With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/950283
classroom portion of the MMT program yearly, which is a small number and illustrates the need for a Foundations program that would increase the volume of people in this line of work." Brendan Keys of GA Checkpoint Yamaha agrees. "My business is unique in that we also sell motorcycles and ATVs, so I already had staff who came through that Foundation program that I could apprentice," he says. "Small dealers are facing a real service problem, which intensifies at the beginning and end of the boating season when boat owners show up in droves to have their vessels checked out." Boating BC, BCIT, and VIU are trying to rectify a number of administrative issues pertaining to the need for a Foundation. Namely, they are encouraging the formal distinction between the needs of the recreational boating industry with those of the industrial marine sector; and they are working directly with the Industry Training Authority (ITA) to make a case for a Foundation program to be devel- oped and offered at VIU on the Island and at BCIT in the Lower Mainland. "Ironically, before the original Founda- tion was dissolved we received federal and provincial funding to build a new marine, automotive and trades facility on campus, which would have housed this program, among others." Steen is cautiously optimistic that a Foundation will be re-established sooner than later. "I think we're making good progress with the ITA, and we have an existing program that can be enhanced in order to transform it into a Foundation program," she says. • S p e c i a l F e a t u r e