Past and current students and instructors of Saskatchewan Polytechnic’s Instrumentation Engineering Technology program gathered at the Moose Jaw campus recently to celebrate the program’s 50th anniversary.
About 125 people from Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan were expected to attend the two-day celebration, which featured a social mixer on May 30 and golf tournament on May 31.
“We wanted to celebrate 50 years of being a program in Saskatchewan,” said committee chairman Jared Mathieson.
He thought it was impressive that the instrumentation program had developed and grown through three versions of the school. It began in September 1968 at the Saskatchewan Technical Institute (STI) in Moose Jaw. It started as a two-semester program but expanded to three semesters in the 1970s.
That format carried on until 1988, when STI became part of the Saskatchewan Institute of Applied Science and Technology (SIAST). The program then expanded to four semesters, or two years. By 1997, the Instrumentation Program became certified as Instrumentation Engineering Technology.
About 800 program graduates and 200 journeymen have completed their training at SaskPolytechnic in Moose Jaw.
The anniversary celebration featured several speakers, explained Mathieson, a program instructor. Doug Martens, president of Estevan Meter and a 1990 graduate, spoke about how the industry has grown.
Carter Parker, a recent graduate, spoke about how the industry will look during the next 50 years. Parker competed in the Instrumentation Student Games in Calgary in the last year and placed second with his team.
“To get second is pretty significant,” said Mathieson.
Mike Hillsdon, head of the program, then spoke about the program overall.
Instrumentation is still a poorly understood trade, said Mathieson. He joked that his friends still don’t know what he does. However, he pointed out graduates usually end up working in the oil or potash industries, where they take care of the equipment that measures and controls other systems.
Larry Going became an instructor with the program in its second year and taught for 26 years in total. He observed that the program improved as the years progressed.
“It got to the point, through damn good instructors, that the tarsands (in Alberta) would hire only our students,” Going said. Both the northern and southern Alberta institutes of technology complained to the Alberta government that oilsands companies had to start hiring students from that province.
“So that’s how good our students were. That made us pretty proud,” he added.
An important part of the program was when it became accredited as the program expanded, added Frank Van Breugel, a 1976 graduate and former department head. Another big change was when the program converted to Co-op education, where students went on work terms and then came back to finish the course.
“Getting good staff in place was challenging,” he continued. “People could easily make twice the money (in the industry) than the government was offering here. The money was so good in industry.”
“If you taught here, it’s because you liked it, not for the money,” said Going, adding, “Our students have done well, that’s the main thing.”
