By CRM staff
Toronto, Ontario — May 10, 2019 — Attracting and encouraging young talent to the industry of collision repair is one of the sole purposes of the Skills competitions. At this years Ontario Skills competition thousands of students filled the Toronto Congress Centre, and a number of collision repair industry representatives volunteered their time to judge the autobody and auto painting competitions.
“This event is not only a competition where high school students put their skills against others but a forum to learn about careers in the skilled trade industry,” said the monomynous Carl Jr., Assured Automotive business development support manager. “We want to support the students in the actual competition, but this event also gives us an opportunity to help bolster our trade and help young people see what we actually do.”
For the autobody competition, chair of the event Bill Speed said the turnout exceeded last years numbers. “Generally, the competition went really well, all the competitors were really strong this year. The turnout was strong too. Our numbers went up from eight to 11 this year. The turnout for spectators was pretty high as well,” he said.
Students had to section in a rocker panel, as well as perform straight measurements with aluminum and silicon bronze welding. Toronto secondary student Jordan Johnson took home gold, along with Fanshawe college student Nick Stanov for the post-secondary division. Johnson and Stanov now have the chance to compete in the Skills Canada National Competition, which is to be held in Halifax on May 28 – 29.
Many members of the industry also volunteered their equipment, tools, materials and time as judges for this event. Without this donation of time and resources, co-chair of the autobody competition Bill Speed says the competition couldn’t have taken place.
Assured Automotive, Absolute Solutions, Flatliner, 3M Canada, Excellence Auto, Miller Electric, and CSN were just some of the companies involved in the set-up of the event.
Fix Auto had also set up a booth to attract even more students passing-by, to the trade.
“These are our future technicians. People from the industry that are coming out, supporting and judging, that’s an opportunity for them to scout out an employee and hire them down the road. That’s why we do it,” Speed said.
Aside from the competition students had an opportunity to see what the job of an auto painter is really like. The Skills Canada Collision Repair Program set up a virtual spray paint booth for anyone walking by to give it a try.
“It’s a great learning tool and it helps give the general public a better understanding of what we do every day,” said Carl Jr.
