Brendon’s dual award apprenticeship takes him on a path to gold

The Kingaroy-based Stanwell apprentice, by his own frank admission, is not usually one to put himself ‘out there’, but after taking out the regional competition last year, he prepared ahead of the June three-day Australian WorldSkills event held in Brisbane, with the help of his TAFE Queensland electrical teachers.

“Immediately before I went, there was a week where the TAFE Queensland teachers focused on conduit bending with me, and the stuff we’d likely be tested on at WorldSkills – they showed me a few little tricks with it, and made sure I could do it to the best of my ability,” Brendon explained.

“They also put some time aside so I could do programming up the variable speed drive,” he said. 

For electricians, programming a variable speed drive involves setting motor parameters, speed settings, and control modes, while incorporating safety features like overload protection, emergency stops, thermal protection, and fault detection.  

On competition day, Brendon had to compete across four tasks within the electrical control field and was ultimately judged to be the best performing apprentice in Australia. 

Now with his sights set on completing his trade qualification, the national champion reflects on how his pursuit of the electrical trade came about - after time on the family property saw him consistently working with his hands, and across various pieces of equipment and machines.

"I was choosing between an electrical or mechanical apprenticeship, but ultimately I thought mechanical is probably a good thing to keep as a hobby rather than work on that full-time," Brendon said, of his choosing to become an electrician, specialising in instrumentation. 

An electrical apprenticeship offers numerous career paths, and obtaining the instrumentation qualification as well is ideal for those interested in the more technical aspects of the industry. 

However, the path to where Brendon is now – has not been entirely ‘without fault’ as a miscommunication with a missed call, resulted in a missed first-round offer with Stanwell.

One year on, he applied again and then had to make a tough decision between accepting a Stanwell apprenticeship or accepting a position within the Air Force.

“I obviously chose the apprenticeship with Stanwell – the dual award – and now I've only got six months left,” Brendon said.

Brendon attends block training for his electrical apprenticeship at the Kingaroy campus, but his apprenticeship is extended by a year to complete the dual qualification. This allows him to finish his electrical apprenticeship requirements and then spend his final year focusing on instrumentation, both at TAFE Queensland and on-site with Stanwell's instrumentation team. 

“Every day is different with Stanwell – there’s a really great variety to it all.” 

“From all your different analysers to doing your maintenance work, to doing checks on stuff to make sure it's within tolerance, electrically checking motors and cabling to make sure they're good for service – and things like that,” Brendon explained.

As for the apprenticeship training itself, naturally Brendon is very complimentary towards his TAFE Queensland teachers.

“Yeah, they've been really good,” Brendon offered. 

“Those blokes have had a lot of experience and some of them still work in the industry – so they're very up to date with what needs to be followed and how to do things.

“And even if we're just a bit unsure about how you would do something – they explain it and if there’s time, they’ll show us how to actually do the thing we’re asking about – they’re very accommodating,” shared Brendon.

Reflecting on his own decision to go down the apprenticeship route at the end of high school, Brendon said, “My advice to potential students considering an apprenticeship is to definitely really look into it.”

“If they're not sure, give it a go because I wasn't 100% sure on doing it (an apprenticeship) at the start.” 

“Now, at nearly the end of my time, I think it's been one of the best things I've ever done.”

“And that’s not saying anything bad about university, but I think the apprenticeships have a bit more (potentially) to offer than uni, especially straight out of school.”

“It kind of gets you your foot in the door, into the workforce.”

“And if you want to do uni, you can do that later on too,” Brendon ended.