After two days of tight competition, Whangārei heavy diesel field service technician Rhys Willemen has taken the top spot at this year’s Dealer Top Apprentice Programme (DTAP). It was a closely-fought contest, with very little separating Rhys from Palmerston North’s Josh Sporle as they vied for a spot at the Asia-Pacific finals in Melbourne next year.
“It feels pretty awesome to take the win, especially with so little separating Josh and I,” said Rhys. “We’ve been through a couple of challenging days, and it was a lot of pressure, but that also brought out new ideas and thinking.”
The pair was first tested on their public speaking, delivering short presentations to a panel of assessors before drawing on all their problem-solving experience with the practical stations. One station was a crank-no-start fault on a C6 engine, and the other was a diesel exhaust fluid (DEF) engine fault with no fault-finding information available from a previous technician visit.
“It was just a matter of following your process, working through the systems and following a logical pattern,” explains Rhys. “As for the presentation, I found it hard to generate the idea of what to talk about. Talking in front of people is a little outside of the comfort zone, but it’s a lot easier when you’re talking about something you’re interested in.”
Rhys joined Terra as an apprentice four years ago as a career reset; he’d initially earned a qualification in general engineering and worked as a maintenance engineer in a factory for a few years before deciding to pursue a career as a heavy diesel tech. It’s a move he’s never regretted: “I love the variety of equipment we get to work on, and I love getting out and about in the field. Engineering was mainly big projects where you’re based in one location for a long time, whereas with field service you’re exploring a lot more, and seeing some awesome parts of the country.”
Now that he’s secured the DTAP trophy for Terra, his attention turns to Melbourne in March where he’ll go head-to-head against the best apprentices from the Asia-Pacific.
“I’ve got a bit of nerves thinking about it, but I’ve got to give it a good crack,” he says. “It’s all about challenging yourself and giving it your best. If you don’t do that, you’re not going to grow and evolve.” In a similar vein, Rhys encourages all apprentices to put their best foot forward with the DTAP competition: “Even just those first initial assessments – do that first step and give them a try. You might do better than you think, and you can always say ‘no’ after you’ve given those a go.” Outside of work, Rhys describes himself as a bit of a homebody, but is currently in the process of restoring a 1990 Mazda 626 GT as a replica of his first car. As well as parts being scarce, there’s very little diagnostic information on the pre-OBD fuel-injected engine, and he’s having to use the same field service technician skills in his home garage. “These are skills that definitely transfer across to any situation: find the fault, identify the potential causes and work through testing them until you figure out what’s wrong.”