Transportation careers are at the centre of the industrial age and these careers involve moving the economy on rails, roads, ships and through the air. TransCDA is, “a conduit between industry and the the government,” says Russ Robertson, CEO of the association that establishes training standards for the transportation sector.
“We are promoting transportation careers and putting people into apprenticeship as heavy duty mechanics, aircraft maintenance technicians, machine technicians, deck hands on tugs, and professional truck drivers,” practically any of the 26 trades in the transportation sector.
TranCDA is based in British Columbia, and, “We engage other sectors and bring them into the training picture,” and the association works to accommodate national mobility of the labour force.
“We maintain the alignment of the regulatory environment in job qualifications, and make job recognition a priority in our policy discussions,” says Robertson. “We believe in the mobility of workers and fully support the Red Seal program that governs the national qualifications of trades people,” and Robertson notes the CCDA recently approved the Heavy Equipment Operator program as a Red Seal career.
TransCDA is relatively new as an organization, “We're a year old now, but we hit the ground running,” and they worked to develop a first-rate website to distribute up-to-the-minute career information. “The website is in phase one of the TransCDA communication strategy. Phase 2 will be complete later in 2010 and it will provide high performance management tools to put training and career development on a fast track in a company or industry.”
Robertson was hired from the ITA to bring a training culture to the organization, and the culture is growing, “We are reaching out to school students to make transportation careers an opportunity. We have developed program standards that secondary schools can deliver to provide 470 hours of training credit in Level 1 apprenticeship.” Rita Gunkel at TranCDA is developing the youth initiatives that deliver advancement toward transportation careers in the school system.
Robertson has other personnel working on recognition of foreign workers who come to Canada with operational qualifications. The goal is for the website to answer questions about transportation careers and qualifications from around the world, and provide assessment tools to evaluate people in their qualifications.”
