Outreach makes a difference

The winners of the third annual Nicole LeClair Welding Bursary Award were recently announced. The bursary supports students who want to pursue welding at the post-secondary level within the province of Ontario. Thanks to support from industrial gas supplier Linde as well as other charitable donations, the award that was created by welder and teacher Nicole LeClair using her personal funds has been expanded from one that benefited only one student in its first year to providing financial support to four winners.

Congratulations to the four winners: Shaelyn Hagen, Conestoga College; Zachary O’Rourke-Caton, St. Clair College; Erin Bruce, Fleming College; and Amy McNeill, Institute of Technical Trades. The stories of these four winners demonstrate some of the positive promotional work that has helped to encourage some to enter the trades, while also pointing out that some trends change only very slowly.

For instance, both Hagen and Bruce noted that when they started taking trades-related classes in high school, they were the only females in the room. Encouraging women to consider the trades at an early age continues to be a challenge. But the recognition and public profile female welders and manufacturers are creating for themselves may change that sooner as we see young women like this take their places in industry.

On a more positive note, O’Rourke-Caton noted that he’d had an opportunity to take a week-long “try a trade” event before he started high school, and later attended a “Mind Over Metal” camp offered by the Canadian Welding Bureau. This positive reinforcement of the trades clearly affected him, and it is likely helping other young people to pursue their interests in the field.

McNeill actually switched from a non-trade-related job to pursue welding after eyeing a welding program for seven years. It goes to show that sometimes a calling takes a little longer to find.

These bursary winners were a reminder to me that industry outreach through schools can be valuable. Does your business have connections with local grade schools? Are there opportunities to create such connections? For students who have never had the opportunity to interact with the trades, meeting individuals like themselves who are doing fulfilling work in an industry can help them understand how they, too, can pursue a particular discipline.

Businesses are used to planning machine tool purchases and designing and managing their shop floors. Planning the employee pipeline of the future is more challenging. Reaching out early to young students is one way to encourage that flow of talent into the industry.