Industry 'Oscar' for Bolton apprentice

Published by JenCooke for National Federation of ALMOs in Housing and also in Communities

An apprentice heating engineer from Egerton has scooped a top accolade for workers in the gas industry.

Jennifer Taylor, 19, won ‘Apprentice of the Year’ at the CORGI awards, an annual event held at Coventry City’s Ricoh Stadium where the industry comes together to honour its best performers.

Entering the fourth-year of her apprenticeship with Bolton at Home, Jennifer’s quality of work, dedication to her trade and standout performance in attaining NVQ-level qualifications through Bolton Community College impressed the judges to earn the national title.

Reflecting on her achievement, Jennifer said: “I was very pleased to be selected as a finalist for the award and it came as a real surprise when they announced me as the winner. I really enjoyed doing a heating and ventilation work experience whilst at school and knew then that was the career for me. I really enjoy my job. The variety of challenges, the opportunity to learn new things and the satisfaction of leaving a customer happy and safe with a repaired heating system is very rewarding.”

Jennifer’s success also secured an incredible hat-trick of apprentice honours for Bolton at Home at the CORGI awards over successive years.

In 2007, Jennifer’s brother Matthew was a runner-up for the same award before Lee Mulroney became the first to bring the title to Bolton last year.

Noel Spencer, Chair of Bolton at Home, paid tribute by saying: “We’re so very proud of Jennifer and delighted for the organisation. This is a prestigious award and the work of Jennifer and her colleagues has led to achieving something very special, which has never been done before.”

Further success could yet be in the pipeline as Jennifer has most recently been nominated for the Association of Public Service Excellence Awards, with the winners to be announced in November.