WorldSkills Australia Nationals – Brisbane 2010 – Welding

Eddie is from Denman which is in the Hunter Valley of NSW (wine and mining region). He became interested in the trade after watching his father do welding repairs on the family farm (they have beef cattle and hay).

He did some night time TAFE courses after school and at the end of year 10, he looked for an apprenticeship. At the time he did some work experience with a local engineering company and they ended up taking him on.

Eddie now works on mining equipment (mainly on the technical side). He likes the challenge of the trade. In particular, he enjoyed doing his pressure ticket.

Sue, his WorldSkills team leader, thinks he’ll win gold. He’s been training for 3 days a week at TAFE for the last year.  Last time he competed at the Nationals, he came 4th out of 24 (3.5 marks between him and first place). So he’s keen to do better this time. This time around he knows what to expect but doesn’t want to get nervous by thinking about it too much.  He says it’s good to have the plastic sheet between you and the crowd, you can’t see out and people can’t see you.

Eddie says that to be good at the trade you’ve got to be interested, like the job and want to learn. He says that WorldSkills has expanded his skills dramatically through the training camps and working with the world’s best trainers. He believes that the quality of his work is continually improving.

In the future, Eddie hopes to be in the technical side, teaching welding and passing it all on to the younger generations.