Big Day out with Pan Pac
Big Day Out With Panpac!
It was a pretty awesome sight; 30 log trucks lined up ready to take a student each out to a harvesting crew. The kids turned up to the Panpac Mill in Napier about 8.30 am and once they’d been issued with some safety gear, rolled out into the forest about 9.00 am. Once there, they saw a harvesting crew in action. “It was cool, especially the machinery” was one comment. “It’s great they provide transport to work, I want to be involved in extracting logs” was another.
The boys helped their truck to get loaded and despatched. Then it was back to the Mill for a tour around the solid wood site and the log yard to see a whole new range of jobs. “You don’t realise what’s involved, I’d recommend it to anybody” said a student from William Colenso High.
Panpac Napier and FITEC worked together to arrange this careers event. Panpac did the hard work organising the visit, and FITEC liaised with local schools to select interested students. The result of this initiative was 30 kids gaining a hands-on appreciation of what is involved for a tree to be harvested, transported, milled into a piece of timber, and the many careers that fall out of this process.
Panpac Napier are keen to run a day like this next year. In the meantime, some of the kids who ‘took the ride’ may well be employed with Panpac. They have kept the students’ details and will be contacting them when future jobs arise.
A younger lad, Caleb Richardson from Tamatea High School summed the day up with a letter to his careers teacher:
“Thanks for letting me go to that Forestry thing the other day, I had heaps of fun. I got to see a tree processed from the forest into our workshops at school. I also got to get hands on and do a couple of things, like chain up the truck and have a turn on the radio. The views are awesome. I would recommend it to anyone. Thanks again Miss.”
If anyone is interested in running something similar, feel free to contact FITEC Careers. We will be happy to liaise with schools on behalf of Industry for any initiative that promotes career opportunities in your region.