Educational Living CEO Edward Stone (centre) has been helping William LaSpina and Michael Sayers through their 12-month traineeship. Photo: Nick Richards
One of only three manufacturers of medium density fibreboard product in Australia, Wangaratta’s Alpine MDF, has an opportunity for four young people to join their workforce. Source: Wangaratta Chronicle
The long-running local business currently employs 140 people and has a program on offer for young people who are considering a career for the industry leading company.
It’s a workplace that has come a long way as it’s a modern manufacturing facility that has state of the art technology and equipment.
A Certificate II in Engineering is being offered through Educational Living where workers will undergo a 12-month on the job traineeship at Alpine MDF.
Successful applicants will take on a full-time position and receive training while they work in the paid position.
Educational Living director Edward Stone said they are looking for young people who have a desire to work locally and begin a career that gives workers multi-faceted scope, covering skills and knowledge in the manufacturing industry which is largely operated by computers and technology.
“The Certificate II could evolve into a Cert III and IV and a trade diploma or even a degree if employees want to, and all qualifications that are nationally recognised,” Mr Stone said.
“As they grow and learn they start to mature and as they do that, they pick up the life skills needed to work at Alpine MDF.”
There are two young workers who took up the 12 month offer, Michael Sayers and William La Spina, and they will rotate through different parts of the businesses and learn various elements as they progress.
“I really appreciate Alpine MDF putting me on and I’ve been enjoying doing the traineeship as it’s a great place to work, meet new people, and it’s where I’m supposed to be,” Michael said.
New workers get to work in the different aspects of the facility from when the raw logs are turned into MDF product and Mr Stone said the engineering and science aspects of the manufacturing are quite engaging.
“They get exposure to different areas, so they are not stuck in one place and these jobs are a 12-month audition to what is potentially available next.”
The core part of the business is the production of MDF and turning it into a product that is on-sold to secondary manufacturers who make furniture, cabinetry, flooring, doors along with a range of other products.
With the production of product largely done with machinery, engineering is a massive part of the business to make sure everything is running smoothly, and if it’s not, there are people on-site to fix it.
With the added value component at Alpine MDF they take the product and with the assistance of moulders, vacuum coaters and paint heads, they make mouldings, architraves and skirting boards which they are now expanding into a second line due to demand from door manufacturers across Australia.
Alpine MDF spruiks that it’s the leader with the moulding and painting machinery in Australia in terms of the state-of-the-art equipment and also the paint itself, as it’s a UV cured tech where the common practice is to use IR ovens to dry it.
Mr Stone said he speaks to schools and explains that not everyone is going to go to university and on the job training can cater for these people who are not overly academic but want a challenge by getting an education and career opportunities.
“We have opportunities for people who want to start their working life with us but they may not be fully academically inclined,” he said.
“The job has changed from 20 years ago when workers would come to work, pull a lever and the work was fairly mundane.”
People who started their careers at Alpine go on to be supervisors and managers and at any one time the workforce has about 8-10 second generation workers such as fathers and their sons or daughters on the payroll.
Alpine MDF management want to make the business a preferred place of employment locally and they want to tell people interested that they’re right on their doorstep.
The business is going bigger, with diversification the cornerstone of Alpine MDF’s direction, and once new buildings and equipment are fully installed the company would have spent $12 million to invest in the future of MDF production and its added value products.
It’s expected that the investment will offer another 15 extra jobs in total across the company.
Interested applicants for the traineeship are encouraged to submit their resume to Edward Stone at [email protected] or call 0427 377 913 for more information.
