The CWB Association Welding Podcast
The CWB Association Welding Podcast
Skills Canada Series - Season 3 - Episode 7 with Robin Lorway
The CWB Association is thrilled to collaborate with Skills/Compétences Canada on a special podcast series. This year, we are excited to interview the Skills Canada Executive Directors from across Canada. Tune in as we explore their skills journey and commitment to promoting skilled trades in their provinces and territories!
The narrative of having to leave the Maritimes to pursue a viable career in the trades is rapidly becoming a relic of the past. Robin Lorway, Executive Director of Skills Canada Nova Scotia, brings 18 years of perspective to this transformation, painting a picture of a province where opportunity now thrives and skilled tradespeople are returning home rather than departing. Robin's journey with Skills began when a friend rescued her from an unfulfilling public relations position, introducing her to an organization where she felt seen, heard, and valued. That environment of respect and innovation has fueled Skills Nova Scotia's expansion, creating initiatives that have become so popular with schools approaching them instead of the other way around.
Website: https://www.skillsns.ca/
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Website: https://www.skillscompetencescanada.com/en/
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Twitter: https://twitter.com/skills_canada
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/skillscanada
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All right, I check, check. Good, so I'm Max Duran. Max Duran, cwb Association Welding Podcast podcast podcast. Today, we have a really cool guest welding podcast. The show is about to begin. Hello and welcome to another edition of the CWB Association Podcast. My name is Max Duran and I am here in beautiful Regina, saskatchewan, for this year's 2025 Skills Competition. I got distracted by a passerby there. Sorry, but this week what we're doing is we're going to be recording all the executive directors of all the provinces and territories and we're going to be finding out all the amazing stuff happening within their teams. Right now we have robin lorway from nova scotia. Robin, how are you doing?
Speaker 2:I'm doing well. Thank you for having me absolutely.
Speaker 1:You know we all love nova scotia. It's like everyone who's ever been to the maritimes loves the maritime.
Speaker 2:You love being out there I love being out there, so I was born in Cape Breton and now live in Halifax and, yeah, it's such a beautiful part of the country to be in.
Speaker 1:Now for the Nova Scotia team. I was going to say Norway For the Nova Scotia team. Have any of them ever been out to the prairies before? Or Saskatchewan I?
Speaker 2:mean a couple have. But we even had first time flyers with us. Oh wow, Some of our coaches have never been on a plane before. On a plane before, so that's an incredible experience to offer them for the first time, which is really neat.
Speaker 1:What's the size of your team? Who's all here?
Speaker 2:We've got 41 competitors and our team altogether is 72, including coaches and skills staff.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:That's a big team.
Speaker 1:It's a big team yeah, like I have seen the skills blow up in the Maritimes over the last decade. We were just at Skills Atlantic in New Brunswick and it was huge. It was huge, you know, and we're seeing a big investment into the skilled trades in Nova Scotia.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely. I mean, the Department of Education is fully behind us. The Apprenticeship Agency sees us as a great way to promote what they do, and I just feel as if people are starting to really realize that these are viable and excellent career options, and teachers know that they need to expose students to these careers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we need them.
Speaker 2:Oh 100%.
Speaker 1:yeah, one of the narratives that the Maritimes has always suffered from is the idea that you have to leave the Maritimes, go west, for example, to make money, to have great careers. And out in the west myself here we would have the influx of people from the Maritimes every spring for shutdown season. Now I feel like that narrative is changing. Now A hundred percent.
Speaker 2:So I started at Skills 18 years ago and I have a vivid memory of a conversation with one of my coworkers, out on her back deck, saying are we doing the right thing? I mean, we know so many people who go into trades but then they have to go out West to work. And that's what it was like 18 years ago. Now it seems to be just the opposite. People are able to find jobs at home, nova Scotia, the population is booming. There are cranes all over Halifax, Every direction you look you see cranes.
Speaker 2:So obviously we are.
Speaker 1:Destruction is there yeah.
Speaker 2:And you would hear about it when I started 18 years ago oh, there's going to be a trade shortage, it's going to happen, and now it's here.
Speaker 1:The reality is there, yeah yeah, and you know, I love that growth, I love that seeing that, that idea of not only reshoring your own employee base right and saying you know, you can grow up in Nova Scotia and study here, you have great programs, nscc is an amazing college, you've got lots of smaller training providers and then you get to stay in your area to work, whether it's on the shipbuilding or construction or manufacturing. I say I would even take that one step further. Is that now people outside of the Maritimes are looking at you know Nova Scotia and saying maybe I'll leave where I'm at to go there because it is still reasonable living expenses, the wages are good and it's beautiful.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and I think, during COVID especially, a lot of people decided to come back home. They wanted to be closer to their families. They saw that that was something that was missing in their lives. And so so many people moved back home and I think that really helped with the population growth. My neighbor across the street is a contractor and he was living in Ontario and it was always his idea, when he could, he was going to move back home.
