CHC Australia has appointed its first two engineering apprentices since February 2010, promoting two local Broome employees into the roles. Stuart Mackenzie and James Brown are CHC’s newest apprentices after successfully applying for the Diploma of Aeroskills (Mechanical) apprenticeships at the Broome base. Prior to the apprenticeship opportunity, James was a long-time ground crew employee who returned to CHC earlier this year after a short stint away and Stuart worked at CHC as a ramp assistant for just under a year.

“CHC is pleased to be re-commencing its apprenticeship program again in 2018, strengthening the company by building our long-term capability,” said Regional Director, Vince D’Rozario. “CHC is delighted to fill these roles with high-quality, local employees, and looks forward to seeing the progression and future of the new apprentices at CHC.”

Stuart and James commenced their apprenticeships in the past fortnight and will take the next four years to complete their training.

The apprenticeships will include theory and practical-based learning for maintaining rotary wing aircrafts. The course consists of:

• Common and technical stream units required at Certificate IV level in the aircraft maintenance stream with electives determined by the B1.3 licence sub-category; and
• Diploma level mechanical technical stream units covering advanced fault diagnosis and aircraft weight and balance calculation.

 The two ramp assistant positions were backfilled with local Broome residents Karen O’Connor and Ronald Murphy. They started in their roles earlier in October.

On 16 October, Aviation Australia, the appointed training organisation, MEGT, Apprenticeship network provider, and CHC’s maintenance leadership were in Broome to register James and Stuart into the Apprenticeship program. CHC’s next apprenticeship intake will be around May 2019, with two additional Engineering apprenticeships places expected to open.