With a six-week practicum under his belt that led to a summer employment opportunity with Husky Energy, and now a part-time position with Lakeland checking boilers and the heating plant, Bendixen is gaining valuable experience before he graduates.

“This program offers a lot of opportunities,” he says. “It's one of the only schools that covers the whole oil side of things with the once-through steam generator (OTSG). You can get your power engineering education in other places, but you won't have that close-tie with the oil industry like you do at Lakeland.”

In the first year of the HOPE program, students use the manual systems in the Husky Energy lab and then in their second year use the automated systems in the Cenovus Energy Lab located in the Energy Centre, where the turbine is connected to the college and creates energy for the Lloydminster campus.

“When we create power and feed it back to the school it cuts back on what the college pulls from the grid,” says Bendixen. “We do a lot of hands-on work in the lab, more than I had anticipated. It ties very closely to what we're learning from the textbooks and these hands-on opportunities take it to the next level.”

Bendixen and his classmates have been busy this semester at the Energy Centre. They've learned to fire a boiler on oil, an alternative fuel source to natural gas, and also ran the steam turbine generator, among other work. They're also taking turns as shift lead in the Energy Centre.

“You're not out there as an individual; you're out there as a team when you're working. That's an experience I don't think you fully understand unless you're able to work in these labs,” says Bendixen.

HOPE students must complete 200 hours of “firing time” in the lab, as well as a practicum, to complete the last qualification for their 3rd Class power engineering, in addition to writing four government exams.

“With the energy programs at Lakeland, you get more experience thanks to the equipment in the labs, for example the OTSG which is used in the steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) field, which is what industry wants.”

Photos: Will Bendixen (top left) says Robert Collins (top right) and Lakeland's other energy instructors are instrumental in preparing students for success on practicum and in their careers. They're pictured during a lab in the Cenovus Energy Lab, which is located in the Energy Centre.