had for many years.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
That's now going to bring so many people home coming
back in like it's a huge time,and we are going to need a lot
of skilled well, everyone is,and this is such a stumbling
block right now for employers.
Right Now, do you use thatleverage to get employers on
(09:31):
board with skills?
Speaker 2 (09:32):
To say like, look, get involved and then you get
the pick of the crop I mean youare literally having the
opportunity to see the best inthe province, the best in Canada
, and cherry pick your workforce.
If you want a skilled workforceand we all know that nothing
affects the bottom line, nothingaffects, um, you know, the
productivity of whether it'sgovernment or industry then the
(09:55):
level of skill of your employees, and the number one resource
should be the skill of youremployees, absolutely and I mean
, what better way than to comeand see the literal best of
canada, and not just people whoare highly skilled, because
obviously that's important andthey have excellent training and
they have excellent, excellent,you know abilities, but the
(10:17):
resilience and the the strengthof character it takes to be in
this environment and even justshow up here yeah says a lot
about who that person will be asan employee, what kind of pride
they take, and you know how,how they're going to contribute
to your bottom line.
So I honestly and truly thinkthat any employer who's not
(10:37):
coming to this they are missingout, some people you know
throughout the years I thinkit's a little bit different in
the last number of years, butmany years people would say that
we're the canada's best keptsecret yeah, right and I agree
to with that to some extent,because you know I'm saying this
as someone who that the passionhas never diminished.
(10:57):
I only see it getting betterevery single year.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
The need is still there and, uh, employers really,
really need to be at the tablehere yeah, and I think people
don't realize also because maybethey've never been but
newfoundland, labrador are noteasily as easily accessible as
some people think.
They think oh you can go tonova scotia and just jump over
to newfoundland.
It's not quite that easy yeah,so do you find that there's a
(11:25):
little bit of an isolation issuewith the province you?
Speaker 2 (11:28):
know, one of the challenges we have, as you know,
a program organizationspecifically is that we are a
small population but we are avery big geography, with a lot
of transportation challenges.
It actually costs more for meto fly to Labrador, which is
part of my province, than itwould to Vancouver.
Wow, Right, so you know, wehave a lot of challenges there
(11:50):
and one of the things well, oneof the things actually that
COVID, we tried to find thesilver lining in things.
You know, it really helped usfind ways to do a lot of things
virtually and digitally.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Right.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Now, there will never , never, ever, in my opinion
replace the hands-on thetangible, the tool in your hand
or the face-to-face.
You know networking you'llnever replace that, but we do
have tools now at our disposalto try and bridge some of those
remote areas.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Right, because you look at provinces.
Well, I'm in saskatchewan.
We're a very big province, verysmall population.
The northern area is veryunderfunded, under resourced and
so, like you said, the virtualtools help you open to another
audience.
Perhaps it's not ideal, but atleast there's a something.
It's something that's right.
Spark something.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Yeah, you can spark an interest and sometimes, when
we're doing some kind of um, wehave an amazing team of program
coordinators who deliverprogramming and sometimes
they'll be doing somethingvirtually and they can even tell
virtually that there's onestudent in that class who is
hanging on to?
Every word and they'll put inthe group.
If you want to reach out to meand oftentimes they do and then
(13:02):
that student, we may be able tocreate an opportunity for in
person, find the funding, figureit out 100%, because that's
what it's all about.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
And sparking that interest.
And, you know, even coming, wehave a lot of kids on our team,
and I say kids in particular.
We have junior high kids aswell as high school students and
, a lot of times, students whoparticipate in some of our
employability skill areas.
They're already theoverachievers, they're the
students who are getting themedals from us.
They're the ones who arewinning the speak offs in their
(13:30):
school.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
And you know.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
So they are over already on there, you know and
you know, some of them alreadyknow what they're going to do
when they finish high school,and it may or may not be a skill
, trade or technology, butgetting them to in this
environment and see you knowpeople on a podium for being an
excellent welder or an excellentgraphic designer.
They bring that back to theircommunity.
(13:53):
Right and that pride and thatjoy.
So if they have a friend or afamily member or somebody in
their school is like oh, youknow, I'm interested in welding,
but welding, but you know, momsays I should go to university
you know, yeah, yeah, yeahthey're like oh my god, look at
this event.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
It was amazing oh, like you have to, yeah, so like
that ripple effect isimmeasurable yeah you know, as a
not-for-profit you're alwaystrying to measure things but
it's you.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
You cannot, you know, you can't, you can't overstate
the impact that every single oneof these participants has on
everybody in their family,everybody in their school,
everybody in their community.
