APPRENTICE SUCCESS STORY Bailey’s a blueprint paint apprentice

If technology allowed, Mike Kitson from Auckland’s Green Park Panel and Paint would clone apprentice Bailey Williams, a young man so dedicated to the job he had to be forced to take a holiday.

“He’s an outstanding young man. If we could have ten like him it would be fantastic,” Mike says.

“He turns up to work every day and is so conscientious you would be shocked; he’s an amazing team man and he’s going to become a very, very good painter.”

But it all could have been very different for the young South Aucklander. “I was bought up with eight siblings in Otara,” he says.

“It’s a good place, but there are other paths I could have gone down, but I have good parents that have kept me focused,” he says.

Now Bailey’s found his calling and seized the spray gun with both hands. His initial thoughts of being a hiphop artist have been cast aside for a meticulous eye for automotive detail.

With the option to start at 6am and finish at 3.30pm, Mike says Bailey isn’t one to watch the clock and doesn’t finish his day until he’s sure everything is done.

“Even in the weekends when the boys are working on their own cars, Bailey is the first man to get in here and help them. I have got a bit of a plan for the young fella to get him into the Golden Gun awards next year,” he says.

The Golden Gun award is the Collision Repair Association’s Apprentice of the Year award. The award recipient receives $1,000 donated by MITO and the opportunity to apply for a MITO post-trade scholarship along with a set of tools.

Three cars

Bailey had little knowledge of the business before taking the job. He’d worked for an air-con installation company after leaving Ormiston College in South Auckland but decided it wasn’t for him and left, living off his mum and dad for a year until a friend suggested he go and see Mike about an apprenticeship. “I didn’t know a lot about cars and had no car when I came here. Now I have three, and I have already done a paint job on my Subaru Legacy. I don’t plan on selling it as it is my first car, it’s a 2002 model the same age as me,” he says.

“When I first came here, I started cleaning and learning and I took my time with everything to make sure I was doing it 100 percent, I didn’t want to mess it up.

“Now I have got my own rhythm and manage my time better.”

He plans to finish his paint apprenticeship as soon as possible and then take on a panel apprenticeship, and Mike is keen to make that happen.

“I love this job, it is a good job, and I am going to get through this apprenticeship as quickly as I can; it should be done in three years,” Bailey says.