On Friday, July 20th, PHCC held its annual Apprentice Contest at their newly renovated headquarters in Buda, TX. The winner of this year’s contest was Corey Opiela of Opiela Mechanical, Inc. in San Antonio.
Corey is a third-generation plumber and his uncle, father and grandfather are all still currently working in the trade. His career in plumbing started as a teenager working for his uncle on summer break to make some extra money. Although it wasn’t considered “easy money,” he quickly realized that he loved getting his hands dirty and how much the plumbing trade fascinated him. One thing that really amazed him was soldering and brazing, more specifically, the heat elements involved.
With the spark-ignited, Corey went on to enroll in the PHCC San Antonio Plumbing Apprentice program, which he credits to scoring the top spot at the annual Apprentice Contest. “The apprentice program helped me prepare for the contest by teaching me codes and the proper way to do things,” said Opiela. “If my education was solely hands-on in the field, I would only know how to do things the way the plumber I worked under does them. I wouldn’t know the reasoning behind the proper steps, the correct code that enforces those measures, and that many times, there is more than one way to do the job right.”
Corey is set to compete for the grand prize against other plumbing apprentices from across the country October 10th-12th at the PHCC National Plumbing Apprentice Contest in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He is excited to see how his skills stack up against the other contestants but feels confident he will make Texas proud. The sky’s the limit!