Debbie Holdridge and Ben Girdwood. Picture: MATTHEW HOTTON (00832695)
TWO apprentice technicians from Motor Mall have won top honours at Highlands College.
Deborah Holdridge (26), a history graduate, won the Jamie Dervin Memorial Trophy for being the outstanding transport engineering student.
And Ben Girdwood (18), a former De La Salle student and a first-year Highlands student, won the full-time IMI technical award for a college student.
Deborah, a second-year apprentice who won the award given to Ben last year, said that she loved working with cars.
‘When I finished university I spent a couple of years travelling,’ she said. ‘I had all sorts of jobs. I worked on boats at sea and up mountains in snowboard resorts. And in all those jobs I realised the importance of having hands-on practical skills as well as academic qualifications.
‘I had always had an interest in cars, so I signed up for a full-time course at Highlands. I wasn’t intending to get an apprenticeship, but I ended up absolutely loving it. Two years on, I still love it.’
Ben said that he got an enormous amount of satisfaction from fixing cars. ‘Every day is different,’ he explained. ‘There is a huge variation of jobs and you are always working on different cars with different systems, even though the principals and techniques are the same.’
David Wheatley, after-sales manager at Motor Mall, said that he was lucky to have two such good technicians.
‘It is rather unusual to have a woman in the workshop, but it has worked out very well,’ he added. ‘Deborah is very, very good and quite academic. There is plenty of workshop banter going on and she gets on well with the guys.’
Article posted on 20th November, 2009 - 3.00pm
