Building next generation of trades

The Winnipeg Construction Association takes “planting the seed” seriously.

A case in point: the annual Manitoba Construction Career Expo held Wednesday at Red River Exhibition Place.

In its efforts to get high school students thinking about careers in the trades, the WCA and its partners — Apprenticeship Manitoba and the province of Manitoba — brought 1,300, mostly Grade 11 and 12 students from 55 schools to the event from as far away as Dauphin.

Buses and lunch are paid for for all students involved. Organizers even pay for the substitute teachers required to teach the students that don’t come to the event.

There were close to 30 career tracks on display at the Career Expo.

At the Lafarge display, students has the rare chance to work with wet concrete. RRC Polytech had a carpentry station; MITT had an electrical one. The Manitoba Wall and Ceiling Association let student drill drywall screws and fix holes.

There were long lineups at the Winnipeg Heavy Construction Association’s booth to try out the front-end loader simulator and at Manitoba Hydro’s outdoor stations, where students access a bucket truck or articulated lift, a scissor lift or try operating a mini excavator (all provided by United Rentals).

“We’d get even more students to come, but we don’t want them to have to spend too much time lining up to participate at the booths,” WCA president Ron Hambley said of the event’s attendance.

At the Manitoba Masonry Institute booth, Nina Widmer of Widmer Casting was helping students lay one brick at a time on a three-ringed Roman arc they were building.

Maya Bekerman, a Grade 12 student at St. Boniface Diocesan High School, looked like she knew what she was doing.

“My father works in construction, so I have been exposed to stuff,” she said. ”I’m good with my hands.”

As adept as she was with the trowel, Maya said she wants to go into the aircraft maintenance engineering program at RRC Polytech.

Maya’s attitude is exactly what many of the 20-plus exhibitor/recruiters are looking for.

Floyd Thorkelson, power line technician training supervisor for Manitoba Hydro, was helping load students into a lift bucket or helping them into belts and spurs to try out climbing poles (required of power line technicians – formerly called linemen – when they can’t get a bucket truck close enough).

“One of the requirement for a power line technician is to be comfortable working at heights,” he said.

Thorkelson has been participating in the event for about a decade. (The gathering was put on hold for a couple of years during the heights of the COVID-19 pandemic.)

“There’s a lot of kids that come through,” he said. “I’ve hired quite a few people over the years who said they first got introduced and found out about the trades at this event. We love coming to this. It really grabs their attention.”

Manitoba Hydro and the Manitoba Masonry Institute — and other such organizations — pay full-time wages to apprenticeship students and virtually guarantee them jobs when they graduate.

Laurie Edel, guidance counsellor at Morris High School, and Shawna Stevenson, guidance counsellor at Rosenort High School, brought a total of 57 students to the event.

“I think it’s tremendous,” said Edel. “I first attended in 2018, when I loaded up six students in my seven-person van. Now, we’ve got a whole bus load because, over the years, the students who attended spoke about how great it was.”

Morris and schools are part of the Red River Technical Vocational Area, where five schools pool resources, each offering differing vocational programming without overlap. Transportation is provided for the students who want to be part of a program not offered at their school.

Stevenson said they only bring the students who are interested in construction and the trades to the Career Expo.

“That’s one of the beauties of being at a small school,” she said. “We know all the students.”

Hambley said workforce development is “still the No. 1 issue for every contractor.” As such, many employers are recruiting all the time.

“Whether we can find someone already skilled in Canada or overseas, that’s one thing,” said Hambley. “Encouraging youth to take a look at construction jobs is a huge opportunity for us. It’s a huge piece of the puzzle.”

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca