Engineering, welcomes the fact that serious consideration is being given to reintroducing technical training in Bermuda's proposed new senior secondary school.

"I'm pleased that there has been talk of reimplementing some of the aspects that Tech had into the new senior secondary school. I think that would be good because it is very difficult to find people with the technical background who are readily trainable,'' he explains.

"Usually the reliance is on people who are already in the engineering profession, or already studying engineering. But I think, even in trades such as masonry, carpentry, construction and electrical, people are few and far between because kids don't get the opportunity to get that grounding and I don't mean just one semester of doing workshop. At Tech, we did that twice a week for five years. When you do that, you come out being very friendly with technical equipment, whether it's saws, machinery, or electrical equipment.

You just have a good grounding in that particular discipline.'' Like many other former Tech graduates, he was sad to see the school close. "It's unfortunate that Tech closed,'' he says, while he stops momentarily to reflect.

"I believe that if Technical Institute existed today, we wouldn't have the problem of trying to find well trained tradespeople and technical professionals. The school would have served Bermuda well. Just look at the people who came out of Tech at Belco, Telco, Cable And Wireless - people who are almost at senior level of various companies.'' Minors, who decided to forego an opportunity to attend Berkeley in order to go to Technical Institute, claims that his decision to do so was directly related to the impressions that older guys at Tech made upon him as a youngster. "I remembered Tech for the older students who were ahead of me and attended the school.

They seemed so well organised and under control. They were also well- behaved guys who had an air of sophistication as well. Also, the things that they were studying, I found interesting. They were doing physics and chemistry, but also material sciences like metalwork, a little bit of electrical at an early age.

That's really what impressed me. These guys were 14-years-old, talking about circuits and, at that point in Bermuda, electronics was the new technology in the world.'' After graduating from Tech, Minors pursued further studies abroad in civil engineering and returned home to work in the Ministry of Works and Engineering, where he has been employed for more than 20 years.

As an engineer, he lists the Co-Ed Facility, the East Broadway Road Scheme and St. Brendan's Hospital as some of his major accomplishments and feels that his educational grounding at Technical Institute provided him with the tools to be successful and meet challenges head-on.

"Tech's greatest contribution, in my opinion, was that it produced balanced people and this was reflected in the education we received. It was an academic school, although it had an emphasis on the technical trades and, to be fair, a lot of people are academically inclined, but don't want to end up as lawyers or accountants. They wanted to do something technically professional like architecture, environmental engineering or marine biology. "I'm sure there are teachers who thought I would not have aspired to where I am today. But I can say that being at Technical really motivated me and challenged me to go as far as I could go.'' No caption.

SEPTEMBER 1993 RG MAGAZINE