KEEN TO LEAD SUCCESSFUL PLUMBING PATHWAY

writer PETER WHITE photographer LOGAN WEST

It was a night that Auckland-based apprentice SEBASTIAN SEKENE is not likely to ever forget.

Recently, the 22-year-old won a Plumbing World Scholarship and was named Overall Scholarship Winner at the 2023 New Zealand Plumbing Awards held in Christchurch.

Sebastian, who is in the fourth year of his five-year apprenticeship with Heron Plumbing, says it was definitely pretty cool to win but it has not changed him.

“To be honest, I have come back to work since winning the award and am back doing the same things. I won’t be getting a fat ego boost or anything, but I am proud and my mum is too.”

Sebastian says winning a Masterlink Outward Bound Scholarship in 2022 was the turning point for him that helped him win the awards. He spent 16 days at Anakiwa with other construction industry apprentices on a building leaders course.

He says it was the best thing he’s ever done. It really opened his eyes to what kind of person and leader he wants to be in the industry.

“Apparently, I came back more mature and with a lot more growth and that sort of thing. I thought I was mature before I went!

“After that course, I did have a change of mindset in the way I viewed things and what sort of leader I wanted to be.

“I started putting my hand up more for more responsibility at work and to handle my own jobs. I guess that’s where the Outward Bound course helped get me the award. I’ve been telling all the apprentices in my job to apply for it, as you have nothing to lose and so much to gain.”

What Sebastian likes most about his job is the repetition of doing the same sort of job over and over.

“That’s how I learn. I can’t do one thing only once and have it set in my brain. I also like the variety of jobs that we do. I could go from doing water pipe outs for a week and then come back to drainage work.

“It is completely different. It is good to have lots of knowledge under my belt so when I do go out to jobs I am not familiar with, I can figure it out from all the other experience I have had from other jobs.”

Since October 2022, Sebastian has contributed a bi-monthly column to NZ Plumber magazine where he shares what it’s like to be an apprentice and what he loves about plumbing.

At Manurewa High School, Sebastian liked Outdoor Education and PE most of all, but he was not sure what he wanted to do when he left school.

It was after talking to the school’s careers advisor he signed up to do a pre-trade course at the Manukau Institute of Technology (MIT). He then landed his plumbing, gasfitting and drainlaying apprenticeship through Masterlink at Heron Plumbing.

“Without the pre-trade, I probably wouldn’t be where I am now.”