The month of September has seen the culmination of many months of planning to provide I-CAR Welding Certification to Car Craft NSW Southern Region Owners in Canberra ACT. Thanks to Car Craft NSW business development manager Cliff Reed for this report.
Usually, the certification is held at specific locations around the country, but when Car Craft NSW Southern Region reached out to see ifI-CAR could provide the Welding Certification locally in Canberra both Jason Trewin and Geoff Mitchell from I-CAR rose to the challenge.
Mitchell travelled to Canberra from Queensland for the week to facilitate the first of two welding certification modules, with the second taking place in October.
While the practice day was underway Mitchell imparted his wealth of knowledge to all students and answered any questions they had, giving them the best lead into the certification day they could get.
The feedback from the participants was extremely positive, with all improving their skills each day.
A training program like this requires a venue capable of meetingI-CAR’s needs in terms of welding bays, tools, fume extraction, welding screens and benching to accommodate the groups of five to 10 students per day.
Given the strong relationship between Car Craft NSW Southern Region and the Canberra Institute of Technology (CIT), it was a no brainer to approach the CIT to see if there would be an opportunity to work together on this. CIT is best placed to host this event due to the size of the venue and equipment levels housed in one spot.
Evan Street, Adrian Gibbons, Mark Caldwell, and Brian Hogan from the CIT have been eager to engage with industry and this event presented a perfect opportunity to do so.
Having everything in one location reduced the organisational load for Car Craft enormously, Street and Caldwell went above and beyond to accommodate us in every way possible from cutting the metal coupons (literally in the thousands) to providing additional tools where needed, and even installing new power outlets to accommodate the Car-O-Liner welding machines.
At the eleventh hour, we found ourselves in a position where our equipment provision hit a snag. So, we reached out to another friend of the industry and Car Craft, - Car-O-Liner to see if there was anything they could do to help. And to true form they quickly came back to us with an outstanding solution.
Julie Thomas and Peter Pfenning organised five brand new Car-O-Liner CMI273 pulse twin Iinverter welders to be delivered for the duration of the two certification weeks in September and October.
Pfenning delivered these to the CIT personally prior to the event and ensured that everything was set up ready to go.
The response speed and level of support with which Pfenning was able to assist our group with our requirements was exceptional and greatly appreciated.
All of the above demonstrates the strength of relationships between Car Craft and its suppliers, business partners, and training partners, the ACT CIT and I-CAR.
The opportunity to help one another to achieve outcomes that ultimately improves the education of our technicians and expanding the existing relationships with the Car Craft owners was more successful than we anticipated, and our expectations were exceeded beyond anything we could have envisaged.