Western Forest Products, Nanaimo, BC
The first few months working on Vancouver Island with Western Forest Products has developed my career skills faster than I could have imagined. My first project as a Quality Control assistant at Duke Point Sawmill involved monitoring variation in the first few machines that breakdown a sawlog. This project allowed for communication with operation staff, some technical writing, and some individual analysis of variation trends. In addition to working at my assigned sawmill, I work on projects at Western’s other operations on the Island. With this traveling, I see a number of operations, meet a variety of people, and learn about what it takes to make different wood products. Though my courses at university prepared me for my co-op term, the environment of continual improvement at my job has allowed me to learn something new every day and develop fundamental skills necessary at a sawmill. My job gives the opportunity to build on academic knowledge gained at university, and allows for further development of hands-on skills. It has been a great experience at Western so far, and I’m looking forward to the rest of my co-op term.
