Hello, my name is Darby. I am a mechanical insulator and this is my journey.
Throughout high school I was interested in working with my hands, I enjoyed working in the shops and was able to make some really cool projects. After I graduated from secondary school, I wanted to carry on my fascination with working with my hands and wanted to start an apprenticeship program in a red seal trade. After high school I attended BCIT and enrolled in the Discovery Trades Program. I tried out sixteen different trades in four months, I tried out everything from electrical, plumbing and carpentry to welding, iron working and I even received my Level 1 Forklift Certification. The course concluded with a two week unpaid work experience practicum. Insulating was not one of the sixteen trades I had tried at BCIT; I wanted to expand my knowledge by learning a seventeenth trade on an actual construction site to gain real world experience in the insulation trade. I spent two weeks at a site in Burnaby and it was an eye-opening experience for me. Working with great people including the late Brian Bath was one of the highlights and it also helped that I had a fellow classmate from my discovery trades program there as well. It was also nice to know there was someone else there going through what I was. After the work experience concluded and the trades program was complete, I was offered a job to officially begin my apprenticeship journey with Aarc-West, so I took it. I began my apprenticeship in January of 2019. Over the last four years, I’ve spent time on a few different sites ranging from the hospital, to a site in river district and to my current site The Post where I’ve been stationed for over two years now. Something else that has happened in the last four years is that I was able to both begin and complete all four years of my classroom education. I’m proud to say that I obtained my red seal on December 16, 2022 just prior to my four year anniversary in this industry. I wrote and passed my exam on my first attempt. I found out the results a few days after the fact and I’m sure that everyone on site found out as well because I wasn’t quiet about it. I would like to thank everyone that has helped me along the way to get me to where I am today. Everyone from friends and family from an early age, to the career counselor at my high school who enrolled me into the discovery trades program as well as the head of that program who put me in touch with Aarc-West, I would also like to thank our union school teacher who was instrumental in helping me achieve my dream in attaining a red seal and last but certainly not least I would like to thank all the people whom I’ve had the opportunity to work with in the field who have had such a positive impact on me and have assisted me in becoming a better insulator each and everyday.