Our journey to WorldSkills

HVAC&R Centre’s Gina McMaster shares how New Zealand came to be representing the world stage in HVAC&R with the help of IRHACE

Words by Gina McMaster, CEO IRHACE and CCCANZ

It was a dream and one that had been talked about over the years. But there was a lot to overcome.

Back in 2021, the IRHACE Council wanted to provide both a high-performance and development pathway for our apprentices. No one could get it across the line and so it just didn’t get the push and determination for the project to succeed.

With my background in sport, I know how important it is to have these pathways and I have succeeded in these journeys with other organisations. The most important thing is to have a plan. It started with the restructuring of the existing Wallie Askew Memorial Workskills Competition.

At WorldSkills, the skill is ‘Refrigeration and Air Conditioning’ and this is what we were going to need to change to bring in the other components. The international competition also has different scoring – another change to bring in to give us a more consistent and structured approach. While this wasn’t a popular move to start with, the industry has seen the positive and is supportive of the change.

IRHACE established the Apprentices of IRHACE special interest group and at the helm is David Everett. With assistance from Trent McDonald, David put together a team that includes John Jenkins, Neill Adkins, Daniel Jordan and Phil Mohan to steer the competition’s change.

Along with this came the mentoring group which now includes Cameron Wilson-Meek (winner in 2022), Alex Davies (2023 winner) and Jack Butler (first WorldSkills representative) who have all given back to the industry in judging and presentations to the competitors.

Our partnership with WorldSkills NZ covers the promotion and showcase of the refrigeration and air conditioning industry to stakeholders and the public as well as other areas of cooperation. This venture enabled us to put forward an apprentice to represent New Zealand on the world stage. With the partnership and special interest group established, we now needed to attract more entries into the competition. The changes to the rules have allowed competitors to enter from Year 1 to Year 4 of their apprenticeship and enter more than once. This has occurred for the first time in the 2024 competition with a record number of entries.

Our operations team has worked tirelessly in the background, contacting companies to encourage entries and also to get support from the industry. Realcold has now been the major sponsor of the event for the last two years and there is continual support from CCCANZ.

Our companies and educational institutes have assisted with venues and suppliers have provided equipment and prize support.

But the crunch came when our first apprentice, Jack Butler from Active Refrigeration, was selected to compete globally – IRHACE had to fully commit to being able to fund not only the WorldSkills leg but also the Melbourne competition.

RLNZ stepped up and provided sponsorship for the Australian part of the competition and Active Refrigeration has sponsored the WorldSkills aspect.

Craig Duff, a long-time IRHACE member and Founding Director of Active, commented on this part of the journey saying, “What an amazing journey for you all to be on, and for Active on the world stage. What a proud moment. Well done all.”

WorldSkills is a competition at another level – the Olympics for our trade. It is such a great experience no matter where competitors finish. Jack has made New Zealand proud and put our industry on the world map.