Firm promotes trades as career choice

Author: Frank Matys

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Frank Matys

High school students from Gravenhurst recently toured Industrial Park Collision in Orillia as part of a program that promotes skilled trades as a viable career option. Pictured with the students is general manager Michael Repath.

Rebecca Stevenson doesn’t shy from a little grime.
Stevenson’s family runs a plumbing business, and at 15 the Gravenhurst student has her sights firmly set on a career in the skilled trades.
“I’m not like the average girl, where I don’t want to get dirty,” she said during a recent field trip to a local auto body shop. “I’m more of a hands-on type of girl.”
Stevenson was among 30 Gravenhurst High School students who toured Industrial Park Collision to learn more about an industry hungry for skilled labour.
“It is a dying trade,” said Joy Skinner, owner of the local business.
Skinner attributes the deepening shortage of qualified technicians to an aging workforce and the phasing out of trades programs at high schools, which can ill afford to outfit their shops with the equipment necessary to satisfy the industry’s increasingly stringent environmental standards.
“(Students) are not as driven in our direction because of the cost of the equipment, the technology involved and the amount of space needed,” she added.
The dearth of skilled workers is hardly limited to the auto repair industry, said teacher Andrew Churchward, head of the school’s “discovery in the workplace” class.
“There is a huge shortage of trades throughout Ontario and Canada,” he added. “A lot of kids don’t have the drive or the ability to go on to post-secondary education. (In pursuing a skilled trade) there is still some (schooling) that they need to do, but it is more hands-on.”
Orillian George Guppy teaches wood and metal work at the Gravenhurst-based school, and said the age-old stigma associated with the trades remains.
“We are trying to change that,” he said. “Everybody always wanted you to go to university, but there is good money in the trades.”
Skinner concurred.
“When times are tough, trades keep going,” she added.
The sentiment is one echoed loudly by Simcoe North MPP Garfield Dunlop, who continues to campaign for a separate ministry overseeing Ontario’s skilled trades.
The standalone department would “champion trades and skills development, as opposed to being one section of their ministry,” he said. “Have a minister go on a construction site, or into a manufacturing plant where there is tool and dye. When was the last time that happened?”

According to Dunlop, a plumber by trade, the shortage of skilled workers is nearing “crises” proportions, he added.
“We have a huge percentage of people coming to retirement and there aren’t the people to replace them,” he said. “We can develop a lot of really good people. Some of these kids, all they need is a chance.”
Skinner strongly supports the proposal.
“We need small business and we need people who can work in the service industries,” she said.
For her part, Skinner works with high schools to attract potential candidates for the future, offering co-op placements and, for those who take to the job, apprenticeships.
“They are bright, bright people, and it is the choice they have made,” she added. “It is important for kids to understand there is no stigma attached to what you do in life. If you love what you are doing, you are going to be happy.”
Employees receive training at the company’s expense, attending college twice annually for three years to earn their certification.
Staff receives 40 or more hours of additional training every year.
“We want to ensure they stay at a level in order to be able to repair cars with the kind of technology they have today,” Skinner added.
Operating out of two buildings with 12,000 square feet of combined space, the local business repairs and refinishes damaged vehicles referred by insurance companies.
Jobs range from those tiny but costly dings to the aftermath of disastrous run-ins with deer.
“It is a tremendously rewarding industry,” Skinner added. “We want to introduce it to young people to give new blood to the industry and make sure we have young, well-trained people.”