Looking for a lift in life?
October 9, 2008
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Paul Dalby
SPECIAL TO THE STAR
David Balmer and Jonathan Kelly are two guys who definitely like to do all the heavy lifting.
Balmer gets his kicks by finding safer and smoother ways to shoot people up 30-storey office towers without giving them whiplash.
And Kelly is never happier than when he's at the controls of his adult "teeter-totter" – a monster crane hoisting 2,000 tonnes of steel.
Between them, the two men helm two of the most unusual college courses in Ontario, both at Durham College's Skills Training Centre in Whitby.
Balmer, 69, is considered the guru of elevators in Ontario, and therefore the perfect person to teach the province's only Elevating Devices Mechanic college apprenticeship.
"The development of elevators has grown dramatically in new technologies over the past 15 years, but there are only so many ways to open and close the doors," he says. "The elevators just got prettier in recent years."
Balmer started his career in elevators 50 years ago, when "they were wooden and you had to be a good carpenter as well as a mechanic."
But the building boom of the 1980s spawned a rash of elevator accidents, often caused by the inexperience of the mechanics who installed then.
"There were a lot of accidents and people were getting killed, and the coroners kept calling for better training of mechanics," he recalls.
In the 1990s, Balmer was part of an industry-government study group that created a formalized college apprenticeship training program in the field. So he was the obvious choice for instructor when Durham launched the course in 2002. But Balmer knew he faced a real challenge.
"Our industry is small, maybe 2,000 people, but we are suffering from a lack of skilled people," he says. "How are we going to resolve the problem of many mechanics who are aging and retiring?"
The answer has been a well-rounded course that trains apprentices in small numbers (28 per session) to ensure a thorough grounding in 25 different areas.
The apprentices must master installation, maintenance, troubleshooting, hydraulics, electronics, motors, and generators.
And even after they have passed their apprenticeship – 240 hours of instruction and 8,000 hours of practical on-the-job experience – the graduates still have to pass the Technical Standards and Safety Authority (TSSA) exam to qualify.
But Balmer says it's worth all the hard work.
"The compensation is in the top three jobs in industry," he points out. "And if you're a techie, it's a fascinating business because, in our industry, you have to be an electrician, a plumber, a carpenter and a steam fitter all rolled into one."
That was precisely the appeal of the trade for James Pinette, 19, of Markham, who graduated from Balmer's class last April.
"All through high school, I was working on cars and figured I'd become an automotive mechanic," he says. "But once I realized what an elevator mechanic does on a daily basis, I found this much more interesting."
Pinette also likes his new-found independence, routinely working alone to service and repair elevators across the GTA.
"Every day brings a new challenge, something interesting and something I haven't seen before so I learn something new every day," he says.
While Pinette is hooked on hydraulic boxes, fellow Durham apprenticeship grad Maggie Kueber has bigger fish to fry.
At 48, Kueber is not only a mature student, but is also on her third career – a crane operator in the Alberta tar sands.
"My first career was as a jeweller, my second as an electrician, and I have my papers in both," she says in a phone interview from the Albion Sands project in northern Alberta. "But this is way more fun."
It also doesn't hurt that, in her first job after completing Durham's hoisting engineer course, her professor is working right alongside her. Instructor Jonathan Kelly works at Albion Sands as a fill-in job when he's not teaching.
"Out in Alberta, with the oil industry, they're screaming for operators," he says. "If a crane operator is not making $120,000 a year here, he's doing something wrong.
"It's a very good career to be in right now."
The big paycheque is certainly a head-turner. But Kelly, 35, says there's much more to this job than sitting in what he calls a giant teeter-totter.
"The course is broken into three major categories: theory; load charts with the cranes; and learning practical skills on the machines," he explains.
Durham offers two different kinds of crane training: the mobile licence and the boom truck licence. They rent cranes for the duration of both courses, so students get hands-on experience.
Toronto Star