Family business: EIT forestry tutor Alan Paulson with his daughter Georgia on a skid site:
“It’s much safer now”.
Forestry output is set to grow by 30% in the East Coast region and EIT has your ticket to the forestry industry, where you can earn over $100,000 a year in your 20’s.
You could be just 18 weeks’ intensive training away from the start of an exciting and well-paid career alongside great mates, where you keep learning and can eventually own a successful business.
EIT’s National Certificate in Forestry Harvesting Operations (Level 3) starts on August 1st, and if you have the right stuff it could be the start of a journey where you end up in great physical shape earning $30 per hour with your own house and toys while your former schoolmates are sending off their CVs and wondering when they will escape their student debt.
With the drugs gone the forestry industry is much safer, and plenty of people are getting ahead as they work and play outdoors. With European-style high-tech logging machinery on its way here, bright young people who are willing to work their way into management are in demand.
To accommodate the projected growth another 20-30 logging crews are needed in the East Coast region, as well as more people to do the planting, pruning, thinning, planning, roading, fencing, engineering, trucking and other support work. If you like the outdoors and want a job that rewards hard work and ambition, forestry is a great place to look.
Grant Stewart owns Stewart Logging and like many contractors is always on the look-out for young people with the right stuff.
“What I’m looking for is someone who is motivated and drug-free and can think. If you have a young person who’s got a bit of drive and they haven’t already picked up bad habits you can teach them to do anything.”
Just like playing on a winning sports team, your own game lifts when you are around motivated people.
“I always role model to my young guys. You want to see them succeed and do well – buy a house and look after their families, instead of wasting their money,” says Grant.
EIT forestry tutor Alan Paulson has over 26 years experience in forestry, and at one point had 75 staff under him. He knows the opportunities and what the industry wants.
“In forestry sometimes you have to work in the rain and mud but you have good gear, you get on with it and you get paid well. People can go straight into forestry on $50,000.”
Alan is passionate about the industry and hopes people choose to make careers in it, but says the discipline and fitness you would get over a year or two in forestry would transfer well into other careers that require intelligence, practicality, resilience, risk management and a strong work ethic.