February 17, 2010

Qualified tradespeople can go in many directions, Algonquin College students told

KORKY KOROLUK

correspondent

OTTAWA

Qualifying in one of the construction trades can lead to a satisfying career, high school and college students were told recently. But being a tradesman doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll spend your working life on the jobsite.

“A qualified tradesman can go in several directions,” said John DeVries, president of the Ottawa Construction Association. “It opens up the chance to start your own business, or to return to a family-owned business.”

DeVries was speaking at Career Week at Algonquin College — a week highlighting opportunities in fields as diverse as construction and health, media and the hospitality industry. Construction led off the week.

In a fast-moving slide show, DeVries mentioned a dozen or more family-run firms founded a generation, or two or three generations ago by a single tradesman, or perhaps a pair of brothers. In many cases, he pointed out, the people now running those firms were relatives who qualified for a trade first, then, after gaining some experience, went back to their family firm.

In a one-hour presentation (repeated later in the day) DeVries mentioned trade after trade, showing students slides of workers in the field. For some, the high degree of specialization came as news. Pouring concrete involves much more than just pouring concrete, they learned, and carpentry breaks down into a number of specialties.

DeVries mentioned many engineering specialties, again surprising youngsters who weren’t aware that so many sorts of engineers can be involved in the design and construction of a building.

Afterwards, one audience member said he had started to count the different occupations as they were mentioned. There were more than 40, he said, in a one-hour presentation.

Algonquin College is already home to an extensive suite of construction-related programs, and just across the street, work on the Centre for Construction Excellence is in full swing, aiming for an opening date in the fall of 2011. When finished, all the college’s construction programs will be housed there.

The college already runs 19 full-time construction-related programs, plus 13 evening and weekend programs. More programs are being planned to coincide with the opening of the new centre

The new facility will be a 180,000-square-foot structure, costing about $79 million and housing about 2,500 student spaces — 600 more than the college has now. It will serve not only as a training area, but as a showcase for environmentally sound construction.

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