Pre-employment program helps Calgary resident start instrumentation career For more than a year, Devin Danielson tried to get into the instrumentation field, but companies wouldn’t hire him because he didn’t have experience. The 34-year-old was working in safety in the oil patch, a job that kept him away from home half the year. He wanted a change and thought instrumentation would be a great fit. “I talked to people in the industry and they said there are lots of different career paths and every day is different and challenging. It really appealed to me,” he says. But no one would hire him as an apprentice, so the Calgary resident went looking for training but couldn’t find anything in his hometown or even in southern Alberta. Eventually he found Lakeland College’s pre-employment instrumentation program and enrolled last fall. After 12 weeks in class at the Vermilion campus, he returned to Calgary and spent four weeks completing a practicum at Tarpon Energy Services. “When companies see you have taken pre-employment training, they’ll take a chance on you,” says Danielson. He made the most of his chance. After his practicum, Tarpon Energy Services offered him a full-time job.
Devin Danielson works through an assignment with instructor Wayne Jeffrey in the instrumentation lab at the Vermilion campus.
After successfully challenging his first period apprenticeship exam and completing enough hours at work, Danielson is back at Lakeland College’s Vermilion campus taking his second period of instrumentation apprenticeship technical training. “I’m comfortable here, the class sizes are great and I like Vermilion, but the main reason I came back to Lakeland is because of the instructors. They’re really
good and they’re very helpful. They’ll stay after class and give you a hand,” says Danielson. When he completes the second period of training the end of April, he’ll return to his job in Calgary but he does hope to be back at Lakeland again one day. “Right now Lakeland doesn’t have the third period of instrumentation but if they get it, I’ll come back. It’s been great here.”
Hot & cold flashes The Emergency Training Centre's (ETC) training field opened April 4 but spring-like conditions were nowhere to be found. ETC staff spent five days pushing snow off the training field props and getting water and fuel systems running for the year's first training contract with Albian Sands. While ETC has opened with temperatures below zero before, there have been few spring openings with so much snow as this year. Other activities underway at ETC include updating the dangerous goods pad and other structures with help from Wayne Girven from Blairmore. Pictured left is a training exercise on the snow-covered field with participants from Albian Sands.