Heavy Metal Rocks Returns
From left, Alex Huidobro, Tanner Vandermeulen, and in the background, Brendan Sandhu – photo 250News
Prince George, B.C. – It’s a program that helps prepare high school students for careers in the construction industry and it’s back for its 12th year.
Heavy Metal Rocks is sponsored by the Northern Regional Construction Association (NRCA) and high school students throughout the Prince George School District are taking part.
“Really this event is all about the kids,” says NRCA CEO Scott Bone. “This year we have 30 young kids and we bring them out and really the intent is to give them hands on experience with the equipment.”
He says local companies have donated the use of millions of dollars worth of heavy equipment and expertise for the three day event which he hopes will pay dividends down the road.
“Statistics tell us one in 75 high school kids that graduate are going into trades, but to meet the demand we have with LNG and construction, we need one in five.
“So our role is to work with industry, government and institutions like CNC to provide these kids with the first steps in their training.”
Bruce Northrop, district career coordinator with the Prince George School District, says polling they’ve done the past three years shows the program is already paying off.
“The last group that we polled, a third of the students were working. Not necessarily in the construction industry directly but things like heavy duty mechanic and welding and things like that.
“And we’re hearing there’s opportunities coming up with the aging population. Students will have a real opportunity.”
Sudents really seem to appreciate the experience too.
“This program is awesome and very helpful,” says Brendan Sandhu, a 17 year old grade 11 student at College Heights Secondary School.
“Getting all the experience on the heavy machinery. I’m looking at going into construction and possibly later down the road I want to go to CNC and do the heavy machinery program.”
Alex Huidobro, a 16 year old grade 11 student at Prince George Secondary School also enjoys the program and is considering a career in welding.
“I’m having a lot of fun. The fact that it’s free and you get to learn a lot is great.”
Comments
This is really great for the kids!
Too bad they wouldn’t consider something like that for older men and women as well, you know, the ones who are under employed or looking to change their employment. I guess there are training courses they can take but they typically cost so much, as to be completely prohibitive.
A buddy put his kid through one of the local training schools. The cost was ridiculous….. I think it was over $12,000 for less than a month. Worst part was that he couldn’t even find a job after. The little training he got was useless. Basically he got to play on a machine. Most of the people in the course with him were funded by the government or their band.
The govt needs to give some kind of credit to actual construction or logging companies for training and hiring people. They would have the incentive to actually train them properly because they would be hiring them. I’m sure they could collaborate and come up with some kind of a program.
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