Speaker 1:He took his wife from ontario, planted her in nova scotia and now they're living like the ideal life that he always dreamed of yeah, that's wonderful, I love to hear that well, and it creates a bar for these young trades people to be like something to aim for, of that of that idyllic life where you work hard, you invest in your community and then you get to reap the rewards of you invest in your community and then you get to reap the rewards of your investment in your community.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and I think that in my perspective, like in Nova Scotia, families are so important to us, so to be able to have that proximity to grandparents, to cousins, aunts, uncles, it's really, it's a good benefit to living in Nova Scotia.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, let's talk about your journey into skills. You know 18 years. You said how did you get into skills? Or how did skills nab you? How did they nab me?
Speaker 2:I was working somewhere and I was absolutely miserable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what were you doing, like? What type of work?
Speaker 2:I was doing public relations. I'd graduated from the public relations program at NSCC and I was working in a place where I just felt unseen.
Speaker 1:I was that's the worst. I was just. It was awful and a friend of mine knew this.
Speaker 2:And he said you know, he worked in the same office. He worked for the apprenticeship agency which we were based in at the time and he said I know this organization and they're hiring. It's a great group of people. You should put in an application and I did and I got the job. And ever since I think when you work somewhere that's just not your vibe. When you finally find a place where you are seen, where you are heard, where you are welcome, where your opinion actually matters then I'm a skills for life pretty much yeah, you can come out of your cocoon and you can.
Speaker 2:You can grow yourself yeah, my ideas actually matter like I I feel like I can come up with a lot of creative things, and to have someone actually hear them and welcome them made me feel and and grow on them yeah and be able to do something about them.
Speaker 1:Now, 18 years ago, you've seen the rise and crest of many different I guess. Uh, trades waves, right, things go up and down in the trades worlds, they ebb and flow. Skills like that also ebbs and flows. You know what changes or what evolutions have you seen in your 18 years within skills at Nova Scotia?
Speaker 2:Our organization has grown substantially in 18 years. I think, when you have, as I was saying before, when you have a team that feels like they can share their ideas.
Speaker 1:We welcome innovation.
Speaker 2:I think that's it, and they love their job, and so they come up with all these great things that we could be doing with youth, and from that we pitch new programs to partners to the provincial government and then people say, oh my gosh, this is the organization that's doing it.
Speaker 2:Well, they understand youth. We are really respected within the school system and they open their doors to us and let us come in and speak about careers. They know that we are fun. They know that we are interactive. They know that we're engaging, so they want us in their schools. They know that we are the organization that works well with youth, promoting skilled trades.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, we just have people coming to us saying do you think you would be interested in maybe doing this program? Or we're doing summer camps this year for the second time, which is really quite fun. And we're doing that in partnership with the Nova Scotia Apprenticeship Agency and Nova Scotia Community College. And yeah, they came to us because they knew yes, they offer the training that is needed in the summer camps, but we're the ones that make it fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and all the supports and the wraparounds are cool with it too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:But you know everyone's safe and happy and enjoying their time right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Now.
Speaker 1:Nova Scotia has grown in their programming tons. I know the Canadian Welding Bureau. We've invested into a number of programs in Nova Scotia. We helped build the trailer, the welding trailer, with NSCC and you know there's a lot of funding going on. But I think the narrative has changed where before skills was kind of beaten on the doors of the teachers to say let us in, and now it's the other way around, where the teachers are coming to skills and saying come on in. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So we have an in-class presentation initiative that we do, where we have someone who travels across the schools of Nova Scotia, and the demand for it became so high that we had to say wait a second, we can't reach everyone. We don't have enough people, so now we're just doing grade tens and we have another program that's just for grade nines, and the amount of people that want to come to the come to see our provincial skills competition. We had like a thousand people come to each of our events this year, which was that's amazing.
Speaker 2:And we didn't have to push for it. We had to say at the end actually we don't have any more room. We're maxed out, so that's a nice problem to have.
Speaker 1:That is, that's amazing. Do you feel like it's a trades forward province? Do you think that they've gotten the? I feel like like I don't think saskatchewan's there right now. I mean, we are such a trades reliant province but it's still. The narrative is university. The narrative is the academic or academia. Um, do you feel like the narrative is kind of more reasonably now spread out?
