Features Operations & Management Pulp Workforce
Millar Western employee Mitch Martell receives Green Dream scholarship

Aug. 9, 2017 – As a former junior hockey league player and Greenest Workforce Green Dream scholarship recipient, Mitch Martell came to his summer job already well equipped for excelling at team performance on the worksite.

Now into his third season at Millar Western Forest Products in Whitecourt, Alta., Martell credits his hockey-playing days for his successful approach to teamwork.

“I’ve been with the same 15 guys for three summers now, and I love it,” says the 22-year-old pulp mill process control operator. During the rest of the year, Martell attends a finance and economics program at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, N.S.

Martell says he is fortunate to be working in the mill again this summer, now that he is experienced in the position, which involves switching back and forth from quality control to distribution. It is one of the best jobs he could get in his home town of Whitecourt, and it allows him to plan recreational activities, study part-time and earn a wage that helps pay for his university fees.

“Not a lot of jobs in smaller towns offer that kind of flexibility in scheduling, good pay and consistency of work, where you know the job will still be around for the period of time you have counted on,” he explains.

Martell is one of 10 Greenest Workforce Green Dream scholarship recipients who are sharing, through regular blog posts, their first-hand experiences working at forest operations across the country. You can follow along with his adventures here: thegreenestworkforce.ca/index.php/blog/blog-intern/mitch-martell.
 
Each year, through the Green Dream program, The Greenest Workforce recognizes young professionals who are passionate about working in the forest products industry and show great initiative by bettering the forest products sector and the communities they work in.
 
In 2013, Forest Products Association of Canada (FPAC) created TheGreenestWorkforce.ca, an online resource website to highlight career opportunities in Canada’s forest products industry. The website has grown to feature a job-matching tool to match job seekers with rewarding careers in the sector. Openings in Administration, Science and Engineering, Woodlands, Skilled Trades and Mill Operations are open now across the country.