Top apprentice Sanjesh Prasaad with boss Chris Greaney. Photo Paul Taylor
Top apprentice Sanjesh Prasaad with boss Chris Greaney. Photo Paul Taylor
Sanjesh Prasaad's motor industry apprenticeship journey isn't your typical one. For starters, he's 46 and a former dairy owner from Fiji.
Throw in some near-tragedy and adversity and you start getting the feeling that he's someone special.
In fact, Prasaad has been recognised as one of the top apprentices in Hawke's Bay, winning the Motor Body Building Apprentice "Take Care" Memorial Trophy for the Best Apprentice in Panel Beating or Spray Painting.
"This has been a dream for me to be able to understand and have the knowledge," he said.
On the way to success he had to cope with a fire at his dairy while he studied and a devastating accident that almost killed his teenage son.
Prasaad's experience in the motor industry started as a youngster working in his father's small panel-beating business in Fiji, where he gained a grounding in the basics while being paid a princely $1.80 an hour.
Soon after leaving school his family migrated to Auckland, and having a keen interest in cars he found work in a panel shop in Auckland.
"I worked for a panel beater in Birkenhead for about 18 months, then we moved to Napier and bought a dairy in 2002."
Sanjesh Prasaad's motor industry apprenticeship journey isn't your typical one. Photo Paul Taylor
Working behind the counter and running the shop was a "great experience", but there was still a yearning to get back on the workshop floor.
There was one tell-tale sign that he was in the wrong business: While shopping at Repco he was constantly being drawn to the panel-beating tools even though he was running the dairy. In 2017, with thoughts of returning to the industry always at the back of his mind, Sanjesh decided to go door-to-door in the industrial area of Napier and soon found a willing employer, MTA member Chris Greaney - owner of City Collision Repairs, Napier. Chris soon found he had a diamond in the rough.
He was so impressed with Sanjesh's knowledge and skill that he suggested he study to become fully qualified. "Sanjesh was a great panel beater but not qualified so I thought, why don't we get an adult apprenticeship done? He flew through it, he managed to do it in about a year and a half," Chris says.
But for Sanjesh it was no easy task, and he admits the whole idea of studying at his age was daunting.
"I was a bit nervous about it and I decided if I have been offered this opportunity I should do it, I had to start somewhere and I really enjoyed it. I learnt a lot of things," Sanjesh says. To get through the swathes of paperwork for each module he worked every night and completed the non-structural level 4 module in three and a half months. To become fully qualified he completed structural level 5 in six months. Impressive enough. But Sanjesh also had to overcome two traumatic events along the way.
In 2018, in the first year of his study, a fire gutted the top floor of the dairy and it took six months to get the business up and running again.
Three years later, he faced every parent's worst nightmare when his teenage son, Ishaan, was hit by a train while crossing the tracks on his bike. Although seriously injured at the time Ishaan is now, thankfully, well on the road to a full recovery.
"We had a really tough time...but Chris is just an amazing boss. When we had the fire, he said just take your time and just get things sorted. It was the same with my boy - he said take your time, don't worry about work. "The whole team at work are very supportive, excellent people."
And the journey is not over. Prasaad has set his sights on advanced qualifications in the repair of electric vehicles, which is an area of the industry that he thinks should appeal to a younger generation.
"Our industry needs young people because there is so much technology involved, there are sensors and computers not just on electric cars but on all cars and you have to be constantly learning."
An attitude that has rewarded him with a place among Hawkes Bay's best.
