On May 26 and 27, hundreds of post secondary apprentices from all over Canada flew to the Vancouver Convention Center to participate in the Skills Canada national competition. Featuring 16 hours of grueling competition, Skills is a national skilled trades competition for the best up-and-coming tradespeople of the nation. More than 45 trades are represented and the event introduced 3,000 visitors, including local elementary and secondary students, to the many opportunities availible when working in the trades.
UFV students Connor Crevier, from the Welding Foundation program, and Taylor Smith of the electrical apprenticeship program were both in attendance, competing for Team B.C. and representing UFV along with their mentors.
Chelsey Fulford, a welding foundations instructor and past Skills competitor and mentor, gave her thoughts on the process to prepare UFV’s competitors for Skills. She mentioned that she always offers her welding students the opportunity to compete in the regional qualifiers for Skills, held at UFV each year. This year, 10 students participated in a “weld off.”
The winner was Crevier of the School District 33 Youth TRAIN program, which allows high school students to attend UFV for half of the grade 12 year and get the first level of their welding apprenticeship paid for by the school district. He, along with Smith, progressed to the provincial level of the competition, with their mentors at their sides.
Fulford talked about the long process to get Crevier ready for the national level after he succeeded at provincials. As part of the preparation, the UFV trades faculty got together and reviewed the blueprints for this year’s welding project, a ship inspired by the B.C. ferries. They focused on the order of completion necessary to end up with a perfect final project, and got Crevier to do multiple practice runs of the project.
Fulford mentioned how difficult the mentoring process is for Skills, because the blueprints that are sent out prior to the competition can change by up to 20 per cent at nationals. As Fulford and fellow welding faculty instructor, Matt Olafson, reviewed Crevier’s welds, they critiqued every step to help him improve, until they were all confident in the final project.
Both Smith and Crevier progressed to the national competition, which was held at the Vancouver Convention Center for post secondary students, and virtually for secondary school students. At the closing ceremonies on Saturday, May 28, Smith earned a silver in Electrical Apprenticeship while Crevier won a silver in Welding for secondary students.
When asked of future plans in light of winning second best welder in Canada for this age group, Crevier said he plans to graduate highschool and get his welding ticket, and then keep going with his apprenticeship and get his Red Seal. Skills Canada gave these two UFV students the opportunity to showcase their skills to all of Canada, and have some pretty great things to show for it.
Allison is starting her BA in English with a minor in Criminology to become a publishing contract lawyer. In her spare time, she watches way too many true crime shows and reads a lot of Y.A. fiction, while slugging along on various articles.
