Heavy Duty Equipment Technician Training Based Out of Province’s Largest Transportation Training Centre

Do you have an interest in attending a Heavy Duty Equipment Technician program in order to enter this field, which boasts a variety of career choices? Have you completed at minimum an Ontario Secondary School Diploma (OSSD) or General Educational Development (GED) or equivalent? If so, you should consider applying for Centennial College’s Heavy Duty Equipment Technician program. Please note that in addition to these requirements, applicants must also obtain satisfactory results in a program admission session; and demonstrate experience, mechanical aptitude and English proficiency. They may also be asked to present a resumé. Successful applicants must be eligible to work in Ontario and have an Ontario driver’s license.

Once students have been accepted to the Heavy Duty Equipment Technician Co-op Apprenticeship, as it is officially known, they will study out of Ashtonbee Campus. This is Centennial College’s transportation training hub and houses the province’s largest transportation centre. Being based at this campus offers Heavy Duty Equipment Technician students an advantage, as they have access to tools of the trade and the opportunity to practice fixing actual heavy duty equipment vehicles.

The Heavy Equipment courses are designed to cover a wide range of topics in the two years students spend in the program. Complementing variety of topics is a structure that sees students spend eight months in school, followed by eight months during a co-op term actually working for an employer on a full-time basis and a final eight months to program. As such, students obtain basic knowledge, head out to apply what they have learned and gain new knowledge that will allow them to master more advanced topics once they return to school.

Among the areas covered in Heavy Duty Equipment are applied mechanics, vehicle dynamics as well as component design and repair, as it applies to the apprenticeship curriculum. In addition, students take courses in business, English and general education. Lastly, students partake in courses that are only available at Centennial College and cover advanced electrical/ electronics, logistics, plus hoisting and rigging.

Many students end up staying on as full-time employees at their co-op placement upon graduation as they enter the apprenticeship aspect of their careers. Professional titles of graduates of the Heavy Duty Equipment Technician program include: heavy-duty equipment technicians, service managers, service writers or coordinators, equipment company representatives, or college or industry teachers. Professionals are not only employed in a variety of positions, but also in a variety of industries that include: forestry, construction, mining, transportation, landscaping, land cleaning, farming and more.