Speaker 2:I think that we have some really good champions in the schools right now. We have a wonderful options and opportunities program in the schools where students get to try out different careers, and it's almost like a co-op program too. They get to actually like go and experience what it's like working in different careers, and I think that that's really opened a lot of eyes. Yeah, I do think I mean we do.
Speaker 2:We are very university heavy province we've got dalhousie, saint mary's mount, saint vincent, acadia so yeah, there's still I mean, university is still often what is promoted in schools, but I think that I think it is changing for the better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's good. Yeah, now for yourself coming into skills as an ed from non, a non-skills or a non-trades background. What was it like to get into this role and have to learn this part of the, the industry, like the, the terminology, the language, the acronyms, all the?
Speaker 2:I'm still learning it's been a while I'm still learning.
Speaker 1:There's a lot. The learning curve must have been heavy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I started out as the competition coordinator, the provincial competition coordinator, and I've had various roles throughout but, honestly, the volunteers that we work with are so amazing and understanding and just offer to help in any way they can, so I've definitely had an education over the last 18 years.
Speaker 1:I just had a memory of the rain. What year was that?
Speaker 2:That was just two years ago.
Speaker 1:When everything was flooding in Halifax. That was two years ago. Was that just two years ago? Yeah?
Speaker 2:because we had the forest fires in Hammonds Plains first and then we had the flooding.
Speaker 1:The flooding, I remember the excavators were trying to pile sand to stop water from coming in. I mean, you can't predict the weather, but I still had a fantastic time.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, Good, good yeah. My house is at the top of a very tall hill and our gravel driveway was completely ruined and we were stuck at the top of the hill for a couple of days.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I mean that's the fun of skills, right? Like you do these events across the country, you pick different locations to try to showcase different areas. I absolutely love going anywhere.
Speaker 2:Oh, you're talking about the flooding during the Skills Canada National Convention.
Speaker 1:That's what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2:We also had really bad floods in Nova Scotia two years ago. But yes, when the National Convention.
Speaker 1:It was during the National Convention. Yeah, okay, that's what it was. I felt like it was longer ago. Yeah, that was madness Longer ago. Yeah, that was madness.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if everyone's running around, I was off on maternity leave so I escaped it all.
Speaker 1:So it wasn't your fault. No, you didn't have anything to do with the rain.
Speaker 2:Nothing at all.
Speaker 1:I remember we still talk about that because you know what. It was like a great example of the community getting together to make it happen. Because it was like I remember the excavator students all ran out and got dirt from the landscaper students to try to block the water and I was like you know what, if you're gonna have a disaster, we're in the best group of people exactly. You've got all the experts right there like we'll have power, we'll have water, we'll have food. We're good for months here, guys.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I will say it doesn't only happen in nova scotia, because I went to a competition in france a couple years ago and the same thing happened.
Speaker 1:Let it right out, yeah, yeah well, here in regina in the summer you'd be hard pressed to find a rain cloud yeah, I don't know if you've noticed, we don't really get clouds yeah, I've noticed that. Yeah, it's a thing, yeah I know that a lot of people are like oh yeah, does it rain? It's like, maybe in may for a bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, coming from the east coast, the dryness here is quite noticeable yeah, yeah, is your eyes burning? Much. Yeah, all the time. Yeah. It's funny because when I go, out east.
Speaker 1:My hair is this big, exactly right yeah, but my sinuses are fantastic yeah, that's salt water air. Now you know, in terms of your 18 years as well. You know what kind of new programming and what kind of new stuff have you brought into the skills group.
Speaker 2:Well, not me necessarily, but as an organization, one of the things that we're most proud of is our App Olympics competition. So App Olympics is an international movement, Olympics of Abilities that's kind of where the word comes from and it's a skills competition specifically for persons with disabilities. Um, so we are the only province right now to host ab olympics competitions. We've taken several teams to represent canada to the international ab olympics, so I took a team to k, oh awesome.
Speaker 2:I've taken two separate teams to France to compete and we also participated in the Finnish national competition. We had a cooking team compete there, so we're the only province that really offers that.
Speaker 1:So why is it not involved in like a cross-provincen we're?
Speaker 2:trying to spread it out. It's a new initiative. It's quite costly to bring in and I think you know as much like this skills. Canada has done really well at becoming a bit more accessible the national competition itself over the years, but wrapping your head around doing a competition specifically for people with disabilities and everything that that entails. It's a huge endeavor and the next International Olympics is in 2027 in Finland, and we're really hoping that we get more participation from across the country.
