Young Engineers Success During Mining Downturn
Chee Wong had always thought that his mechanical engineering degree would come in handy one day. After completing his degree 20 years ago, his career has taken him just about everywhere else except engineering.
His 20-year career saw him working in many different roles in the technology and training industry, the perfect CV for a generalist. But in a mining town like Perth, there was no place for a generalist during an economic downturn. After months of looking for employment, he was losing hope.
That's when his partner, Julie, came across an advertisement from e Young Engineers. e² Young Engineers franchise opportunity suited someone with a science background, technology expertise and sound business acumen - exactly what he had.
After starting e² Young Engineers Perth franchise eight months ago, his life has been transformed. In the first three weeks, he acquired more than 100 students in his weekly after-school classes teaching kids the fundamentals of engineering using the specially designed Lego kits and lesson plans.
"We were totally overwhelmed by the response of the local community to the Young Engineers programs," said Mr Wong. "I remember the morning the first broadcast email went out, my inbox was filled with replies from eager mums and dads all wanting to enrol."
"We could never fit everyone into the classroom we had originally planned, so we had the enviable job of finding more classrooms. And we did find more classrooms."
"We can't thank the creators of e² Young Engineers enough," said Mr Wong. "They have created a brilliant set of programs that is easy to deliver but more importantly, have huge demands."
“We didn’t have the budget or the time to travel to Europe for the training so we opted for the online training. I was reluctant at first, knowing very well the limitations of internet-based training but I was pleasantly surprised by how good it was. The instructor did a brilliant job.”
“Another thing that we were impressed about was the account management. Our account manager was responsive and provided solutions to every little problem we encountered.”
Six months after delivering their first lesson, Chee and his partner purchased a second franchise territory. As they say, the rest is history.
