Marcel Losier: Determined to Share
As a young man, he was never intimidated by the challenge of becoming a boilermaker. Nor was he nervous about the prospect of one day working alongside his father and uncle, both experienced and respected boilermakers in New Brunswick. But years later, when Marcel Losier was asked to share his knowledge and experience with a new generation of boilermakers, he admits he was both frightened and intimidated.
“My knees were literally shaking,” says Marcel, recalling his first day as an instructor at the New Brunswick Community College in Moncton. “When I opened the first book, I realized almost immediately just how little I knew about the profession I’d practised for nearly 20 years.” Fortunately, Marcel’s bout of uncertainty came while the retiring instructor was still showing him the ropes, a full two weeks before the first young boilermaker apprentice would enter his classroom.
“By the second week, I was ready to give it a shot on my own,” says Marcel. The week after that—reasonably calm and fully prepared—he welcomed his first class of apprentice boilermakers. The experience, he says today, was everything he hoped and thought it would be. “The books are important, obviously, but it’s talking with the students about the rewards of becoming a boilermaker that I enjoy the most.”
For a man who seemed destined to become a boilermaker almost from birth, Marcel says he saw reaching others as a way to pay back all that his chosen profession had given him. “My father and uncle were boilermakers, and, like them, I loved working with machines. On the job with my uncle, I learned how to work with my hands. And when I was a helper with my father, he taught me how important it was to always do the very best that I could possibly do.”
Also just like his dad, says Marcel, he has always looked to advance in his career as a boilermaker. And he’s done just that, holding a wide range of management and supervisory positions in Atlantic Canada over the years. Still, now that he’s had a taste of teaching and managing boilermaking, Marcel says his first love remains the actual job site.