Speaker 1:Reach out, let us know, because that sounds like something right in our wheelhouse. Because when we look at the trades of the Canadian Welding Bureau and we look at the trades of the Canadian Welding Bureau and we look at the steel, you know, industries, and we realize that the numbers just they just aren't there. I mean, and you know I was at the CAF conference last week and, uh, you know there was a presenter talking about you know, we've been discussing this impending retirement. You know, runoff, that's going to be happening right away. And they said, well, according to stats, canada it started. There's not like, oh, the retirements are coming. Apparently the trades retirements doubled from 2024 to 2025, so it's coming.
Speaker 2:Like it's now. Well, several volunteers in our team are telling me two years, two more years and we're done. Yeah, so here we go, like it's it's, it's go time now.
Speaker 1:meanwhile, on the other hand, you have industries that are like I got 300 job openings, yeah, 200 job openings, and it's like, okay, if we're gonna, if we're being honest with ourselves and we want to fill all these jobs, we need to be open, we need to get women, we need to get, uh, people of color, we need to get indigenous, we need to get neurodivergent, we need to get indigenous, we need to get neurodivergent. We need to get differently abled. We need them all.
Speaker 2:We need everybody we had a competitor in France with us a couple of years two years ago now, I believe and she female welder neurodiverse.
Speaker 1:So that's exactly who you're talking about right there, that's what we need right, and those are the people that are going to open the doors for others too, because, at the end of the day, you can't be what you don't see right. And even for myself, you know, I've been in the steel trades over 30 years. I've never had a boss who's a woman ever. I've never had a boss who's Indigenous ever, and I've never had a boss who's a person of color at all. So it's like, okay, well, how do you start pushing this out? You need to not only find and support the people that represent these groups, but also elevate them. They need to get into those foreman jobs, those supervisor jobs, right?
Speaker 2:or come compete in a skills competition so that people can see. The young people can see when they're touring through exactly what's people reflected I've seen or I talked to someone I forget what contest area or skill area it was, but saying you know, oh, it was bricklaying. Actually one of the ntc is a female, so our competitor was like it was so cool to see a female bricklayer at this level, at this level, yeah, and apparently she's got. The NTC member has like several Red Seals.
Speaker 1:Oh, awesome.
Speaker 2:So she's like multi-talented and maybe even a master's, like this is a role model. Yeah, and so that's the type of person that we need to be showing everyone, everyone, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And like I mean, how do we, how can we do that better? You know, my organization, your organization, all our organizations. How can we take those gems and just put them up on a on a pedestal, I guess, or I don't know like glamorize that somehow?
Speaker 2:I think you could do it, have them on your podcast.
Speaker 1:I do send me their names this is part of why we started the podcast is trying to find as many social media channels to promote, and we only do lifestyles here. I'm not pitching product yeah that's not our game. I have a whole nother part of the company that that's their job. Yeah, my job here is just uh, people just want to hear, like if someone's listening and says I want to be an ed, yeah, this is, they can see you and be like. This is an opportunity, right? Yeah?
Speaker 2:yeah, and I think, like, like social media is so crowded with different, so much information right now, so figuring out, I think I think this skills competition is a great way to do that, because when people are walking around and seeing people like them represented especially, I mean, it's a lot of young people that are touring through here to see people their own age that are out there excelling and I mean it's incredible what they do at the competition.
Speaker 2:These competitors. It's really impressive to see and I think that they really are inspiring to people their own age and everyone that's here is getting those top jobs. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like everyone here, is going to be able to fulfill what they wish, they want. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:That's such a freedom what I find really interesting is I was talking to someone from the community college the other day and I kind of reflected on how many of our team nova scotia alumni are now teaching at the college and I said. You know why they're doing that? It's because the our competitors are the ones that don't want to stop learning.
Speaker 2:They always want to be getting better and they want to share, they want to be those mentors. So I think like really the teams and the, the competitors that are competing at this competition are really like the stars of our future, yeah and it came up earlier with another interview about the cyclical nature of the trades and how skills fits within that.
Speaker 1:Because you can find these kids, support them, get them competing you know what win or lose whatever they compete and then elevates them. Then they wish to give back because then they're given into and then they end up in mentorship positions, teachers, back in skills, and then you know, then they're the NTC 10 years later exactly, and it just becomes this, this cycle of support from like cradle to grave. Not just get you in, but we're going to be around until you retire exactly so.
Speaker 2:The coaches that we brought with us, who are now becoming NTC, who were my competitors when I started 18 years ago. It's really great to see that happen.
Speaker 1:I was hoping to see Tony Rose out here, but he's retired now. Yeah, I mean, that makes me mad.
Speaker 2:Yeah, one of my best buddies.
Speaker 1:Every skills we hang out.
Speaker 2:Okay, every skills.