It's just immeasurable.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Now, how big of a team do you have?
What do you got here fromNewfoundland?
Speaker 2 (14:38):
We have 34 competitors.
We also have about 40 coachesand supporters Amazing yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Yeah, 40 coaches and supporters Amazing yeah.
Yeah, so we normally have-, butthis is a little bit smaller
team than normal, right, it isyeah.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
We normally have a little bit of a bigger team.
We normally have about 42, 44competitors.
This year we lost a fewstudents, unfortunately because
their grad was the same weekendand we tried to but the time
difference in the travel from.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Regina, we tried to get them back in time, but we
couldn't.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
And we also lost two students to the Canada-wide
science fair.
But the team we have are justso excited and so motivated,
framed within an inch of theirlives and are just having the
best experience, and our publiccollege is really great.
The College of the NorthAtlantic they actually send a
coach.
Wonderful programs there too.
Oh my gosh, we're so fortunate.
College is really great.
They uh, the college of thenorth atlantic, um they actually
send wonderful programs.
(15:25):
Oh my gosh, we're so fortunateand and they send a coach with
every competitor really yeah,they pay for that unique, yeah,
and it's.
It's like even for the studentsand the coaches can't interact
with them, obviously, whilethey're competing, but even just
knowing that they're there andlooking up and going okay,
because they have such arelationship with these students
, you know, and being able tolook up across the rope and
(15:45):
seeing that your're there andlooking up and going, okay,
because they have such arelationship with these students
, you know and being able tolook up across the rope and
seeing that your instructorsthere and thinking, okay, I'm
going to check in with themlater about this or that you
know, yeah, and just having thatsupport is immeasurable it is
you know so our team are um.
We like to have a little bit offun too.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
You have a little bit of fun everyone knows that the
maritimes knows how to have funwhich is great.
Now, with these competitors,you know when you know the
history you've been there sincethe start basically, what are
the trades or events thatgenerally you guys crush?
That are usually the ones thatyou know.
Every year we're going to havesomeone in the running.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
I'm like, should I jinx things by saying, um,
there's a few areas?
Speaker 1 (16:26):
that we'll get released until after, so no one
will know.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Yeah there's a few areas that we we're always
feeling really strongly about.
I mean cloud computing.
Is is like we're we're sellingthat architectural design nice
um, you know, we often do reallywell in welding carpentry.
You know it's, it reallydepends on the year right On the
industry, on the industry.
(16:49):
And, honestly, there's so manythings that you cannot predict
or control when it comes tocompetition.
You can have the most highlytrained, highly skilled person
on the floor and something couldhappen that throws them off.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Yeah, nerves, anxiety , Anything you know the day
before the girlfriend couldbreak up with them off.
Yeah, nerves, anxiety, Anythingyou know the day before the
girlfriend could break up withthem.
You never know We've had thathappen Dog ate the homework we
had someone whose family dogpassed away while we were on the
you know all these things.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
They're human right, they affect them.
So I try not to predict becauseoftentimes and we kind of the
staff we have this sort of thingthat we do on after day one of
competition, we go out to dinnerand we do our guesses, we sit
down and say, okay, I think thisis what, and then we're always
(17:36):
madly wrong.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
We are always so off way, off base Like we were like
what.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
No every year.
So I mean, I you know, everyyear is different.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
In 27 years.
What are the things that you'velearned, that that skills has
taught you?
Because you know you come intothis with a clean slate, the
learning curve must have beenmassive, right off the top.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
It was ridiculously steep and that's right.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
And, and at this point, so many years later, you
must have learned so much fromskills.
What would be like your top twoor three?
Speaker 2 (18:09):
you know it's funny because I feel like I've grown
up with skills.
You know it's funny because Ifeel like I've grown up with
skills.
So when I started it was justand I'm ashamed to say this, but
what a skill trade was.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
What a red seal is, and you?
Speaker 1 (18:20):
had to have been like early 20s.
Oh yeah, we're trying to do themath here, yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
I was 10.
I mean, I was in my late youknow, I was in my mid to late
20s and I had done a couple ofdegrees, purely out of you know
no burning passion.
Yeah, wasn't like oh, I'mdesperate to do a business
degree, just oh, I need a joband that's what you do.
Yeah, that's what I was told.
