Page 20 - Climate Control News Magazine June 2022

NextGen 2022
Jack Hamilton almost became a plumber but was lucky enough to land an apprenticeship at AJ Baker & Sons.
The 21 year old is a fourth year apprentice and will complete his trade in December. “I came in straight from school,” Jack said.
“We are lucky here we get plenty of training and support. We also get to use a lot of new tech- nology.” Jack just won Apprentice of the Year at AJ Baker & Sons and is looking forward to doing more work with transcritical CO2 systems.
“I really enjoy the refrigeration side of the busi- ness and we get to do a lot of commercial work here,” he said. Jack is keen to keep learning and is hopeful he will be able to stay at AJ Baker & Sons once he completes his trade.
Ryan Harris is already well known as a World- Skills competitor winning the silver medal in 2020. He joined Airmaster 18 months ago and has completed his apprenticeship.
The 22 year old was previously employed by ETS Refrigeration.
‘At my last job I did a lot of refrigeration and I joined Airmaster to learn about commercial air conditioning,” Ryan said. “I wanted to do big air- con and now I am doing CRAC units, chillers, big fan coil jobs.”
He also gets to work with a big team of techni- cians with 30 staff based in Canberra alone.
“A lot more young people are becoming aware of this trade which is good,” he said. “It has defi- nitely changed a lot compared to when I first started. Back then people didn’t know the trade existed.”
“A LOT MORE YOUNG PEOPLE ARE BECOMING AWARE OF THIS TRADE WHICH IS GOOD.”
Woolworths apprentice Mitch Hart turns 21 next month and is happy to be in the second year of a career that he loves. Although he initially had plans to be a sparky, he discovered refrigera- tion and air conditioning because his best mate’s brother became a fridgie.
“I really think this job was meant for me I plan to make it a life long career,” Mitch said.
He is currently part of the install team work- ing at new stores and moving old ones over to
Co2. “I get my hands on all the new stuff and when we redo a store we do it from the ground up which is awesome,” he said.
“We also work with really experienced older technicians that teach us a lot.”
Ryen Imrie is a 23 year old chiller and data technician employed at Airvision.
He joined the company straight out of school. In fact Ryen was one of the lucky ones because his father was already working in the industry.
This meant his father was able to organise work experience for Ryen at Airvision.
He has completed his apprenticeship and wants to continue working with chillers for a few more years.
“There is still more to learn,” he said. “There is never a dull day in this trade because this type of work is always challenging. There are also a lot of options to keep it interesting from installation work to repairs or services.”
First year apprentice, Oliver Keitlan, said it isn’t an easy trade because there is a lot to learn. “But that is what makes it so great. I am always
being challenged,” he said.
“I had other jobs in high school that were so bor-
ing I just watched the clock. But with this job the day passes really quickly because I am so busy.”
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