“My younger brother became a boilermaker right out of high school,” says Alan. “I took the longer route, holding some office jobs with various steel fabrication shops in the Vancouver area. Later I got involved in mining, first underground, later as a warehouseman. But when the mining industry took a dive around 1975, I was pretty well out of work.”
That’s when Alan’s brother Evan stepped in. “He encouraged me to go back to school, to try my hand as a boilermaker,” Alan recalls. “Also, it wasn’t just that he encouraged me to become a boilermaker; he also advised me on how to handle my finances, given the boom-bust nature of the work at that time.”
Good thing, too. Although he was exceptionally busy in the first few years, by the early 1980s, Alan was finding it difficult to find work as a boilermaker in British Columbia. The province’s economy was in a downturn and the demand for boilermakers—at least in B.C.—was at a low point. Again, his brother’s advice to save money when work was available paid dividends—Alan had set aside more than enough to see him through.
Now 57, Alan says he’s looking forward to his retirement. At the same time, he hopes there may be more he can do over the next two or three years to stay involved with his fellow boilermakers, particularly in the area of safety.
“Without a doubt, today’s focus on safety is the most dramatic change I’ve seen in the industry. There’s hearing protection, eye protection and respiratory protection. It’s just 180 degrees different than when I started.”
Alan is well positioned to promote safety; he’s been a safety coordinator—also something relatively new for the industry—on a number of jobs. “I hope to stay active in our business after retirement, working as a safety coordinator.”