State award for training program

Apollo Fabrication Group in Young has been named winner of the Industry Collaboration Award at the 2026 NSW Training Awards held in Sydney on 25 August. Together with registered training organisation Educational Living, Apollo took out the award for their Steel Fabrication Training Opportunities Program. This onsite training pathway, delivered at Apollo's Young facility, has helped them to build its own skilled tradespeople rather than compete for an increasingly scarce regional labour pool. Apollo was founded in Young in 2000 by Terry Jackson and is now led by his sons, Caleb and Nathan Jackson. “Five years ago, this program was a response to a problem we simply couldn't ignore — we couldn't find the skilled tradespeople we needed in a constrained regional labour market,” Caleb said. “Today, training isn't something that happens alongside our business, it is our business.” Apollo has grown into one of Australia's leading providers of complex architectural and structural steel. The company have worked on projects including the Australian War Memorial's ANZAC Hall, Barangaroo's Pier Pavilion, and the iconic Sirius Building in Sydney harbour. Coming out of the pandemic, Apollo faced a challenge familiar to many regional manufacturers: the specialised tradespeople it needed to deliver complex steelwork were increasingly hard to find and retain. Apollo partnered with Educational Living in 2021 to co-design a structured training pathway, from Introduction to Fabrication through to a Diploma of Engineering, to be delivered onsite and built around live production work. “We believe that integrating training into a client's culture and strategic growth provides better outcomes and career paths for their personnel,” Edward Stone, CEO of Educational Living said. “Although our vision has often been considered idealistic, this collaboration is proof of what can be achieved when training becomes an integral part of the business operations of a manufacturing company.” The program also removes the need for apprentices and trainees to travel to a regional city or metropolitan training centre. This a significant factor for a workforce drawn largely from Young and the surrounding Hilltops, Cowra, Cootamundra-Gundagai and Weddin local government areas. Apollo and Educational Living will now prepare to represent NSW at the Australian Training Awards, to be held in November 2026.