FERGUS – Carter Hutchison recently received a $40,000 Schulich Builders Scholarship to study welding and fabrication at Conestoga College.
The Centre Wellington District High School graduate is one of 100 recipients of skilled trades scholarships from the Schulich Foundation. The scholarships are meant to address the shortage of skilled trade labour in Ontario.
“We rely on skilled trades to build and maintain the infrastructure of our cities and towns. Our challenge is not having enough of these talented people to meet the demands fueled by our growth,” the Schulich Foundation states on its website.
The scholarships go towards tuition, tools and living expenses. The recipients are chosen for their strong work ethic and character.
Hutchison developed his work ethic while growing up, helping his dad on weekends with his landscaping business, AJH Landscape Services.
He also worked at the Creative Landscape Depot in Guelph, and facility manager Blake Sicard wrote a letter recommending him for the scholarship.
“Carter is an exceptionally hard worker,” Sicard writes. “We only needed to explain jobs and tasks once and Carter often exceeded expectations upon completion.”
Sicard said Hutchison was “a very valuable member of our team.”
This work ethic, and an interest in welding, grew during Hutchison’s high school co-op placement at Burnett Farms in East Garafraxa.
Hutchison cultivated crops with a tractor, maintained heavy equipment including hydraulics systems and motors, and learned how to weld.
Welding interests Hutchison because it will enable him to “build anything and fix anything,” he told the Advertiser.
He said he grew up with a creative mind and loved playing with Lego.
While working on the farm he saw firsthand a lot of necessary equipment is made of metal, and “metal breaks eventually, so it needs to be fixed or rebuilt.”
When you need a part that’s not easy to buy, the ability to weld “is really very valuable,” Hutchison said.
When he found out he was selected for the scholarship, it took a while for the news to hit home.
“I didn’t actually believe it for like the first week, and then after I started to get more information on it and learn more about what I needed to keep doing to continue getting the scholarship, it really became real then,” he said.
There are two primary requirements to keep the scholarship: maintain a 3.0 grade average, and act as an advocate for skilled trades.
Hutchison will be attending events to promote skilled trades to potential future college students – youths currently in elementary and high school. He said his role is to help strengthen and broaden young people’s view of skilled trades and share information about the need for skilled trades labour.
Hutchison is looking forward to mentoring as he “enjoy(s) collaborating with others and being able to bring out the best in them.”
Hutchison’s short-term goals are to complete his college program and secure work in his field.
Long-term, he hopes to be as successful as possible and learn as much as he can, eventually either opening his own welding shop or taking over his dad’s landscape business while practicing welding on the side.
Hutchison started the welding and fabrication technician program in September and he’s really enjoying his studies thus far.
“I enjoy it a lot,” he said.
Inthusan Sivaguru of Mount Forest also received a $40,000 Schulich Builders Scholarship. He is studying electrical engineering at Sheridan College.
