Griffith students had their time to shine at the Riverina at the 2016 NSW Training Awards presentation recently
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Mr Smith took home the Business Management Excellence award after completing a Certificate IV in Leadership and Business management.
He described the unexpected win as “pretty unreal”.
“I was at a bit of a loss for words. It was a pretty good feeling,” he said.
“The first award I got was at Griffith TAFE for student of the year. I didn’t really expect it at all . To get this next award was pretty unreal.”
Mr Smith was encouraged to do the course after stepping into a leadership role at work.
“My background was as a tradesman, they gave me a promotion to management. I didn’t really have any management experience so they put me through the course,” he said.
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“It’s been so good. There was stuff I knew that I wanted to change, but I didn’t know how to do it successfully.”
He says he feels management often set the tone for the way a work site runs. Mr Smith says his role should give others the chance to grow.
“If you give people an opportunity, nine times out of ten people will just run with it and bring together new ideas,” he said.
The nature of the classes also allowed Mr Smith to learn a lot from his classmates.
“It was great. You learnt from other people as well. We learned from each other almost as much as we did from the teachers,” he said.
“We started out as a class and we left it as friends.”
Mr Smith was just one of many talented MIA students who took home top gongs. Other winners from the area included Leeton’s Jon Siver who took home the Campus Outstanding Achievement Award for Leeton.
Tharbogang resident Luke Wright also won the Campus Outstanding Achievement Award for the National Environment Centre at Thurgoona.