That's what you do yeah and Imean I have no regrets,
obviously because I lucked intoa gift of a job right that I've
(18:47):
loved for all these years, but Ithink for me, learning about
just learning about careers,knowing that I will never know
everything there is to knowabout all of these trades.
I will never be an expert inany of these trades.
I will never be an expert inany of these technologies, but
(19:08):
the joy is finding those thatare experts.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
And then.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
So that was sort of when I was early career,
realizing I have all theseoptions that I didn't even know
about myself, I didn't know Icould do this, like maybe I
would be a good welder, probablyMaybe I could have, maybe I
could have done that, and I hadno idea that was even an option
for me.
So that was a revelation.
And then, as I moved into as aparent, right.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
So then I had a totally different perspective
because I have two children.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
My daughter's 21 and she wants to be a paleontologist
, so that's her path.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
She's digging in the dirt.
Great job oh she loves it.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
And my son is 17 and he's just graduating now and he
is the poster child.
I love you, sweetheart.
He is the poster child for noidea.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
No idea what he wants to do?
Speaker 1 (19:57):
What do you like to do?
I don't know.
What do you want to do?
I don't know.
No, you're not going to be anNHL player.
No, that's not happening.
You'd be on that track by now.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
You would have already been there.
Yeah, no, so.
And so I've sort of gonethrough that cycle and, in
addition, with my daughter andher friends and their families,
that there is still thoseparents.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
That stigma.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Who you know?
No child of mine, no child ofmine.
You know you're going touniversity, that's what you're
doing.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
And what a shame.
And there's a lot of people whohave amazing experiences and,
like I said, my daughter sheknew what she wanted to do.
She wanted to do science.
She wants to be apaleontologist and that's been
great for her but the fact thatthere's, you know, I have so
many of her friends had otherideas and their parents wouldn't
let them do it and that'soutstanding, like outrageous to
(20:47):
me that that's still happening.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
The money, because the money's here, so it's not
like the money's adiscouragement.
Is it the fear of safety?
Speaker 2 (20:55):
like I'm not sure what it is, I just think it's
that it has been ingrained in inmy generation yeah in our
generation that this is the pathto success yeah and we, we
haven't shaken that yet, and soI still see that.
And so with my son, you know, Isat with him and went through
every single program at, youknow, at the public college, at
(21:17):
private colleges, at MemorialUniversity, to see if anything
sparked an interest.
It didn't.
He's going to need time, he'sgoing to go work for a bit.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
See what he hates.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Yeah, exactly.
But I mean I feel like it'sbeen good for me in that my
kids' friends who did have aspark of interest, in something
I'd say hey, come to our event,come with me to our event.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Just try some stuff out.
Yeah, right.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
So I think with that, you know, parents are always
going to be the last nut tocrack, I think because educators
are there, like high schoolteachers when I first started
again.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Science counselors not on the radar, and they were
like oh you can.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
I actually had a teacher in 1998 that I called,
said I'd like to come in andtalk to you about school trades
and technologies.
Told me that I could come talkto the remedial class okay, get
out 27 years ago.
Yeah, that's not 50 years ago,yeah now, that was an outlier
yeah um, now, we cannot get inschools enough yeah, they're
asking you oh we and that's oursuperpower at Skills is that our
(22:16):
access to the schools, becausethey know what we can do.
We deliver what we say we'regoing to do.
And we could, if we had the team, if we had the I was going to
say horsepower.
Now, if we had the manpower andthe people power, we could be
in schools every single daydoing programming, presentations
, you know, skill, futuresactivities, because the need is
(22:37):
there and teachers now are 100%.
In my province anyway they are100% on board in providing all
of that information because theyknow the success their students
could have.
So, that's probably the biggestchange that I've seen over the
last 20, 25 plus years.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
I think the proof is in the pudding, because so many
of ours I'd say we're probablythe same generation, my
daughter's 27, my son's 23.
And we saw because we did it.
I went to university right.
So I started welding when I was17.
I went to university and then Iwent back to welding because
there was no way I was going tomake as much money with my
(23:16):
bachelor's of arts degree that Iever would have made welding.
So it was like it seemed like Ienjoyed university.
But I also took universitydifferently and I always tell
young kids this like do tradesfirst, and if you want to go to
university later, it's alwaysthere.
It's always there and you canafford it.
You don't have to go touniversity later, it's always
there.
