A Bay of Plenty Directional Drilling company is connecting to a bright future with three employees the first in the region to achieve Civil Trade Certification in Pipeline Construction and Maintenance – Trenchless.
Christopher Te Moananui, Shane Brown and Nicolas Heier of Coastal Cabling are the first to complete their Civil Trade Certification in Pipeline Construction and Maintenance – Trenchless in the Waikato/BoP area, much to the delight of company director Brent Rae.
They have decades of experience in trenchless pipeline installation between them and can now say all that skills and knowledge has been recognised with an official qualification.
Prior to 2015, workers in civil infrastructure had no industry-wide, standardised, transferable trade qualification, despite it being one of the largest industries in New Zealand. In December 2015 new Civil Trades qualifications were introduced which standardised industry skills, and allowed workers to qualify while they worked.
Brent Rae says he’s extremely proud of his three staff saying it is an outstanding recognition of their skills and experience, and he is thrilled that their success is inspiring other staff to work toward Trade Certification.
“You see a real sense of pride in the guys and there’s a flow-on effect in other staff. It gives them something to aim for.”
Brent adds that having staff go through the certification process will be really beneficial to the business. “It means there is a standardised level of skill, and potential customers know exactly what our team can do.
“I would definitely recommend other employers to support their staff through the industry certification process.”
One of the newly-qualified workers Christopher Te Moananui agrees, “I’m an assessor myself so I’m really passionate about people getting qualified. And since I’m assessing other people it is really important to me to have this qualification.” He adds that he is looking to continue his study and training further.
Nicolas Heier says it is great to see experienced workers having their skills recognised with Civil Trades Certification, and thinks it can only benefit the industry to have some standardised training. “This industry has always run on word of mouth, now it’s nice to know you have a qualification that demonstrates exactly what you can do.”
Shane Brown says that having the qualification helps people outside the industry have an understanding of what skills a company or an individual has, and he “absolutely” recommends other infrastructure workers look at gaining certification. “If they have those years of experience, why wouldn’t you?”
Coastal Cabling supported the trio through their training, making sure they were able to attend off-site courses where necessary and working closely with Connexis, the Industry Training Organisation (ITO) for the Infrastructure sector to ensure they all stayed on track.
