The Kirkland Lake campus of Northern College is now offering the Timber Operations Technician Program, beginning September 2000. This accredited two-year, co-op diploma program was conceived and developed by a group of Timiskaming logging contractors who were frustrated by the lack of skilled and competent individuals available to operate their increasingly complex and expensive equipment.
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Key partners supporting this program are:
This program is unique in Canada and will facilitate the eventual progression of the traditional logger to an educated and professionally trained forest operator. |
Our industry needs this program.
Until now, forest operators, loggers, and harvester operators were trained on the job and constituted a transient workforce, with experience but little formal education. They were typically hired on a seasonal, usually temporary, basis.
However, the "face of the industry" is changing with the increased use of expensive and complex mechanized equipment. Workers and equipment have the potential to do great environmental harm in a short time costing companies dearly in violations of the Code of Forest Practice, loss of reputation and future contracts.
The forestry industry has realized that providing on-going in-service training for these workers has become impractical, and that current educational programs have not been preparing the number not the type of workers needed.
Our industry developed this program.
Because forest practices in the northern Boreal Forest are different than in the southern Great lakes - St. Lawrence Forest, educational activities need to reflect these differences. Northern activities focus on production of high volume and relatively low value products while southern Ontario forestry tends to produce low volumes of high value hardwoods and white pine. The demand for high production has favoured increased mechanization, accompanied by a reduced margin of error.
Northern College's Timber Operations Technician program differs from other forestry programs offered throughout the province in that it combines traditional harvesting with a solid grounding in environmental technologies. The program will draw upon forest and wildlife management theory to enable graduates to meet environmental regulations as "front-line" workers in the forest. At the same time, it will provide graduates with practical, hands-on experience in the use of equipment, supported by an extensive technical background in electronics, hydraulics, mechanics, soil mechanics, hydrology and welding.
Graduates will be more valuable to employers because of system-wide perspective of forest operations. Graduates from this program will be able to work more independently to implement increasingly detailed operational prescriptions, achieving sound environmental results while achieving production goals.
Our industry supports this program.
There is extensive support for this program from key stakeholders in the forest industry in the Timiskaming area. The Timiskaming Independent Forest Operators (TIFO) is comprised of 12 local companies ranging in size from 2 to 3 person operations to contractors with more than 60 full-time employees. Collectively, they employ in excess of 200 full-time staff.
Conservative estimates of annual employment vacancies for operators is about 20 per year.