It's always there and you canafford it.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
You don't have to go into debt.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
You don't have to mortgage the family future to go
get an education, because youhave this trade that will
support you and keep you yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
One of the things I'm really proud about is in
Newfoundland and Labrador wedon't have a youth
apprenticeship program.
The students cannot do youthapprenticeship in high school.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
They can't get an apprenticeship, oh dang.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Yeah, so we've been working to change that for many
years and just a couple of yearsago, we I'm smiling at people-
is it?
Speaker 1 (24:03):
Yeah, I know People are waving, we know everyone
here.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
A couple of years ago we created something called the
Youth Apprenticeship SummerEmployment Program.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
Like your own version of it?
Speaker 2 (24:13):
Yeah, and we work with the provincial government.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
Good good.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
And so now, for the first time in Newfoundland
history, students can beregistered apprentices in high
school.
So we have a wage subsidyprogram where of course we pay
employers for their wages Oneday a week or something.
Well, it's seven weeks over thesummer.
Okay, perfect, so it's a summerprogram, so we're kind of
dipping our toe in right.
Um, so it's outside of schoolhours, but uh, it's been such a
(24:38):
huge success and we didn't knowwhen we started, we thought well
, maybe we'll have 20 peopleapply, you know um for this
summer.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Uh, we had over 350 students apply you probably
don't have any spot, enoughspots for them no, we didn't.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
No, we we had, because in our, in our you know,
this is a contract we do withthe provincial government we had
funding for 80 wage subsidies,so but I kind of like that
because it made it a competitiveyeah, you gotta earn that spot
you gotta earn that.
This is something special yeahit's kind of like I I applied
and I made the cut yeah, like itgives it a little bit of
(25:11):
prestige, which it should beright, are competitive.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
Yeah, I mean, that's what I think skills really
brings out is that this isn'tjust here, this is the rest of
your career.
You're constantly, you know,comparing yourself to what's
happening in in your trade,what's coming up, the new
technologies, the new sciences,and how it affects your job.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Right, yeah, um, yeah , so many thoughts.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
But if you, you know, because what are your favorite
trades to watch here?
Oh, when you come as a witness,which are the ones you like to
hang out at?
Speaker 2 (25:44):
look, there is no beating landscape gardening
midday day two.
It's just beautiful becauseit's you know, the day one you
start off with a loaded pile ofdirt.
Right, and at the end, it'sthis beautiful oasis that any
one of us would love to have.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
So I was just saying that there was like that's, I
wish that was my backyard.
That's one of my favorites.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
I love robotics just because it's just fun to watch.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
Yeah Cool.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Like those kids who are programming and making these
robots, have a level oftechnology.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
And so fast.
Kids who are programming andmaking these robots have a level
of technology.
When you look at what they gotto do in such a short period of
time, yeah, so that one's reallyfun to watch.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
You know hairstyling, I like baking and cooking,
cause I like you want to eat.
There's so many.
I mean some of the computerones.
You know you don't get to seemuch while they're doing it, but
I love to see the final product.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
So, like graphic design, photography, when they
lay out all the final projectsand see the artistic.
Sometimes I wish that they hadthat at Skills somehow after the
event.
I know it would cost millionsof dollars to do, but they could
film every student and youcould almost see a recap of each
event after, because there'sonly one of you, you can't
follow them all.
And sometimes I see somefinished products and it's like,
oh, that is so amazing.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
I would have loved to have seen the step-by-step of
that build right maybe we shouldset up time lapse of some one
of those categories that reallyhas a big building and dramatic,
you know end, just to see theprocess.
Yeah, um, yeah, but there's so,there's just so many.
I love listening to theprepared, the public speaking,
competition, because, you know,I love the fact that their topic
(27:18):
is always related to skilledtrades and the importance in the
economy, you know.
And so how would you promoteskilled trades to
underrepresented groups, forexample?
I think might be their topicthis year, and I learn, I learn
so much.
I've been doing this a longtime.
I sit in that you know if I'm,if I'm able to sit and listen to
their speeches yeah.
I learn so much I'm like takingnotes.
I'm going to put that my nextspeech.
(27:39):
You're going to put that in thechairs you know, because you
learn, these kids, like theyhave such creativity in their
thought processes, are different, like it's a different
generation, the you know they're.
