Machinists find variety of careers with hands-on trade
3/9/2011 2:16:29 PM
Baie Verte/Placentia - Growing up in Renews, Jennifer Dunne spent a lot of time hanging out with her dad in the shed. She always knew she’d end up in the trades but didn’t know which one, until she went to visit one of her dad’s friends, a machinist, at work one day.
“It looked interesting and I applied for it, got into it, enjoyed it and kept with it,” she says.
Jennifer trained to be a machinist at College of the North Atlantic’s Placentia campus, graduating in 2004 and stepping right into the workforce. Now, she works in Memorial University’s Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science in the technical services shop. She operates a CNC lathe, creating just about anything the engineering students can dream up.
“You draw it up on the screen and it’s all sent through the computer to the machine - it’s very, very interesting,” she says. “You start in the morning with a chunk of aluminum and by the end of the day you have a part that can go in a machine and make the machine work.”
Jennifer’s done everything from making airplane parts to grinding rocks for geology students, and she recommends the career for anyone who’s looking for a hands-on job.
“If you’re interested in working with your hands it’s definitely something you should think about.”
Sheldon Biggin took his machinist training in a different direction. Like Dunne, he always knew he was interested in working with metal or equipment, but he thought he wanted to be a welder. When he discovered machining, he knew he’d found his niche.
“You have to be a hands-on person – the type who’s into fixing stuff like your car or your skidoo,” he says. “It just so happened that the course came up and I had friends of mine that did it a couple of years prior to me.” He signed up for the pre-apprenticeship program at the Baie Verte campus, finished his program in 1999 and went out to Alberta to find work.
“I put out 33 resumes and it was three weeks before I had a phone call,” he says, noting that when he finally got a job it was because he had learned to use a CNC lathe at CNA. “I put that on my resume and they were looking for someone who knew that machine. I definitely wouldn’t have got it without the pre-apprenticeship program.”
Sheldon completed his apprenticeship, earning his Red Seal in 2002, and then quickly moved up in the company. Within a few years he had become a supervisor and then a manager, before deciding finally to become his own boss.
In 2006 Sheldon teamed up with co-worker Wade Anderson, who also happened to be a CNA grad, to start Shadow Machining and Welding in Fort McMurray. Wade had taken the Machinist certificate program at CNA in Placentia.
“Ninety per cent of our work is onsite machining and welding on mining equipment and construction equipment,” says Sheldon. “We work on 400-tonne heavy haulers and excavators with 59-yard buckets on them. Once you work on them for a while you get used to it, it’s just another piece of equipment, but first when I started working on them it was like two houses going down the road.”
Sheldon says there’s a sense of purpose that comes with working on the gigantic machines.
“In a transmission or axle, or any pivot point or a hydraulic cylinder, we’re repairing those parts when they fail. It’s all precision machine holes. So what we have to do is go in and re-weld the hole and then machine it back (so it’s) round again.”
While Sheldon spent a few weeks looking for work when he first went to Alberta, he says it’s much easier to get a job out there now.
“In Edmonton alone there are 300 machine shops,” he says. For machinists who would rather stay in Newfoundland and Labrador, there’s also plenty of opportunity to build a career here at home.
“As industrial activity increases significantly in Newfoundland and Labrador we are seeing a growing need for machinists both in the maintenance and manufacturing sectors,” says Sean Power, vice president of the DF Barnes Group, a company that manufactures and services offshore, marine and industrial equipment. “Machinists are becoming very hard to find so we would encourage mechanically inclined students to consider this career, which provides a very good salary these days.”
CNA offers a one-year Machinist certificate program at its campuses in Baie Verte and Placentia.
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Media Contact:
Gina MacArthur
Public Information Officer
College of the North Atlantic
Ph: 709-643-7928
gina.macarthur@cna.nl.ca