(Image Credit: CFJC News)

By Sydney Chisholm

SKILLS CANADA

Five TRU trades students take home medals on national stage

Jun 8, 2023 | 5:09 PM

KAMLOOPS – Five trades students from Thompson Rivers University took home medals for demonstrating their talents on the national stage.

No one was surprised when 17-year-old Nolan Ilic placed first for welding in the secondary division in the National Skills Competition.

“What I love about Nolan is he’s calm, cool and collected all the time. Nothing rattles him,” Larry Franzen, a welding instructor at TRU, told CFJC News. “Once you get rattled you start to shake and that obviously shows up in your welds.”

Ilic is one of two students who won gold for the school this year, and while he’s been welding for most of his life, he doubled down to prepare for nationals.

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“I’ve been putting in a lot of practice since I was about 8 years old, but for Skills Canada I probably put in an extra 100 days in the evening practicing. All my class time was mostly practicing and at home, I was practicing whenever I could,” he said.

Ilic hopes to return to nationals as a post-secondary student, and eventually compete in worlds.

Four other TRU students also took home medals at the national skills competition, including Matthew Lavigne who took silver in carpentry.

Lavigne is now working toward his red seal and will be continuing his career in carpentry.

The other TRU students who placed are Hugo Heyes, who took first place gold in the plumbing category, Cole Allan, who won bronze for welding, and Logan Jones, who was also awarded silver for carpentry.