Speaker 1:When it was in Winninipeg, we ran out to go to see metallica together.
Speaker 2:Tony, if you listen to this, I'm spilling the beans, but you're retired, you can't get in trouble you know it was, it's, it's fantastic.
Speaker 1:Now let's take another lens at this. Okay, you're a spectator. Now you're at skills. Regina, you did your walkthrough, you've seen it all. Which are your top three trades that you like to spectate?
Speaker 2:I love cooking because I love food I love to eat. I love um, the presentation of the food, although I must say yesterday I was watching our, our high school competitor. Just she had five minutes to present a plate. I had to walk away because so stressful it is so stressful to see um and yeah, I'm, I'm a bit more of a really creative person, so seeing things like hairstyling come together.
Speaker 2:That's really the beauty of really great for me to see, and then I mean right, I can see right now the heavy equipment, to see those big machines and how they operate.
Speaker 1:They can be so graceful.
Speaker 2:I always think of them like dinosaurs.
Speaker 1:They look like dinosaurs.
Speaker 2:I have a four-year-old son, so I watch them quite a bit. And yeah, they are really graceful machines.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they are, especially when you've got a skilled operator. I've seen them run by not skilled operators. That would make a difference, not graceful machines. Yeah, they are Like especially when you got a skilled operator. Yeah, I've seen them run by not skilled operators. Not graceful, not graceful, that's awesome and you know, and in terms of you know getting around and seeing all the people and you know seeing the support here, how do you not get energized? How does it not refill that tank Right?
Speaker 2:It happens every year and I think it's really important that we bring like I bring my staff with me to these events um as many as we can, because it fills their cup too. It makes them realize we we work hard in our office and when we come here, we see why and how it pays off, yeah, and, and, and.
Speaker 1:You see it, for generations to come, like, especially if you got new staff. They might not sense yet the implication of the depth of of an action that you create yeah, yeah, I'm I.
Speaker 2:I think they catch that because, as we're walking through the halls with them, I'm stopping and talking to so many people, because I've met so many people since I've been here and great friendships are formed.
Speaker 1:You look forward to seeing that person once a year.
Speaker 2:We always say welcome to the skills family because it really does feel like a family, that's awesome, all right.
Speaker 1:Last couple of questions here for you, knowing what you know of the trades now, and if you went back in time you're young, coming out of high school, but you know and if you went back in time you're young, coming out of high school, but you know about all these fantastic opportunities which trade would you pick to start over in?
Speaker 2:well in high school I don't know if I would make the same decision, but if I was doing it now, I think cabinet making is beautiful yeah um one of our past cabinet makers. Um, he has his own shop in his house now and what he can do just blows my mind, and I mean not the not fastening with like nails and like how he makes things, the joinery of it all, it's just, it all just comes together. I I really think what he does is so beautiful and to have that talent.
Speaker 1:It's creativity, but it's also tactile, exactly, yeah, so I think cabinet making would be my choice. So now you know this is the retirement gig.
Speaker 2:You got it, oh gosh, I don't think I'm not quite that skilled, they're all just kind of whatever, but you're learning, exactly you can get your previous competitors. Robin's Crooked Kitchen. Come and see it, robin's Crooked Kitchen. I love it. Nothing closes properly, but it looks pretty.
Speaker 1:Good color schemes.
Speaker 2:Maybe Great handles, I hope.
Speaker 1:And then for the last question, you know you got to pump your group up right. Like a lot of the support that happens throughout skills is maintaining the focus of the competitors, because it can be overwhelming. How do you pump them up, how do you keep them positive and engaged throughout these three, four days of madness?
Speaker 2:I think one of the key things to say is that they're already a winner being here. They've won a gold medal provincially. That says something about their skill and talent. They may have hiccups when they come out here. Everyone's going to make mistakes, so letting them know that, yeah, you're focused on your mistakes, but what you didn't see is everything else that everyone's doing. Nobody is perfect.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and everyone's nervous yeah.
Speaker 2:And someone said the other day that you know you're coming out here to compete, but really you're competing with yourself yeah, and you have to do the best that you can do and not really focus on what's happening elsewhere.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome, that's good advice yeah, and hopefully they'll keep their hats on and, you know, hopefully we see some of them on the podium this week.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we've got a great team.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I hope so your fingers crossed yeah well, thanks so much for being on the show today. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2:No problem. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:Awesome and for all the people that have been following along with the executive directors interviews here at skills Canada, check out all the episodes. We're going to have 13 in total, so if you stumbled into this one, make sure you listen to. Thank you for downloading, commenting and sharing on the podcast. I'll catch you at the next one. We hope you enjoy the show.