NZIOB, NorthTec celebrate student achievement

Media release: NZIOB and NorthTec join forces to celebrate student achievement

The New Zealand Institute of Building (NZIOB)and NorthTec joined forces last week to celebrate the achievement of four NorthTec students at a special awards evening hosted by the NZIOB and local industry. The students were each presented with an NZIOB award worth $500 for achieving outstanding results in their trades subject area.

The students who won the awards were Rebecca Escott (New Zealand Diploma in Architectural Technology), Josh Maihi (Electrical Engineering), Tohi Henry (Carpentry) and Graeme Mager (ITaB Carpentry Apprentice).

The awards are jointly sponsored by the NZIOB’s Northern chapter and NorthTec. This was the eighth year that the NZIOB and NorthTec have jointly sponsored the awards.

The sponsors of the award evening were Kingspan, Dulux, Reids and Placemakers and Whangarei businesses Hawthorn Geddes and PBS Group. The NZIOB would like to thank them for their generosity.

NZIOB Northern chapter Chairman Rob Malone said that the three priorities for the NZIOB are knowledge, experience and expertise and that sponsoring such awards was an excellent way to further those aims. “We are also very excited to have recently welcomed NorthTec Architectural Technology student and NZIOB award recipient Rebecca Escott onto our board. This will allow us to strengthen our ties with students and future professionals in our sector.”

NZIOB Northern chapter board member Trevor Griffiths said that the NZIOB awards and student membership of the NZIOB itself provides an opportunity to pass on the support that he and other industry members had been given early in their careers. “Someone saw the potential in me 35 years ago. I’m paying that back now.”

The coach and captain of the Northland rugby development squad were also present at the awards evening. The NZIOB is a sponsor of this non-professional, second-tier squad and strongly believes in supporting players to achieve a trade or industry qualification as a means of providing a career for players once their time as professional sportsmen has come to an end. Many members of the squad are also NorthTec students.

NorthTec’s Acting Programme Manager – Engineering, Adele Stone said that NorthTec values its ongoing relationship with the NZIOB very highly and was delighted to join the NZIOB in announcing at the awards evening that NorthTec has just signed a memorandum of understanding with the NZIOB.

“This is a very welcome development in our relationship with the New Zealand Institute of Building – a key industry player in our region. The new memorandum of understanding will cement that relationship and will allow us to pursue our joint educational goals and further develop the links between our students and the industries in which they will go on to work.”

Bios of individual students who received this year’s NZIOB awards follows:

Rebecca Escott is a graduate in the Northland Polytechnic Certificate in Architectural technology for 2009 and has completed the first year of the New Zealand Diploma in Architectural Technology. She will continue studying for that qualification in 2010. Rebecca is also a very experienced interior designer and is a mother of three.

Josh Maihi was the top pre-trade student in his year. He is described as a high calibre student amongst a very strong group of pre-trade students.

Graeme Mager is a second-year apprentice from Dargaville and works for Vuletich Construction.

Tohi Henry is the third member of his family to graduate from NorthTec tutor John Pratt’s pre-trade course. His brother Kier and stepfather Henry Holyoake are also former graduates. Both Kier and Henry now have their own construction companies. Tohi is currently doing his apprenticeship with his brother Kier’s company.

ENDS

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