Automotive Competition Held At Confederation College
by Scott A. Sumner
Thunder Bay Business
Phil Bailey has been the coordinator of the Motor Power division at Confederation College for 12 years.Confederation College has programs in automotive and heavy equipment as well as apprenticeships. You can be become a Class A mechanic by getting some post secondary training to get some skills so you first can go into the workforce and get an apprenticeship. You then come back and get some additional training over the next 4 years. Each level builds on the last one. The apprenticeship gives the hands on skills and the college provide the theory. The post secondary training is two semesters or 36 weeks with the last two weeks an pprenticeship. It takes 3 to 5 years and some 4000 to 8000 hours to prove competency and become a Class A mechanic. In the Motor Power Division at Confederation College there are 160 students in a normal year, many from the Northwestern Ontario region.“ We are running a high school skills competition today. There are 8 students from 3 high schools in Thunder Bay performing tasks at 4 work stations. At one they are disassembling brakes, another working
on a starter motor doing electrical testing and component identification,” states Phil Bailey. “ It is complex job. We need a high level of student today, the student who would typically go on to
university with good analytical and reasoning skills.”Bailey started at one of the local dealerships as a lot person, oil change and tire change person and progressed to service Manager. “ There is a lot of opportunity in the Motor Power field. There are new technologies coming on stream including hydrogen fuel and electric vehicles. The amount of electronics in the vehicles has grown exponentially,” smiled Bailey. It is a interesting career that is really not that physically demanding. In the heavy equipment things can get heavy but they use the right tools so it is not a problem.”
