Apprenticeship pathways for Jurnee, Joel
Apprentices in Taranaki have a wide variety of business environments in which to learn their trade, from working alongside an owner-tradesman to a role within a large company team.
Those ends of the spectrum are represented by the two apprentice profiles here – Jurnee Corrigan, who is employed by New Plymouth plumber-drainlayer Dom Cooksley-Gruys; and Joel Campbell, who is one of seven apprentices learning their trade at Fonterra in Hawera.
is in her final year of her four-year plumbing and gasfitting apprenticeship and working with Dom in his Pipe Dreams Plumbing and Drainlaying business. She’s loving what she does, but that appreciation wasn’t exactly there when she began her trade.
‘‘The job found me,’’ she explains. ‘‘I didn’t think anything of it at the start … just a job. But I fell in love with it.’’
The nature of the work won her over. ‘‘I’m a real physical, hands-on person . . . not an office-type-job person. I enjoy the constant hard work, and being outside.’’
Variety of work and skills makes her job very satisfying, she says. ‘‘A lot of work goes into plumbing. Some people see it as ‘just a plumber’, someone playing with poo all day. But there’s so much more to it that it’s not funny.’’
A block course in Wellington this past week illustrated the variety … learning about ventilation. ‘‘I’m doing things now that I’d not thought a plumber would do … we fill the gaps in the other trades. I’d never really thought about ventilation until I was handed the study guide.’’
That variety means her work is different all the time. ‘‘It’s not day-to-day doing the same thing.’’
At the start, she thought she might have had comments like ‘You’re a girl and this isn’t a girl’s job’. ‘‘But I got treated as one of the boys … just a person doing a job. And I’m happy with that.’’
Jurnee started her apprenticeship in Hawera initially, but subsequently transferred that to Dom’s Pipe Dreams business when she wanted to move north to New Plymouth. She can see the opportunity eventually of travelling overseas and working there as a plumber to gain further experience.
‘‘Having a trade under your belt is one of the biggest things. And as an apprentice, you work and learn at the same time … that’s the best way to go.’’
While Jurnee was never interested in university studies, she gets her share of formal education as part of her apprenticeship. ‘‘There’s a lot of theory and study involved … I sit papers three times a year … but it’s a do-able amount and the rest of the time I’m working, doing things out in the big wide world and getting paid for it.’’
Dom had the advantage of knowing Jurnee’s work ethic before she began working for him. ‘‘We both represented New Zealand at karate and she did work experience with me before starting her apprenticeship.’’
He is emphatic about the value of an apprentice in a business. ‘‘Apprentices are key to any trade business. They are awesome – especially the young, keen ones.’’
All one-man-band businesses should realise how much they can achieve by training someone up to how they want a project done, he adds. ‘‘It’s very satisfying, training someone all the way through.’’
Having an apprentice has been a godsend, he adds. ‘‘There’s only one of me and the extra set of hands is amazing. Jurnee has been working for me for almost a year and the amount of extra work done since she came on board is outstanding.’’
Working on new houses and renovations this past year has complemented Jurnee’s previous experience with maintenance and gas work, he says. ‘‘She’s now at the point she can plumb out a whole new house from start to finish, including all the drainage, by herself.’’
While more women are now entering traditional trades, Dom says he has met just one other female plumber. ‘‘But in 2017, people realise that girls can do anything. It’s 100 per cent individual ability!’’ shop in Hawera,’’ Joel explains. The Campbell and Purser Engineering business began in his grandfather’s time, and Joel used to work there as a youth.
That didn’t mean he automatically focused on engineering as a career choice. ‘‘I was looking to be a carpenter, but my father said ‘No, you don’t want to be a carpenter’. So I tried engineering through Gateway at school.’’
That put him on the metal pathway rather than wood. ‘‘I quite enjoyed it,’’ he admits, ‘‘or I wouldn’t be doing it now.’’
The combination of hands-on work and theory appealed to him. ‘‘There’s a lot more theory than people realise … you have to stop and think about all that the job involves and it’s satisfying when you get it right.’’
Joel has obviously been getting things right. At the recent ETC Apprenntice of the Year awards, he won the award for best junior apprentice in the Mechanical Engineering - Maintenance, Fitting and Machining category, was third in the Competenz eLearning Trainee of the Year