Sawmill opens up career pathways for young people B Y C AT H I E B E L L | P H O T O G R A P H Y A N T H O N Y P H E L P S
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orking at Kaituna Sawmill in Marlborough opens up a world of opportunities for people, workers at the mill say. Opportunities are not just available for school leavers, and sawmill staff say they are able to move up within the mill and try out a variety of roles as part of a rewarding career. Ricky McKnight has started his apprenticeship at the sawmill, and Kane Sullivan, Ryan Williamson, and Jamie Howieson have all done apprenticeships and different jobs at the sawmill. All say they would like to see others in Marlborough and from further afield joining them at Kaituna. Kaituna Sawmill, part of Nelson Forests Ltd, is owned by Australian company OneFortyOne. Kane Sullivan is a maintenance engineer, who has currently stepped up to share a departmental manager’s role as Workshop Maintenance Manager. Above: From Left - Ryan Williamson, Ricky McKnight, Jamie Howieson, and Kane Sullivan say their careers at Kaituna Sawmill are rewarding 72
He says he started at the sawmill in 2011 on the production line, feeding timber into a machine to be wrapped. He was on night shift and had moved from the food industry. “It was a big change, but I adapted.” From there, he went to a full-time day-shift job on the planer processing line, before moving into dispatch. An apprenticeship came up in the workshop in 2015, and Kane qualified eight weeks ago as a mechanical engineer. “My biggest regret was that I didn’t do some sort of apprenticeship when I was 20,” says Kane. He says sawmill staff are keen to develop new skill sets and widen their expertise. “If we can have people from all types of industries coming here, that’s good. Recently, we had two engineers who are not sawmillers join the team and they’re bringing in a whole different mindset.”
Kane says there’s also nothing wrong with coming in and doing a trade apprenticeship at Kaituna and then taking that skill set elsewhere for a time, like taking a sabbatical, before returning to Kaituna. The vision of the team is that Kaituna is seen as the top sawmill in the country and as a “must have” in a top-quality sawmiller’s CV. “We want employers to ask someone, ‘When did you have a connection with Kaituna Sawmill?’”
Numerous job opportunities
Jamie Howieson says he heard about jobs at Kaituna Sawmill after talking to a friend’s brother at a party 16 years ago. Jamie started stacking timber, then became a forklift driver coordinator, before completing a three-and-a-half-year apprenticeship to become a saw doctor. Despite his trade apprenticeship being quite specialised, he’s also had the opportunity to try out working in other areas of the sawmill. “There are quite a few different jobs at the mill. You can move around.” He likes his job as a saw doctor and has recruited others to work at the sawmill too, like his friend’s brother.
“My biggest regret was that I didn’t do some sort of apprenticeship when I was 20.” K A N E S U L L I VA N