Wade Burgess is the MTA Institute Apprentice of the Month for October 2024.
The 31-year-old has just begun the fourth year of his light vehicle apprentice and works at CPV Lifts Tech, an independent workshop and RACQ contractor in Tara, four hours west of Brisbane. He is, according to his MTA Institute trainer Andrew Elson, ‘an excellent asset to the workplace and operates at a far higher level than most of his peers.’
At 31, Wade may be a latecomer to an automotive apprenticeship, but he has worked with engines and mechanical equipment for most of his life. Upon finishing school, he did that kind of hands-on work on rural properties then in the mining industry. He would eventually return to the Tara region to again work in the rural sector, now as his own boss.
“I’ve always been mechanically minded,” said Wade. “We didn’t always have access to mechanics when I was on properties, so we had to fix our own stuff.
“When I went back to agriculture, we were rural contracting – doing everything from fencing, pipelines, land clearing, maintaining dozers and that sort of stuff – and I had my own business offering those services. I had machinery such as trucks, bobcat excavators and so on and I did that for quite a while.
“I then decided to sell up and went back working for wages so I could be at home more. I got married, had a son who is now six years old, and then started here at CPV Lifts Tech in 2021.”
Wade started working at CPV Lifts Tech, with business owner Danny Russell, on days off from his regular job. Eventually, he proposed to work at the workshop on a more formal basis. Danny accepted and suggested Wade take on an apprenticeship.
“I was super-keen for that because I was already doing the work and, as Danny said, why not have a qualification to go along with it? So, I got signed up and got cracking,” said Wade.
That was in August 2022 and the couple of years since then have been very busy. Clearly, Wade is not afraid of hard work. For one thing, working at CPV Lifts Tech means working on a wide variety of vehicles.
“It’s really interesting out here . . . one minute you’ll be working on an old ’cruiser or Ford, and the next you’re working on a new hybrid RAV4,” said Wade. “We are the RACQ contractor for this area, so we see a lot of stuff with breakdowns. What we work on is very diverse”
Along with the automotive work and training Wade is, as is his wife, a firefighter for the Queensland Fire Department and also a business owner. In November 2022, the couple established Tara Saws and Mowers, a Stihl outdoor power equipment shop, and that enterprise is successful enough that they are to open another in Taroom in January.
Completing a light vehicle apprenticeship, establishing a new business, and having the responsibility of being a firefighter seems like an incredible amount to take on. Wade seems unfazed, and said he was looking forward to doing more training once he had completed his current apprenticeship. The advances in the auto industry, and the auto environment of Tara demanded it.
“We are out in the sticks, but we do have two Tesla Model 3s getting around town,” said Wade. “We haven’t seen EVs in the workshop yet, but it’s only a matter of time and I am going to do some EV training later this month in St George with MTA Queensland.
“I will also look at doing my EV apprenticeship later, as well as the small motor apprenticeship. My plan is to continue with training and get as much knowledge under my belt as I can. Mechanics are quite hard to come by and with technology screaming forward in leaps and bounds, we need to keep up with it.”
Source: Motor Trader e-Magazine (November 2024)
20 November, 2024
