The Campus Brome-Missisquoi (CBM) hosted the Olympiades Regional in Welding and Fitting last Friday. The local event is about promoting and highlighting professional training programs and vocational trades. 

The Welding and Fitting Competition saw eight students in the welding and fitting program representing the four vocational centres in the Eastern Townships - the CBM, the Lennoxville Vocational Training Centre, the Centre de formation professionnelle 24-Juin, and the Centre Expé (Windsor) - put their knowledge and skills to the test. 

The students that participated were asked to complete four projects according to specific requirements to demonstrate various procedures used in the trade of welding and fitting.

After a full day of welding, CBM student Josué Snyder accumulated the most points to take home the gold medal. He will be representing the Eastern Townships region at the provincial competition, the Olympiades québécoises des métiers et des technologies, taking place in Quebec City from May 11-12. The provincial event is followed by a national competition and a world competition.

“Every four years, just like the Olympics, Compétences Québec, which is an organization that really looks at all the different professional training programs and vocational trades, they launch an Olympics. In the province of Quebec, any program can decide oh yes please, I’d like to participate,” explained Lisa Payne, assistant director of CBM. “This year, in our centre, we had the welding and fitting department say me, me, me, us, us, please!”

The first step in the Olympics is to really find candidates in house, added Payne.

“We had our teacher Sébastien Jodoin, who is very committed, loves what he does, and encourages students, this is a lot of work for him. He came in on weekends and it’s a big commitment for the students as well to start training for the Olympics,” she said. “We originally had five students in our centre and we wanted to find the two best ones or the two that were really going to show off their best skills. And sure enough we came up with Josué Snyder and Jérémy Waltz.”

There were four different events, "which is really taking them through their program and different kinds of welding," continued Payne.

“There’s TIG, MIG, aluminum, and stainless. They had projects that they had to do and sustain very serious parameters around those projects, and obviously on a time limit,” she noted. 

Students were given drawings and they had to “recreate” whatever was being depicted in each drawing. 

“They have to put in practice everything that they’ve learned in terms of reading a plan, making sure their measurements are correct. They have to make sure they’re applying the right heat, the right style, the right pressure, all of that,” explained Payne. “The projects weren’t something necessarily that you’d take home. (…) It’s not something very useful necessarily. It could be a part for a car or it could be a part that you’d use in some kind of industrial sense.”

The students’ projects were all judged by professionals in the field. They decided to award the gold medal to Snyder and the silver medal to Alexis Lagrandeur from Centre Expé. They will both represent the Eastern Townships at the provincial competition in May. The bronze medal was awarded to Maxime Halstead from Centre 24-Juin. 

“We had one gentlemen that has been a judge in Switzerland in this competition and whose been a judge in the States. It was all very, very high bar stuff,” mentioned Payne. “(…) He (Synder) had the most points. Each project would basically start with a total amount of points and they would deduct points for different errors and things.”

With a national and world competition to follow the provincials, Payne described the events as “prestigious."

“It’s really a great way to shine light on vocational trades. For us being the host, I’m not going to lie it was a bit stressful and a lot of work for sure, but we got a lot of people into our centre which is always great thing,” she said. “It really opens people’s eyes to the magic that can happen when students are so engaged and involved in what they are doing.”

Payne noted that there are “so many possibilities” for students that participate in the events. 

“Just for our regional competition that we held on Friday, we did have sponsors come in and give all sorts of gifts to all the participants, there were some bursaries awarded as well from different sponsors. At the national level, then again at the world level, and also the provincial level, there’s all of those opportunities as well for sponsors to come in and fill jobs, people coming in to say ‘hey, come and work for us, this is what we can offer you,’ as well as bursaries. The list goes on,” said Payne. “A lot of students come into welding to then go do something else afterwards.”

If she had "one wish or a magic wand," said Payne, it would be that the perception of trades and vocational training would shift.

“I think we can see it in the government. Ministre Drainville (Minister of Education) has decided to put forth I think its $81 million over the next five years into professional training. People can sort of get a job anywhere these days with the lack of personnel, but it’s really important to get in and get the proper training. When you’re here, so many things are open to you,” she said.

Payne also spoke with CIDI about the other professional training programs and vocational trades offered at CBM. For more information, listen to the full interview below:

For more information on CBM, visit the website.