Welcome to our 40th year of Canada Training Group.
Dave Smith has been an Industrial Maintenance Electrician since 1975. He has taught maintenance, troubleshooting and safety courses to thousands of electricians in mines, mills, refineries, factories, plants, power stations and offshore platforms throughout North America and the Middle East. Dave is a hands-on guy and teache...
Dear friends and colleagues,
Thank You for helping me reach the 39th birthday of Canada Training Group!
On Canada Day of 1980, my then wife Joy, agreed to my pursuing a vision that I had when I was 12 years old. Mrs. Wunsch, my Grade 7 teacher, observing me diligently carving DBS INC into the top of my old wooden desk, suddenly declared "David! What are you thinking about?!"
I looked up in total embarrassment to see her laughing like crazy. My face must have been doing a million animated contortions as, in my imagination, I was suspended in space and watching a planet where everywhere there were activities of DBS INC.
That was in 1964 and it took until 1980 to start; the activities, paths and experiences of the last 39 years though could never have been imagined. We have not been all over the world yet but we have been everywhere in Canada, many places in the US and projects in Mexico, the Caribbean and the Middle East are in our file.
On July 23rd, I will be 67 and although the excitement level is more calm, the desire and interest have not wavered. People ask when I will retire and the concept is so foreign, I have no idea how to respond; not for many years, that is for sure.
I choose to live, work and manage Canada Training Group from my hometown of Turtleford, Saskatchewan. I am surrounded by men who just keep on keepin' on. My farmer friend, Henry Wooff, is 74 and just put in another crop. My rancher friend, Wilfred Hamm, is 84 and still sawmilling and raising cattle. This is rural normal.
There are too many things to build and create; too many things that don't exist and need to be born and I am still naïve enough to think that I can catalyze many of them.
I am now blessed with a tremendous group of colleagues and with such talent that I have moved out of instruction. I logged about 100 training days a year for 35 years and although I was not burned out, it was time for a sea change. We have a superb instruction team with somewhere over 800 years of practical field experience up to 550kV so our instruction is in great hands.
Now I spend my days working with clients on long term curriculum, course design and building training labs. We have converted five full sized highway trailers into mobile electrical training labs and I am thinking about #6! It is exciting to build these and create interesting and unique projects that give high and immediate skills transfer. My goal in every course I design is 80% hands-on. It has been a long way since my first six-week course design program that I took in 1968!
We have been doing more US work and I am just working with two US hydro utilities on five-year curricula for their maintenance electricians and mechanics. If you love what you do, it rarely gets tiring!
Along with this we have just created a separate training division for electrical engineers in training and have redesigned our Leadership training especially for technical supervisors and managers. All these activities fuel my imagination and excitement!
Dan Gies, our pastor at Turtle Lake Mission has challenged me to take my 2003 VStar 1100 and attempt the Iron Butt Association’s Saddle Sore 1000. 1,000 witnessed miles to be completed in 24 hours; that sounds pretty cool for a present on my 67th birthday!
At this same time, I am taking combined fiddle and cello lessons trying to make music on my 6th and 7th instruments. None of these are natural to me but I believe the more I push my right brain envelope the better I will be developing courses and training labs!
My greatest blessing though is that my son, Rob, and his wife, Jenny, are my partners in this amazing adventure.
So, Thank You All, it has been cool to connect with so many of you!
Welcome to our 40th year of Canada Training Group😊
Cheers
Dave Smith
President & Founder
Canada Training Group
PS I have been told that this message is too long but if you are reading this then you agree with me that it is not!! LOL