C&P Engineering are a CompEx Approved Training Provider, based in Swansea, Wales.

They shared this inspiring story about Jo and what completing a CompEx qualification really meant to her. All the team at CompEx congratulate Jo and wish her a safe and happy career.

 Read it below…

 Jo’s Story – CompEx Training Success.

When Jo initially applied to the C&P Training centre to do the Gas and Vapours Ex01-Ex04 course she was working as a domestic electrician for several years and wanted to upgrade her skills and potential earnings by taking the industry recognised CompEx course which enables industrial electricians to work in potentially explosive atmospheres.

In 2008 Jo desperately wanted to get control back of her life……..

“I was not long out an abusive relationship the kind where I thought every day ‘this is the way I’m going to die’. I was a single Mum. I had two kids and wanted to be the best mum I could be to them, I felt I had let them down so badly with all the violence they had witnessed at such a young age, I felt trapped and wanted a way out to build a better life that we all deserved.

No one was going to change my life except ME.

In 2018, I was working on a new build school 1st/2nd fix, while there, a fellow electrician mentioned he was going to Swansea to complete the CompEx Ex01 – Ex04 course with C&P Engineering Ltd and he gave me a number to call and the rest is history!”.

Although the tutors were initially reluctant to let Jo take the course as she had limited industrial experience as a domestic electrician, she managed to persuade them that she had commercial experience and had already done her research on the subject and was determined to get the CompEx qualification to try and change her life and support her family.

The course is run over five days and provides competence-based training and assessment in the selection, use, maintenance and inspection of electrical equipment in potentially explosive atmospheres.

When Jo arrived at the centre she met up with the C&P Training course tutors Dewi and Steve who helped, guided and supported her throughout the course.

Jo studied every evening after each day of the course to make sure she was fully prepared for the theoretical and practical exams at the end of the week.

After taking the course Jo received her results a week later from CompEx and she was so thrilled to have passed the course that she wrote an email back to the course tutors Dewi and Steve to thank them for all the support they’d given her through the course.

This was an email they received from Jo when she received her results:

‘Well, DEWI. I passed……..ME !!!??? Well, who has CompEx 01-04 …………….this girl here that’s who !!!!!  Yesssssssssssss!!!!!  Thank you soooooo much for your fantastic tutoring :). 

Jo (who as you may have guessed has passed her CompEx course !!). Whoop whoop !!!!!’

‘Well, I’m as chuffed as a Choo Choo train!!  I cannot put into words how fantastic you were in your tutoring!! 

Jo has since worked around the country, working in MOD settings, Utilities- Clean & dirty water sites, LNG/OIL terminals.  Nickle refinery, chemical processing plants, liquid nitrogen storage depots and is now working offshore.

Jo continued: “CompEx is the Gold standard in terms of qualification but once you have passed the course and you are on site, that’s when the learning really starts!

It has not been easy and I took a chance. I was a single mum, I was a ‘mature’ student, I self-funded my CompEx & all my offshore certs. I am repeatedly told how my age works against me, being a woman works against me, how being a mum, I shouldn’t be offshore or even working away from home but it’s all been worth it.

CompEx Gas and Vapours Ex01-Ex04 changed my life, my career prospects, my earning potential and has enabled me to better myself and my Children’s lives, that is what being a Mum is about setting an example and bringing up your children to be the best they can be too. It always brings a smile to my face when they tell people about what I do and all the places I work – they occasionally admit I’m a pretty cool mum for it too!”.

Over the years C&P Engineering has been actively involved in such schemes as Aspire2Be which encourages women to enter into the construction and manufacturing industries as electricians. With only an estimated 1 to 3% of women being electricians in the UK there is an enormous potential for females to train and work within the industry.

Jo currently works as a CompEx electrical rope access technician on the Oil Rigs in the North Sea.

Please feel free to share and comment on Jo’s inspirational story to encourage others to get involved in the electrical industry and work in potentially explosive atmospheres.

Click here for more details about the Gas and Vapours (Ex01-Ex04).