DEMM Engineering and Manufacturing

Samuel Birch won the General Cable Millennium Award 2012 in September.
He was presented with the award in Hamilton by Glenn McManus, General Cables’ account manager - special projects, and the NZEI’s secretary/manager Allan Hill.
After starting his apprenticeship in Auckland Sam worked with FrameCAD, building steel roll-forming machinery.
Although he didn't get a lot of general electrical experience, it did teach him about industrial machine building and gave him some interesting opportunities to work overseas on customers’ sites.
Since moving to Hamilton Sam has been working for Hennessy Electrical Engineering. He says it is a really interesting company to do an apprenticeship with. The firm has a strong focus on industrial installation and service, and few of their projects are dull.  
Hennessy Electrical is a leading provider of industrial electrical and control system solutions. With a proven track record of more than 30 years, the firm delivers electrical and process engineering solutions to many of New Zealand’s business leaders.
In the past year Sam has helped upgrade a number of meat works, chemical batching plants, food and dairy processing sites, and helped build apple slicing machines for an American client. Sam says the Hennessy Group is quite happy to dish up challenging work to those who want it, and he appears to relish a challenge and has a bright future ahead of him.  
The General Cable Millennium Award is given to the person gaining top marks in the NZQA EWRB electrical theory examination. In addition, the apprentice must gain a creditable pass in the EWRB regulations examination (both examinations must be sat in the same year), and in the event of there being more than one candidate gaining top marks then preference is given to the one who was under a training agreement when the examinations were sat. The above being equal the award goes to the youngest.  
Sam also won Schneider Electric Award 2012. This award is made to the person gaining the best aggregate of marks in the EWRB Electrician’s Registration Electrical Theory examination and Electrical Regulations examinations.