I'm really impressed by youknow there's a lot of chatter
sort of about the effect ofCOVID on this generation of
students because it absolutelydid affect them.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
It's a worldwide event, right.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
But I think one thing that I've seen the most is the
resilience and you know howthey've taken that awful
situation and sort of have arenewed joy, for you know what
we're able to do.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
It also kind of showed them what world war ii
showed the boomers is thatyou'll get through absolutely
you'll get through work, keep atit, don't stop.
And.
And the essential skills andthe trades are are the fabric of
that.
Yeah, now for for the, for yourorganization to bring together
the ptcs, all the provincialcoordinators, and then your
(28:35):
national trainers, and then theindustry.
How do you source all that?
How important are thepartnerships within your
province?
Speaker 2 (28:43):
We wouldn't exist.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
We wouldn't exist without all of the educational
institutions, without, obviously, our provincial government, all
of our corporate sponsors,federal government, obviously,
our provincial government, allof our corporate sponsors,
federal government.
But the biggest key for us isbecause we're such a small
province and we don't have, youknow, we don't have access to,
say, large venues like this, sowe rely on hosts for all of our
(29:05):
activities.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Industry hosts yeah industry and unions.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
And you know we work with a lot of the different
unions in our province, soanytime, and the doors are
always open.
Like anytime we want to do.
We have a program called SkillFutures, which is all about
bringing students in, and theyspend half the day doing
experiential learning, hands-onon the tools.
And the afternoon hearing frommentors in those fields.
It's a phone call.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
It's a phone call.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Any one of the local you know, whether it's industry
associations or the unions orthe training institutions, it's
a phone call.
We want to bring kids in youname the day and they go be
above and beyond.
So, and of course, to do thatas well, aside from just having
the institution, the volunteers,Like, again comes back to the
experts, oh listen, they are keyright and we would not exist
(29:56):
without that support.
But thankfully, like I mentionedearly, people really get it,
people who know about us get itand they want to be, they want
to support our kids it's like awhirlpool, though like you dip
your finger into it and it'sgonna suck you well, we joke
that we're the mafia becauseonce you're in, you are never
gonna get it and you will wantto right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Well, I asked that in the previous guest because she
had been around for a long timetoo.
And the mafia comment too, I'vebeen hearing that I've been
with skills a long time.
I've also sucked in, but now,with the extent of your career,
how often?
Or how proud, I guess, for thebetter question, or how proud I
guess for the better questionare you to see the cycle play
(30:39):
out from student to mentor totrainer, to you know, on the
exec board, you know?
Speaker 2 (30:41):
You know it's funny.
We actually have someone herewith us this year who's an NTC
for the first time, who competedin aircraft maintenance in I
believe it was 2000.
He was a competitor in 2000 andnow he's back as an NTC.
And you know we joke that.
You know we're too old fogiesnow that you know, and uh, it's
(31:04):
just, it's just so exciting tosee the people who value and
appreciate the opportunity thatthey were given want to give
that back.
They want to come, they want totrain.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
They're not just going to take it and hoard it.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
No, they want to share it with the world and they
want to take what they'velearned and their experiences,
good and bad, their challengesand their successes with the new
student, the new competitor.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Amazing.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Because they want to make it easier for them, and we
have several competitors whohave gone on now to serve on our
board, which I love becausethey've seen the whole spectrum,
they know what it's like, andin our province we actually
offer a competition at thejunior high level.
We've been doing that now for-.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
So grade seven, or grade six, seven and up Now
there is a grade six student.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
There's a grade six.
Some schools are 6 to 9, butmost are 7 to 9.
They're welcome in grade 6.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
We've been doing that for almost the entire, like 26
years.
Some people will say that's tooyoung, but I disagree.
No, not.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
I'll tell you.
The reason that started waswhen I was doing provincial
competitions.
In the beginning I felt that byhigh school they've already got
their attitude set.
They may not know what they'redoing, but these attitudes that
they have about what a valuablecareer is, that is set before
they get the hot.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
It's there, right.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
So it was important to me to start much earlier.
And one of the fun things aboutour intermediate competition so
at our intermediates, we offer,you know, all of the technology
areas, all of the fun thingsabout our intermediate
competition.
So at our intermediates, weoffer, you know, all of the
technology areas, all of theemployability areas.
We do robotics.
This year we're going to bedoing co2 car races and some
green energy competitions forthe first time.
What I find about that event isthey're still young enough that
(32:46):
they're not too cool yeah sothey show up and schools show up
in like matching costumes andyou know like they can be free,
they have.
So much fun and it's okay to,like you know, be excited by it
and show that excitement.
