4 minute read
ROAD WARRIOR
Taylor Oliver-McCallum
The current (work) ride: Ford F-150
Kilometres per day: 60
Service area: Edmonton/Red Deer/Leduc area, and some parts of B.C.
Most useful tool in the toolbox: Hammer
Favourite tool: Ridgid Propress machine
Favourite TV show: The Office (U.S. version). I really like the ally y lik ke e th he Dwight character.
Favourite cartoon: Scooby-Doo
Favourite sport: Golf
Favourite sit-down restaurant: Rural Roots Brewery ery y in Leduc.
Favourite drive-thru restaurant: Dairy Queen for the FlameThrower chicken wrap.
Pets: A Staffordshire terrier named Ellie.
Place you would like to visit. Peru to see Machu Picchu.
Personal trademark: “You seldom catch me without a baseball hat. I have a bunch of different ones.”
If you could meet anyone, alive or dead, who would it be? h ld i b
Sidney Crosby
If I had a million dollars: I wouldn’t quit working. But I would go on a nice little trip.
What you miss most with the pandemic: Hanging out with family and friends. I don’t get to see them very often.
Future plans: Owning his own plumbing company.
Where would you like to live eventually? In B.C., in the mountains.
If you weren’t a plumber what would you be? I really enjoy real estate. If I could do anything else it would be that.
Favourite pastime: I have always been drawn to nature and the mountains. Camping and hiking are some of my favourite things.
Taylor’s natural talent for the skilled trades gave him a chance to shine on a world ga g ve stage. An instructor at Red Deer s
College encouraged him compete in a provincial skills competition, “I was a hesitant at first, but I knew it would be e he a once in a lifetime opportunity, so I oa decided to sign up.” d
Before he knew it, he was competing e Be in the 2018 Skills Canada National tin Competition in Edmonton. Then it was mCo C on to competing for Canada in the no
WorldSkills 2019 competition in Wo W
Kazan, Russia. There, his team had KazK to design a bathroom and kitchen to rough-in including water lines and rou heating, with time challenges in he between. be
“The measurements had to be so “T precise,” he recalls. pr
To release the stress of competing, To he made sure to find some time he during the trip to check out the d local sights. local sig
Name: Taylor Oliver-McCallum Employer: Justin Schamber Job Title: Plumber, Gas Fitter Lives in: Leduc, AB Age: 23 Partner: Fiancée Cassidy Mayer Joined the mechanical industry: 2015
Taylor Oliver-McCallum: World class champion for the trades
Taylor Oliver-McCallum discovered the joy of plumbing working part-time for a local contractor when he was in high school.
“I started because I didn’t want to take the typical path and go to university,” says the Red Seal journeyman who now spends his time on residential, commercial and agricultural plumbing and heating projects. He lists boiler-related work as some of the more interesting systems he gets to work on, although he has seen his fair share of unique challenges on jobsites.
“There are lots of snake stories when you’re working with agricultural customers,” he says. “The weirdest thing I saw was a skin that a snake had shed inside a water heater. Thank God it was just the skin.” That’s not something that was covered during his training at Red Deer College. But he’s always willing to learn a few new tricks, and enjoys the learning process. That can include slowing down on occasion to think about what he’s doing, and the logic of how a system works.
“I’m always thinking a few steps ahead,” he says.
He also appreciates the special skills of the people he works with. “The coolest thing I have seen is when we were running underground water lines for a rural job,” he recalls. “The guy doing the horizontal drilling managed to jackhammer holes in the basement for three water lines without hitting one of them. It was pretty crazy to see.”
