The Oomiak Crew Spotlight series is back and, in this edition, we’re making our way to SA to meet the current Apprentice of The Year!
Our team is filled to the brim with enthusiastic, experienced, and skilled people – we’re excited to share their stories.
My Role in Oomiak
Working as an apprentice out of our Customer Service team in South Australia, Taylor gets his hands involved in a range of projects and responsibilities.
“Throughout my time with Oomiak, I’ve had the opportunity to work on a lot of different projects for different companies in varying industries,” said Taylor.
Taylor has leveraged these opportunities and gained skills working on:
- Cooling towers
- Compressor installations and rebuilds
- Glycol chiller installations
- Cool room installations
- And more…
Best Thing About Working at Oomiak
“I definitely enjoy all the opportunities that are offered at Oomiak, I’ve worked in various locations, and on large scale projects within the refrigeration sector. With the variety of industries and experiences I feel I’m going to come out of my apprenticeship a very well-rounded technician,” says Taylor.
My Career Tips
Truly leveraging his apprenticeship to the fullest, Taylor carries three tips to help him get the most out of his experiences – these include:
- Develop a proper understanding of the industry – sound knowledge here will put you in good stead
- Be creative and problem solve – this is a valuable skill no matter the unit or the setup
- Always seek information – each person in the team has knowledge and learning their perspective helps to become more well-rounded
“The most impactful thing I’ve learned throughout my experience is just how refrigeration works as a whole. I came into this trade knowing very little about the inner workings of refrigeration systems let alone how many different applications there are – so gaining this insight has been really valuable,” says Taylor.
Navigating through his apprenticeship and work-life at Oomiak, Taylor is excited to keep learning and developing – wanting to tackle more larger-scale projects that are in the pipeline.
“I’m enjoying working within the Capital Projects team because it is a great opportunity to improve my installation skills. When my apprenticeship is done though, I’d also like to further my skillset and take on things like a pipe welding course or even doing a project management course,” says Taylor.
The continued application of this mindset has seen Taylor achieve great success during his apprenticeship at Oomiak. So much so, that AIRAH recognised this and awarded Taylor with the SA AIRAH Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Apprentice of the Year Award for 2022.
“I’m still shocked that I won the award, as a kid I didn’t win academic awards no matter how hard I tried due to struggling with dyslexia. I always had to work twice as hard as others to get the same results throughout high school.
But this has given me a really strong work ethic in my adult life and I think this was a big factor to my win. The other contributing factor would have to be amazing support of the Oomiak staff throughout my whole apprenticeship. I wouldn’t be where I am if it wasn’t for the continued help and support of the technicians that took the time out of their days to show me the ropes,” said Taylor.
An absolutely amazing achievement, and we couldn’t be prouder of your efforts and attitude Taylor – very well deserved!
