On Friday 1 November 2013 Ryobi held the Apprentice of the Year awards for 2013. The event was attended by our apprentices from Years 1 to 4, along with their supervisors and representatives from the management team.
This was an opportunity to celebrate and to recognise the achievements and commitment of every apprentice and to thank the mentors, supervisors and managers for their continued support of the programme.
Ryobi is grateful for the support it receives from the Department of Employment and Learning and our training provider, Northern Region College, as well as on-going assistance from Invest Northern Ireland to support its business improvement activities.
Ryobi places a very high value on its apprentice programme. It is an opportunity to develop a pool of talented people who will be our future skilled technicians, engineers and managers and who will play a significant role in the continued success and growth of the company. We are proud to have 37 high calibre apprentices at various stages of their apprenticeship, and we believe there are great opportunities for everyone to continue to develop and grow, both during and beyond their apprenticeship.
The Company gives a special award each year to the apprentice in each year group who has shown excellent commitment, progress and enthusiasm in the apprenticeship programme. This year’s award winners are as follows:
Year 1 Steven Lewis
Year 2 Gareth Harkness
Year 3 Christian Griffith
Year 4 Colin Vance
Barry Ferris, Die Cast Engineering Manager, and Stafford Doran, Production Manager, who started out as apprentices, gave a short presentation on their career history and discussed the qualities that lead to a successful apprenticeship.
The awards were presented by John Hughes, Managing Director, who thanked all apprentices for their contribution and commitment to the programme and reinforced the company’s desire to develop all employees to their full potential.
David Watson, General Manager, noted that the apprentices were all winners, having passed Ryobi’s stringent entrance criteria, and all have the potential to be the professional engineers and managers of the future.
2013 Apprentice of the Year Awards:
David Watson (General Manager), Gareth Harkness (Year 2 Award), Colin Vance (Year 4 Award), Steven Lewis (Year 1 Award), Christian Griffith (Year 3 Award), Gwyneth Evans (HR Manager), John Hughes (Managing Director)
Steven Lewis, Year 1 Apprentice of the Year
Gareth Harkness, Year 2 Apprentice of the Year
Christian Griffith, Year 3 Apprentice of the Year
Colin Vance, Year 4 Apprentice of the Year