Richard Lindsay, an automotive teacher at the Canberra Institute of Technology, was named VET Teacher / Trainer of the Year at the Australian Training Awards in Adelaide earlier this month.

“It’s only just starting to set in, actually,” Mr Lindsay told Canberra Daily. “It felt like a bit of a dream, especially when there were so many good finalists… It was a very tight competition. But I feel very honoured to accept the award.”

Mr Lindsay won the award for setting up online training with simulated activities within each apprentice’s workshop to keep them learning during the COVID-19 lockdown – a program manufacturers have since adopted.

The national award follows Mr Lindsay’s award of ACT VET Teacher / Trainer of the Year in September.

• ACT Training Award winners celebrated (16 September)

During COVID, Mr Lindsay said, a lot of his students lived interstate, in NSW, and could not come across the border to attend training, so he had to find a new way to cater for them. By the time each lockdown was over, nearly all the students were up to date with their training.

It also helped with the apprentices’ wellbeing, Mr Lindsay said. Many worried they would not have a job.

“We went through a situation where a lot of customers didn’t want to bring their cars in because they didn’t want people sitting in them with the possibility of COVID. Because of that, the workshops were very quiet.”

But Mr Lindsay kept them training and set up a mentor system within their workshops.

The program’s popularity surprised him. “I thought it was going to be hard to get off the ground, because the industry had to do a lot of work, but everyone jumped on board, and everyone progressed.”

Now Toyota and Tesla Australia will use the program as training sessions for their employees’ personal development.

“It’s going gangbusters,” Mr Lindsay said. “Everyone [wants] to be part of the program.” He never wanted to start something new; he just wanted to help his students. “But in the end, it ended up going really big, and started being very successful.”

Mr Lindsay also expanded the CIT’s Toyota Network Training (TNT) Program, a Certificate III in Light Vehicle Mechanical Technology. Before, the course used to concentrate on Canberra and nearby NSW; now, the program is four times bigger, spanning as far as Ulladulla and Wagga Wagga.

Mr Lindsay also set up a nation-leading electric vehicle (EV) program; a dedicated workshop opened earlier this year. Originally designed for eastern seaboard students, it grew into a national program, with students from Western Australia, and a waiting list of 1,700 people.

• CIT opens Canberra’s first electric and hydrogen vehicle workshop (10 May)

Those programs are growing at a rapid rate, Mr Lindsay said; he has brought on skilled extra staff to grow them even bigger. In 2023, the EV training will be rolled out for the full year.

“Next year will be a huge year for us here at CIT,” he said.

Mr Lindsay has been an automotive teacher at CIT for six and a half years – a job he loves.

“I’ve been able to give back to the industry after 26 years in it. I always enjoy training within the workshops that I manage. To be able to do it on a daily basis is very rewarding.”

Students tell him that the learning is fun, relevant, and going to gear them up for now and into the future.

What he most enjoys is seeing his students progress from having no knowledge of automotive to being superstars by the time they finish their apprenticeship.

“The more students say they can’t do things, the more determined I am to make sure that they can learn,” he said. “They become very knowledgeable in that field.”

His former students have now become diagnostic technicians, even foremen, in their workshops. One is now a fellow teacher in EVs at CIT.

“The good part about the automotive industry: the sky’s the limit,” Mr Lindsay said. “So, if the students really want to have a go, and if they’re constantly learning and showing their skills, they can get up the ranks very quickly.”

Mr Lindsay said he had always loved cars. His father owned an earthmoving business, so he grew up around heavy vehicles. But he preferred light vehicles.

“It’s because I love tinkering. I love the technology change in the light vehicle industry, especially now that we’ve got the electric vehicle phase of it.”

By 2035, the ACT Government announced this year, the sale of new petrol vehicles will be banned; nearly everyone will drive a zero-emissions vehicle (electric or hydrogen). Mr Lindsay predicts that in two years’ time, EVs will have a solid foundation in Australia, especially here in the ACT.

• ACT to phase out fossil fuel-powered vehicles by 2035 (18 July)

“It’s been a steep learning course for the industry,” Mr Lindsay said. “But we’re lucky now that, with the courses that we’ve got on offer, we’re going to be able to gear them up really quickly.

“It’s hard at this particular point because the electric vehicle induction into Australia has happened so rapidly, and there are so many new technologies coming through. It’s been a lot to get our minds around. But we’ve been lucky enough to gain the latest training simulators with the latest technologies. That’s where it’s really skyrocketed us to make sure we’re at the forefront of electrical vehicle training.

“Between EV and hydrogen, we’ve got a lot of exciting stuff coming our way in the short future.”