Georgian students earn gold, silver, and bronze in Toronto

NEWS RELEASE
GEORGIAN COLLEGE
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Staff and faculty across the college are beaming with pride as Georgian students took home two gold, a silver and a bronze at the Skills Ontario Competition held May 7 to 9 in Toronto.

Nathan Robitaille repeated Georgian’s gold medal success in CNC Machining, helping to write the most recent chapter in the college’s record books of historic wins. He now moves on to compete in the Skills Canada competition, to be held in Edmonton in June.

Georgian faculty member and team coach Jurgen Hierholzer was extremely happy with Robitaille’s performance.

“I try to pick the top students from our Mechanical Technician – Precision Skills program and get them ready for the competition early on,” he said. “The competition gets tougher every year. I have to keep up to date with what other colleges are doing and stay one step ahead of them. I am very proud to have another student from Georgian on the podium collecting a gold medal. Next week we start the hard work in helping Nathan train for the Skills Canada national competition.”

Robitaille recently completed his academic studies at the Barrie Campus and will formally graduate at convocation ceremonies in June. He is working in his home town of Penetanguishene at a small machine shop owned by his father, who is also a graduate from Georgian’s machining program.

Georgian also scored a gold medal in the Web Design and Development category. Vivian Harvey, a first-year Interactive Media Design – Web student, impressed her Georgian faculty members and team coaches Scott McCrindle and Rich Freeman.

“This is a great accomplishment,” said Freeman. “Especially since, as a first-year student, she was competing against a group of very capable and more senior competitors in a very challenging competition. This is the first time Georgian has competed in the category so to win gold in our first outing makes us extremely proud. Vivian is a very talented, innovative, and dedicated web developer and an exceptional student.”

Harvey, an Angus resident, was excited to participate in the competition and said winning was a surprise. “I went in for the experience,” she said, “and feel like I got a lot out of it just from studying and preparing for the competition. So, the win is just a nice bonus.”

Competitors in her category were tasked with building a website for a small business where users could browse sale items and contact administrators using a web form. Website users also needed to be able to log in, update stock and read the user messages, so it involved database design, PHP, a bit of JavaScript and HTML and CSS.

Harvey credits her two faculty coaches, McCrindle and Freeman, with helping her prepare for the competition.

“They helped me break down each step of the example project we were shown, and fill in any gaps in my knowledge,” said Harvey. “They answered my questions and were a huge support for me going into the competition. I definitely couldn't have done it without them.”

Harvey is currently working at Base Borden for her co-op term. She is designing and building eLearning modules for the Canadian Armed Forces.

Georgian’s Photography students also came away with some hardware with first-year student Caitlin Rafters winning a silver medal and Joseph Smith, a second-year student, winning a bronze medal. This was the first year Georgian had students competing in the category.

Photography alumnus Jessica Rosati mentored and coached the students. “She has been a wonderful influence on the student competitors,” said Terry Hrynyk, co-ordinator of the Photography program. “They were well prepared with shooting assignments, mock interviews and portfolio reviews.” 

This marks several years of top-place wins for Georgian provincially and nationally. It is also the best medal showing the college has had in the Skills Ontario competition and the largest number of skilled and talented students participating.

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