High schoolers get in-person look at trades at Tilbury plant

TILBURY – Area high schoolers got a taste of the skilled trades as Manufacturing Day returned in-person to a company here Nov. 2.

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AWC Manufacturing LP gave Tilbury District and Chatham-Kent secondary schools a tour of the operation and let them try their hand at welding.

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“We enjoy doing this,” said AWC general manager Matt Saby.

Students also saw parts cut using a plasma cutter, steel shaped with a 600-ton brake press and large fabricated parts for the mining industry being made at the plant.

“Manufacturing is not dead, it’s alive,” Saby said.

Manufacturing Day is a great opportunity for students to see what is being done in manufacturing today and what the future could hold for them, he added.

Tilbury District 11th-grader Daniel Knelsen, 16, who tried welding for the first time, believes he could learn welding pretty quickly with the right experience and training.

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“It’s definitely better and easier to understand doing hands-on learning,” Knelsen said.

“I think it’s pretty cool and a unique experience to kind of get a feeling of what the workspace would be like,” he added.

Fellow TDHS student Noah Friesen, 16, also enjoyed the tour. “The things they make are pretty cool,” he said.

He’s not settled on a career path, but Friesen said what interests him about manufacturing is: “The satisfaction of making these pieces and then you put it all together and you make something that is usable.”

AWC employee Gerry Pynenbrouck shared his nearly 50 years of welding experience as he showed students some basics.

With a shortage of skilled trades people looming in virtually all sectors across Ontario, he is glad Manufacturing Day is back.

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“It’s a good thing, because the trades are definitely suffering and it’s going to suffer more. . . if we don’t get some younger tradespeople in the field,” Pynenbrouck said.

Trade work is “what you make out of it, like any job, if you got the right mindset,” he said.

Ken Bolohan, a TDHS technology teacher who worked for years in home construction, said he tells students “the skilled trades have become a lot cleaner.”

Processes have become more automated and tools have improved, he said. “It just makes your work life a lot easier and less strain on the body.”

After discussing with the class the preparation work required before actually manufacturing something, students “are starting to get it” when they see parts being built at AWC Manufacturing, Bolohan said.

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The manufacturing process includes information technology and engineering components, along with quality control, Saby said. “It’s quite expansive.”

There’s also “opportunity galore” to grow in the field, said the general manager, who came up through the ranks in 18 years with AWC.

The in-person Manufacturing Day was organized by Chatham-Kent Economic Development Services after a few tears of virtual events amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Economic development officer Rosemarie Montgomery said coming off COVID, they began with a condensed, one-day version of Manufacturing Day at AWC.

Having students visit and gets some hands-on experience “shows them what a career in a manufacturing facility could look like,” she said.

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