January 6, 2010

RON STANG

Electrical panels are just one type of work station at St. Clair College’s new Centre for Construction.

Skills training

Windsor, Ontario’s St. Clair College opens Centre for Construction, Innovation and Production

RON STANG

Correspondent

WINDSOR, Ont.

Electrical students will no longer have to share storage cradles with heating, ventilation and air conditioning students. Those studying to become plumbing apprentices won’t have to “imagine” certain construction scenarios and pretend to do hook-ups.

St. Clair College’s new $9.2 million Centre for Construction, Innovation and Production brings those and other trades out of the “high school-plus” era and into a building that provides the kind of space, training and equipment that simulates real world work environments.

The ribbon was cut on the centre last fall, a gift of the provincial government and for economically hard-pressed Windsor it couldn’t have come at a better time.

That’s because the city’s unemployment rate topped more than 15 per cent in 2009, hundreds of unemployed auto workers are seeking new trades, and pending are significant infrastructure projects such as a new Windsor-Detroit bridge and a six-lane freeway connecting it to Highway 401.

These projects — the most expensive in Ontario history — are scheduled to get underway late this year.

Robert Chittim, chairman of the college’s School of Skilled Trades, says the centre is a big improvement in hands-on training.

“The old college shops were sort of high school-plus,” he says. “But now we’re able to put a lot of different things in here and certainly bring the technology up.”

Indeed, a tour of the facility shows it has plenty of room for students who can learn at numerous work stations in a variety of realistic industrial and residential settings.

At first glance, there is row upon row of cubicles. They look like any school lab except they’re outfitted with the equipment one would find on a shop floor or on a residential construction site.

“Instead of trying to have five (students) all working together on one thing now we can have individuals — up to 26 students in a lab — each assigned to their own area,” Chittim says.

For example, one section has a row of empty frame-like cubicles. But each of these is a work station simulating a rec room or bathroom in a house under construction. The cubicles consist of aluminum stud frames. There are holes through which students learn to pull wires and connect to light fixtures, receptacles and circuit boxes. In the plumbing area, they can install wastewater pipes, water hook-ups, toilets and sinks.

Once an electrical circuit panel gets built, the student and instructor each have separate locks for safety purposes.

The instructor inspects the student’s electrical installation before power is turned on. Strategically placed along the aisle, there is a bright red emergency stop so that power can be cut off.

There are even cubicles with gravel floors where students have to dig down to find things like a sewer clean- out.

Chittim stressed the facility is not just for training apprentices.

Programs have been added for those wanting to learn the basics of carpentry, electricity, power engineering and plumbing so they have a good foundation to begin apprenticeships. During two-semester sessions, as they rotate among the trade courses, they learn such things as how to use hand and power tools, building, plumbing and electrical codes, and to read blueprints or electrical schematics.

This kind of training is valuable to an employer because the employer doesn’t have to invest in training an off-of-the-street apprentice in the fundamentals and then risk losing that person for performance reasons or if the individual decides to drop out.

Dave Holek, president of Lekter Industrial Services Inc., who chairs the college’s plumbing advisory committee, says this kind of training had never been offered locally before. He sits on the industry’s joint apprenticeship committee and regularly reviews apprenticeship applications.

“A lot of people come to us with really no training or previous training,” he says.

“So our committee thought this was fabulous. We may in fact, along the way, make this a prerequisite to applying.”

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