So the award ceremony is alwaysso much fun because they're
like jumping up and down andscreaming, and and I mean the
high school students and thepost-secondary students, of
(33:08):
course they're excited when theywin but it's kind of this, more
like oh yeah, there's a job.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, got it done, right so?
Speaker 2 (33:15):
uh, but I love the intermediates, because what we
find is how that's benefited usin many ways is that the
competition experience is onethat you can't really explain or
prepare anybody until they'vedone it and because our
competition is much smaller thanmost I mean it's, our
competition will never be like.
You know, alberta ontario,their competition is as big as
this pretty much yeah, closeyeah uh, so ours are, you know,
(33:38):
a small one at a local community.
You know it's a much smallerevent, um, but what I find is
they start now.
In junior high.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
We have some competitors that started
competing in grade seven andcompeted for like six years yeah
, so they got lots of practice.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
They get, get that experience, they get the stress,
they get the time management,they get to learn.
You know how to handle thoseexternal factors that are
affecting them in the moment.
But again, a big key for me isthat those, again those junior
high students go back to theirschools and talk about all the
cool things Because at thatevent they may not compete in
all the the trades, but we havean extensive try a trade yeah,
(34:14):
right where they get anopportunity to try things and
learn about them um.
So again, they bring that backto their school and their
parents and their parent andtheir parents are there and
they're excited, and they're,you know, maybe they've never
seen some of these categoriesbefore, like me you know they
don't know um, so the juniorhigh is really an important
(34:35):
event for us.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
Uh, we're actually moving towards having an
atlantic um well, I was just atskills atlantic there in new
brunswick, uh, three weeks ago,and it was wonderful seeing the
scale of the event compared to10 years ago when it was tiny.
Yeah, now for your group, asyou bring everyone out here and
(34:57):
you get them all prepped.
So which are the ones, or whois, I guess, going for that
world spot?
Who do you got here that youthink is going to be a world
contender?
Because there's, sometimes, ifyou get them young enough, they
get, like you said, to yourpractice thing.
If they can get a couple shotsat nationals, then they got a
real good shot at worlds, right.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Well, we don't tend to have many people on the world
because of the age.
The under 22 restriction whichgoes back to the youth
apprenticeship yeah so most ofour uh apprentices, for example,
are, you know, probably closerto 30 than they are to 20 yeah
right, so we are ineligible,even if they win gold right
(35:38):
they're ineligible.
So because of that, we don'ttend to have that many on um the
team.
Um, now we did have somebody onthe team, uh in france, uh, in
september, and world skills leonin cloud computing, nice.
So we'll see, or they didreally well they didn't they?
Didn't meddle, but theyabsolutely meddling is no very
(36:01):
hard.
Yeah, yeah, but they've had awonderful experience.
And actually, well is alexedwards.
We'll give him a little shoutout um, he won the gold last
year at the nash, or not lastyear, the year before at the
nationals and, as I said, hewent to leon um in the fall.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Uh, he's here now um, but as a mentor he's here as a
coach, nice right, and he's herewith uh to support um this
year's competitor.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
So I mean that's, that's.
I have some hope there, becausehe's actually our competitor in
cloud computing.
Is age eligible, awesome.
So we'll see.
I guess we'll see Saturdaymorning, but otherwise.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
I mean you just never know Right but.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
But a lot of the world categories are areas that
we tend to have people that areolder than the age.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
The world categories are areas that we tend to have
people that are older than theage right.
Hopefully we can get that.
I know one of the things thatthe more established provinces
have is that once you've wongold in their province, they
have basically a full-timetraining program for the next
year and that's that's kind ofthe dream state to get to,
because we know I've been toworlds before.
I don't know if you've gone toworld yeah, several times yeah
(37:05):
you know that those podiumfinishers at worlds, they were
full-time training oh listen.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Full-time years?
Yeah, for a few years yep,that's.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
All they've done is to get on that podium.
You know how far are we fromnewfoundland being able to
establish enough funding and andsupport to get you know some,
perhaps cloud computing, some ofthese key areas that you're
really strong in into, like fulltime training positions?
Speaker 2 (37:28):
I mean that's a Canadian problem.
Yeah, you know it's all acrossthe country it is.
That is a challenge for us.
We all experience.
Now, I mean, some categories.
We're going to have more accessthan others and again, cloud
computing is a great category totalk about because it's, you
know, it's something that, andwe actually have the Canadian
experts in that category.
