Two Yorkton winners in SATCC awards

Each year, the Saskatchewan Apprenticeship and Trade Certification Commission (SATCC) hands out the Apprenticeship Awards. These awards recognize the men and women who scored highest on their tests and are the top new face in their field each year.

Yorkton saw two men awarded with Outstanding New Journeyperson Awards. Ryan Matte, powerline technician, and Bryden Dubiel both have been awarded with the Outstanding New Journeyperson Award.

Matte also took home other awards. He took the George Pellerin Memorial Scholarship and the SaskPower Outstanding New Journeyperson Award.

This year’s awards didn’t happen in person due to COVID-19, but the awards were presented to the recipients virtually.

“On behalf of the SATCC, I’m proud to congratulate this year’s Apprenticeship Award winners,” SATCC Board Chair Drew Tiefenbach said in a release.  “While I’d love to shake hands and meet this year’s winners face-to-face, I’m glad we’re still able to celebrate their accomplishments virtually.  These winners are integral to the success of Saskatchewan’s apprenticeship system and they deserve to be recognized.”

Dubiel, one of the two Yorkton men recognized said it was exciting to find out that he was one of the award winners this year.

“It was pretty exciting, I really didn’t think I was going to get that high.”

While he said the award is good to have on his resume, he has been at the shop where he works for a long time and isn’t looking for a new job. He said the rest of the shop was happy to see him get the award.

“Made one guy nervous because he was waiting for his results while I got this.”

Dubiel admits he found out relatively late that he had received the award, because he was having issues with his email and didn’t receive the announcement right away.

Matte, the other local winner, is a new resident in Yorkton, having just started a new job in the city in August. He said he was surprised to get the awards, but that he feels pretty awesome to receive them. This is his second trade.

“I was pretty shocked. You go to school for four years and you meet a lot of smart people, there are a lot of sharp guys and girls in the trades. To get that, I was pretty impressed.”

It has been a stressful year for Matte, not only dealing with COVID-19 like everyone else but also the stress of buying a house and moving to a new city in the middle of it.

“Sometimes you almost cringe opening up your email or opening up the mail because you don’t know what’s coming… This was actually a pretty pleasant surprise.”

The scholarship is also a big help for Matte, and he expects that bills and fees will eat up most of it.

“When you go through an apprenticeship, there’s always bills and fees, travel costs, living costs, and also not being at home, you have stuff at home you have to pay for. It also helps with that a lot.”

Matte is now focused on the next part, and his new job.

“The big misconception with the trades is that once you’re done your four years, you’re done. Really, it’s just kind of the start.”

Matte moved from Carlyle, where he did his training and took the tests. He’s pretty happy with his move so far. He’s impressed by the people in town, saying that everyone’s happy to help when they find out he’s new to the area. He’s also enjoying the opportunity to do outdoor activities like cross-country skiing.

“I think Yorkton is… I don’t want to say ‘hidden gem’ because that’s very cliche, but it’s very underrated and under spoken for in the province.”