KPU students win gold at B.C.-wide Skills Canada competition, bring home bronze from nationals

Three Kwantlen Polytechnic University students won gold at the provincial level of the Skills Canada competition, earning their spot at the nationals held on May 29 and 30 in Regina. 

At the Canada-wide level, horticulture students Kyle Kant and David Cragg and millwright student Tyler Douglas represented KPU in the landscape and millwright categories respectively. The event attracts more than 500 students from across the country to compete in various technology categories.

Cragg and Kant took home a bronze medal in the landscape category. KPU horticulture co-chair and instructor and coach for the competition, Jamie Lamont, said the two had no apprenticeship experience going into these competitions, a requirement that was once necessary to compete.

“One of the things I was most proud of is [that] David and Kyle were asked, more than once, ‘What level of the apprenticeship program are you in?’ They were like, ‘We’re not,’” Lamont says. “Neither one of them even has that background and they finished third nationally.”

To qualify for the national competition, students had to win gold at the provincial level, which Cragg and Kant have achieved for two consecutive years. Douglas qualified for the national competition for the first time this year. 

KPU horticulture faculty member Russ Lyons also helped coach Kant and Cragg, Lamont says, adding the national competition is physically demanding and filled with pressure and stress.

Kant and Cragg delivered very well despite having little time to review plans before the competition started, he says.  

“It was just a matter of keeping them relaxed and focused, not being overwhelmed and making mistakes because the pressure is too much,” Lamont says. 

Kant and Cragg put in an extensive amount of hours on campus to prepare for the provincial and national competition. Lamont says the two students asked him and Lyons frequently to meet them on campus to help them prepare.

“We probably [prepped] five or six times,” Lamont says. “Most teams in the past will do it one or two times. We always tell students that one of us will be available for you as much as we can, and so for as much as we push them a little bit, they push us, too, to support them.”

With the support of each other and their coaches, Kant and Cragg practised day and night to overcome the nerves of the competition. When a problem arose at the nationals, Kant and Cragg were able to solve it efficiently, something Lamont says he was proud to see.

“That’s the field we work in. [Horticulture] is ever-evolving and changing every day. Every job site, you have to learn to problem solve — and they did.”

While these students were given medals for these competitions, Lamont says the growth he has seen in his students through this process is what matters most.

“I feel like a proud dad,” he says. “Look at all the praise and accolades they’re getting from everybody else, and it’s not just me trying to pump them up .… It’s a pretty unique experience.” 

Cragg and Kant will be graduating next year, which makes them ineligible to compete in any of the future provincial or national competitions. 

Lamont says it is much more than grades — it is about the hands-on learning experiences that set students up for success when they graduate from KPU, adding he is grateful for the support the horticulture program gets from the university. 

“The exposure we get for the university, never mind our program, I don’t think we can really put a price on that.”