For immediate release

January 6, 2011

Kwantlen students and faculty impress at Wine Fest!

(METRO VANCOUVER, B.C.) Four Kwantlen Polytechnic University metal fabrication, millwright and welding students utilized the hands-on skills they learned from class to manufactured 50 metal sign posts for the Rotary Club of Langley Central’s Annual Wine and Food Festival. Their hard work helped the festival raise approximately $50,000 to support the club’s commitment to eradicate polio, build domestic projects to assist underprivileged children and fund the Rotary Club of Langley Central Award, which provides $500 annually to a Kwantlen student in need of financial assistance.

Led by Robert Finlayson, a metal fabrication faculty member for over 12 years, Kwantlen students Shane Bryant (millwright level 2 & first-year applied science in engineering), Harley Northeast (metal fabrication level 1), Keith Ginn (welding level C & metal fabrication level 1) and Chris Colt (metal fabrication level 1) produced posts for metal signs that attached to each vendor’s table to show the company name and information about the products on display. The students worked from detailed designs drawings provided by the festival committee member Bill Evans.

“Bill knew what he wanted and was very specific about the details that were going to make it work for them,” recounts Finlayson, who enlisted the help of the Kwantlen students to work in class and in the evenings to complete the 50 sign posts in time for the event. He describes the manufacturing process that they employed, “We created somewhat of an assembly line and each student applied their skills to work on a different aspect of the finished product.”

Pleased by the quality of work that the Kwantlen students produced, Evans notes, “All the vendors this year were very impressed with the way the signs posts turned out.” He adds, “Without the students’ hard work, this project would not have been possible.”

For more information about Kwantlen’s Faculty of Trades and Technology, visit: kwantlen.ca/trades

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For more information about this story, contact:

Bill Evans
Wine Festival Committee Member
Tel: 604.530.9030
wrevans@telus.net

OR

Robert Finlayson
Faculty, Metal Fabrication
Tel: 604.599.6147 
robert.finlayson@kwantlen.ca

OR

For more information about Kwantlen, contact:
Joanne Saunders
Director, Marketing and Communications
Tel: 604.599.2243
joanne.saunders@kwantlen.ca