Sarnia home to medal-winning steamfitter apprentice

Alex Whitson, a Sarnia-area steamfitter apprentice with Local 663, won a gold medal at a Skills Ontario competition in Toronto in early May and followed that a few weeks later with a silver medal at Skills Canada in Winnipeg.

“It was pretty cool,” Whitson said.

While there were thousands of people attending the competitions, Whitson said he hardly noticed them as he worked on the projects.

“You’re so focused just trying your hardest to go and go, and get’er done,” he said.

Local 663 of the United Association of Steamfitters, Plumbers and Welders, has sent competitors to the provincial event in the past, said training coordinator Jeremy Kuykendall.

“Last year we got second in Ontario and this year we got first in Ontario and second in Canada,” he said.

The national event was held at the RBC Center in Winnipeg and included 49 different skill competitions, Kuykendall said.

On the first day of one of the competitions, Whitson had to pipe a heat transfer unit on a steam exchanger and then a hot water transfer unit from the same exchanger on the second day, Kuykendall said.

“There are valves and different types of joining methods with press-fit connections, threaded connections – all hand-made threaded connections – and working with two-inch and three-quarter-inch pipe,” he said.

“They had to bend tubing that was half-inch thick for the gauges and they had to do all of their tie-ins to fit, and they had to do all of this off a 3D model on an iPad.”

Whitson said his initial reaction was, “I can’t see this getting done” in the time allotted.

“There’s a lot to it – a lot of pipe.”

“The drawings were kind of vague and also made to trick you a little bit on some things,” he said.

Whitson said he decided to work hard and try and do as much as he could, as well as he could, and in the end he was able to finish on time.

“He was stoked,” Kuykendall said about Whitson’s reaction to winning gold.

“He was so happy that he won that competition that he came back in the next day and was doing everything in his power to study up for the next one.”

Whitson said he went to work as a machinist following high school in Sarnia but applied for a Local 663 apprenticeship after several years because of the ability to earn a higher income.

He’s now a third-year apprentice.

Kuykendall said Whitson will be traveling to Montreal for the union’s own national competition.

Locally, Lambton College provides in-school training for the trade with supplemental training provided by Local 663, Kuykendall said.

“It really showcases the level of training that an apprentice is able to achieve when they put their mind to it,” he said about Whitson’s medal-winning performances.

There are 220 apprentices and 1,600 active members at Local 663.

“We’re sitting right were we need to be,” Kuykendall said about the number of apprentices, but added that could change if several large industrial projects proposed for the area move ahead.

“We have the best and brightest applicants every single year to get into this profession,” he said.

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