Rebecca Barr is our first female apprentice and now one of our key tradespeople in the Taranaki team, she completed her trade in 2018. Rebecca has a natural bent towards mechanical and practical things. She has her own stock cars and is a serious contender in races New Zealand wide. Rebecca got into the trade through a work experience opportunity while still at school and feels very lucky that this is the trade she chose. Mostly, “because of the variety of things you get to work on, no day is ever the same.”
Being a fridgie doesn’t mean fixing domestic fridges, it involves a lot of work on commercial and industrial sites in multiple industries, from chocolate making, rocket launching, cheese processing, growing lettuces, oil and gas, through to processing chickens, just to name a few. It involves electrical testing, identifying trends, rebuilding compressors, pulling valves apart and so much more. There are no barriers to being a woman in the trade and you do grow your strength and fitness on the job. “All of the really heavy lifting is usually done by machines”, everyone’s health and safety is non-negotiable at Excel.
Rebecca says. “One of the early challenges in the role is talking to the customer and building credibility with them, once this has been achieved it is also one of the more satisfying aspects. You end up building great rapport and working alongside them to solve their business problems”