Training & Development Coordinator Bert Kaan introduces students to Damen Naval

Since the beginning of this year, Damen Naval has had a Training & Development Coordinator dedicated to attracting new talent and helping current employees further develop their careers within the company. Bert Kaan (60) has ambitious plans to introduce students of all ages to the production, technical, and engineering activities at the naval division. “My job is to find out how we can inspire young talent to come and work with us. We urgently need young talent, but we also need to train them properly.” In addition, he is available to support current colleagues in their professional development.

Text: Eefje Koppers

In the days of the Royal Schelde, the company had its own vocational training school where young employees were trained before starting their careers at the shipyard. Every year, colleagues retire who began their careers at the Company School and spent their entire working lives in shipbuilding. Their departure leaves gaps that must be filled by a new generation of talent. For this reason, Damen Naval started training welders and production employees through Scalda’s vocational work-based learning programme (BBL) in 2021.

To complement these activities, Bert is now actively promoting Damen Naval among as broad a group of students in Zeeland as possible. His efforts range from guest lessons for primary school pupils to elective welding courses for secondary school students at the shipyard. “It remains rewarding to inspire young students to become interested in technology and to show them how much is involved in designing ships,” Bert explains. “The future of engineering begins in the classroom, and you never know whether a guest lesson or elective course might inspire a few future engineers.”

Shipyard tours
At the end of June, 240 HAVO students from Lodewijk College in Terneuzen visited Vlissingen-Oost. Over the course of two days, they were divided into groups and given guided tours of the shipyard, including a visit to Damen Shiprepair Vlissingen. “The shipyard tours are extremely valuable because the students hear the story and are able to see the practical environment in which we work every day,” Bert explains. “It is great to see how curious the students are and the kinds of questions they ask. That fresh outside perspective often helps you look at your own organisation differently.”

Bert himself worked in the construction industry for many years before moving into education around 20 years ago. There, he taught with great enthusiasm and became acquainted with various companies, including Damen Naval. “I still remember organising scooter races for secondary school students here at the shipyard about 15 years ago. The scooters were assembled in the pipe shop and then raced around the yard. Activities like that gradually became less common in recent years.”

Just as Bert was beginning to lose some enthusiasm for teaching, he received an invitation for a cup of coffee with Martin Wattel and Carletta Pusch. “I thought they wanted to ask why students were no longer visiting,” Bert laughs. Instead, the conversation took a very different direction and ended with an offer to join Damen Naval as Training & Development Coordinator, a challenge he eagerly accepted. He immediately immersed himself in the role, starting with an assessment of the knowledge and skills students need in order to work effectively in Production. “That resulted in a list of competencies that students partly learn at school but partly do not. We are now developing initiatives to cover those gaps.”

Practical training at Metaalwerk
The BBL students at Damen Naval are training to become Welders or All-round Construction Workers. They divide their time between their employer and school. Part of their practical training is provided by Metaalwerk, a collective training organisation created by and for companies in Zeeland’s metalworking industry. “Companies in other sectors, such as installation engineering and construction, do exactly the same,” Bert explains. “They combine their efforts to ensure students receive high-quality training.”

Some of the practical instruction is therefore outsourced to Metaalwerk, which is based at Scalda’s technical training centre, Technum, in Vlissingen. However, not all aspects of the work are covered there. “Pipefitting is not taught at Metaalwerk, so I am currently looking into whether our students can spend their afternoons here in the pipe shop, working on and welding pipes. This gives them experience they would not get at school or Metaalwerk and makes their time at the shipyard even more enjoyable.”

Something to take home
In addition to supporting BBL students, colleagues in Production also help teach welding to secondary school students who choose welding as an elective subject. Under supervision, the students must complete a practical project. At the end of the course, they receive a NIL Level 1 certificate, an internationally recognised qualification issued by the Netherlands Institute for Welding Technology, and they are allowed to take their project home. “The students are 14 or 15 years old, and at that age it is important that they have something tangible to take away,” Bert explains. “For example, students taking the Sheet Metal and Fabrication elective built an outdoor fire basket. They worked on it for several weeks, and at the end they could proudly show both their certificate and their fire basket to their families. That helps bring the idea of working at Damen Naval to life within the family.”

It is important that students see tangible results during their introduction to the company. Later this year, Damen Naval will also participate in the Tech Xplore Event organised by Sterk Techniek Onderwijs Zeeland (STOZ) on 1, 2, and 3 December. This technology orientation event introduces 4,000 students from the second and third years of VMBO, HAVO, and VWO education to engineering and technology through interactive, hands-on activities. Bert is already developing ideas for the Damen Naval stand. “For example, I am considering a flange tree, where students can assemble components onto a flange structure. Another idea is a virtual reality environment where they are on board a ship and have to locate the engine room while troubleshooting a malfunction.”

Welding Experience Centre
Plans have recently been approved to create a classroom with welding booths and workshops in Hall 1 at Vlissingen-Oost. This Welding Experience Centre (WEC) will enable students to attend guest lessons at the shipyard. Preparations are now underway, and the first construction activities will begin shortly. “The project is currently with the work preparation team and the drawing office, but it could be completed by December,” says Bert. “At the moment, I visit schools to give guest lessons, but it is obviously much more interesting if students can come to the shipyard. I have an idea for a bridge-building competition for Group 8 (Year 6) primary school pupils, where teams build bridges from lolly sticks to see which one can carry the most weight. The winning teams from each class would then be invited here to compete against one another.”

In May, Bert delivered a guest lesson to Year 6 pupils at ’t Klinket Primary School in Koudekerke, introducing them to the world of ship design and engineering. “We discussed ship shapes and why stability is so important. What happens if a ship is loaded incorrectly? The students then worked with scale models themselves to experience the impact cargo has on a vessel’s stability. It was fantastic to see how curious and engaged they were.”

The Olympic Games of Vocational Education
Next academic year, Bert hopes to have a BBL student compete in Skills Heroes, a series of vocational skills competitions for MBO students across a wide range of disciplines, including welding. Through school-level preliminary rounds and qualification competitions, students can progress to the national finals. National champions then have the opportunity to compete internationally against students from around the world.

These are ambitious plans, but they all serve the same purpose, Bert explains: “We want to familiarise students with Damen Naval and inspire them to consider a career with us from an early age,” he concludes. “We need people. There was a clear need within the company for the role of Training & Development Coordinator. I have been here for just over three months now, and I am thoroughly enjoying it.”