Local man shares his expertise with youth

Times Reporter

 

After seeing a WorldSkills competition at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT) in 2008, Strathmore resident Todd Foss knew it was something he wanted to be involved in. Foss himself does car painting, and owns his own one-man shop, Restoration Station Strathmore, saying his specialty is car restoration.

“I’ve been involved (with car restoration and painting) since 1975. I love what I do, and I love the final product. A lot of vehicles come in to me that are complete and total basket cases and then I bring them back to new, so I’m very passionate about that,” said Foss. 

He was lucky when a position became available for him to help with the WorldSkills Calgary Competition in 2009. 

“I then applied for the Canadian expert (for the international competition) for car painting and was awarded that,” said Foss. 

This year the World competition was held in London, England and it was up to Foss to train Canada’s car painting competitor Aaron Hebb from Nova Scotia.

“Even though he was in Nova Scotia it was my job to put a training regimen together, and also spend some of my time with the competitor as well,” said Foss. 

Out of the 17 competitors for his skill, Hebb came away with the bronze medal. Hebb spent the year leading up to the competition training through work. Foss oversaw and helped Hebb’s Nova Scotia trainer Randy Sellars put the training project into place. 

“How we select our Canadian competitors is we select them through the national competition on every even year. So this year in Edmonton will be he national championship and that’s when we’ll select our car painter,” said Foss. 

Skills Alberta holds the regional competitions, and also puts on the provincial competition. At provincials there is one person per skill selected to go to the Canadian competition, and from there they have a chance to be selected for the world competition.  One person per skill from each country is sent to the WorldSkills. This year Foss said there were 36 Canadian competitors. 

All competitors are between the ages of 16 and 21, and Foss said more trades programs need to be offered at the high school level. Keeping youth involved in trades and moving forward to continue to be successful in them is part of the mandate for the Skills competitions. 

Trades are not as well promoted as they once were so replenishing people in trades can be difficult to do, which is what WorldSkills International is trying to get across. 

Trades workers will always be needed and keeping an interest amongst the new generation was part of what gave WorldSkills founder Jose Antonio Elola Olaso, general director of the Spanish Youth Organization, inspiration in 1946. He gathered together a team to help further pursue the idea of Vocational Training Competitions, which quickly grew and is now known as WorldSkills  

“The satisfaction that I get from that is unbelievable. When I came home from London, because there’s so much buildup to it then all of a sudden at the end of the competition it’s pretty empty,’ said Foss.

“You meet a lot of people and become friends with a lot of people from around the world and then the competition ends one day and then next day you’re going home. It’s a pretty empty feeling leaving everybody. It takes awhile to get over. The people that you meet are just unbelievable, fantastic, they are just so professional and they really go out of their way to help new people and it’s just all around good times.”

Foss is involved with the national committee for a minimum of three years, and has two more national competitions to go through. He said each international competition becomes available to a new expert every competition, and though he thinks he has a good chance of being an expert again because his competitor medaled, he said he still has to apply and wait and see.  

Foss said he would like to put the challenge out there to business owners to get involved by helping with time or sponsorship in any way they can. Currently many of the people involved are instructors, and while he said there is nothing wrong with that, the goal is to get more people from the workforce involved. Foss said there will always be a place for a volunteer and suggested contacting Skills Alberta to see how you can help. 

Skills include everything from cooking, to fashion technology, to cabinet making and much more. To find out more information about WorldSkills go to www.worldskils.org.