(37:49):
So training for that, though itwon't be a full-time, paid
experience he will haveexcellent training, but, yeah,
that is one of the biggestchallenges that we have as Team
Canada, I would argue isaccessing the ability to train
them the way that some of theother competitors are right, I
mean, and some trades have a lotmore um access, right like?
Speaker 1 (38:11):
I mean I speak for welding, like we're a welding
association for Canada.
We sponsor welding across kindof every province.
We we do camps and all thestuff.
We support skills, but we alsoput money up, so, like when a
gold medal winner is one chosenon sunday or on saturday morning
, we have cash to support them.
We make sure that they have allthe tools.
(38:32):
They're not paying for nothing,right?
So we have these opportunities,but this is a niche.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
If only we could have that for everything you got to
replicate, we got to replicatethat now we got to get you up,
uh, get your story out with andthe success and the reason which
I know you are.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
We got ninth in the world, but then we got third in
the world.
Yeah Right.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
And to show that and see if we can replicate that in
some of the other categories andSAIT industry associations and
to you know there's a lot ofyou're getting everything back
from your investment.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
Absolutely Well.
If you fortify your industrywith these type of success
stories, it increases theability for your entire industry
to elevate absolutely, andthat's and, and elevate is such
a great word, because that'swhat we do yeah, right that's
what it's all about.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Right is, you know, and and elevating their
experience as well and theirsense of pride in what they're
doing.
You know that's invaluable.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
Awesome, yep.
Last two questions.
Okay, question number one Ifyou had to pick a trade to start
over, Okay, you're a17-year-old kid and knowing what
you know now of all the trades,which is the one you think
you'd sign up for?
Speaker 2 (39:42):
Okay.
What I would do and what Iwould be good at might be two
different things.
I think I would love carpentry.
I don't know if I'd be goodbecause I'm not great with my
hands, but if I were good, Iwould just love that concept of
just literally building anddriving through a city and
(40:03):
saying I built that and I madethat.
That's probably one I wouldlove.
On a technology side, I thinkI'd like something probably like
graphic design, somethingcreative.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Are you artistic?
Speaker 2 (40:15):
No, that's why I said I couldn't do either of those
things, because I have no skillat all.
But if this was an alternateuniverse, I think that would be
a really fun pathway to follow.
Speaker 1 (40:27):
Awesome.
Last question Knowing what youknow and being such a great
director that you are, whatadvice would you give to a young
competitor looking to get intothis world?
Speaker 2 (40:37):
Get into competitions .
Speaker 1 (40:38):
Get into competitions .
Speaker 2 (40:39):
Listen.
Testing yourself is one of thebest ways to grow as a person.
Yeah, we already discussed that.
I'm going to get emotional,okay, and I almost made it.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
Yeah, I was waiting for this at the end.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
It's just whether you win a gold medal, whether you
place at all, whether you messsomething up day one,
challenging yourself and puttingyourself by choice in that
stressful environment vulnerableis going to create a resilience
in you that will help you inanything you do for the rest of
your life you're always going tolook back and say I did that,
(41:16):
yeah, I was brave yeah and youknow even the way that the
competitors interact with eachother is.
Speaker 1 (41:23):
You see, that camaraderie.
Like I told the welders, lookaround this room.
You guys are going to befriends for life.
Whether you know it or not, youreally will.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
And I personally would value seeing one of our
competitors showing kindness tothe other competitors and
creating those relationships.
That's even more valuable to methan them taking a medal,
because they will have thatcontact, that friendship, that
shared memory.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
Because this is an experience right and their life
will be so full of success.
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (41:51):
And no matter how they perform, no matter where
they are in the standings,they're going to come out of
this a better person than theycame here.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
Yeah, love it, love it.
That was fantastic.
I saved the juicy one for theend there, so, yeah, awesome.
Well, thank you so much forbeing on the show with us this
has been fantastic.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
I appreciate it.
Thank you so much, and thankyou for all the support for
skills canada.
We really appreciate everythingyou do for us awesome.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
Well, thank you, and for all the people following
along these skills episodes,remember there's a whole bunch
of them.
We're going to be recording fortwo days straight, plus some
online, but when you, if youhappen to stumble into this one,
watch them all.
They're amazing stories, fromprovince to province to
territory, all three coasts ofCanada, all right, and so I'll
catch you at the next one.
We hope you enjoy the show.
(42:35):
Bye.
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