Our Stories

Twelve Royal Canadian Sea Cadets from across Canada are recipients of a total of $21,000 in university scholarships from Irving Shipbuilding in partnership with the Royal Canadian Sea Cadet Education Foundation (RCSCEF). The scholarships, ranging from $5,000 to $1,000, are the first to be awarded through the partnership and encourage Canada’s Sea Cadets to explore careers in marine industry. Irving Shipbuilding has committed $100,000 in Sea Cadet scholarships through this partnership.

The awards focus on a wide variety of marine and shipbuilding careers, such as naval architecture, industrial engineering, as well as key trades.

In all, the Foundation received 123 applications, with 12 recipients from five provinces qualifying for the Irving Shipbuilding Scholarships:

Maggie Lewis	Paradise, NL	MUN Marine Institute	Nautical Science
Brady Power	Holyrood, NL	MUN Marine Institute	Nautical Science
Sean Daly	St. John’s, NL	MUN Marine Institute	Naval Architecture
Jack Simms	Colliers, NL	MUN Marine Institute	ROV op/repair
Abraham Rodgers	St. John’s, NL	Memorial University of Newfoundland	Engineering
Trent Lambert	Sackville, NS	Holland College	Diving
Sarah Brazeau	Valleyfield, QC	Institut Maritime	Navigation
Thomas Landry	Repentigny, QC	Polymechanic Laval	Mech industrielle
Victoria-Rose Kolpin	Hamilton, ON	Georgian College	Marine Mech Techniques
Juan-Diego Castano	Toronto, ON	University of Waterloo	Nano Engineering
Cristian Gomez-Macias	Toronto, ON	York University	Engineering
Zheng Xu	Victoria, BC	UBC	Electrical Engineering

Maggie Lewis from Paradise, Newfoundland and Labrador, was the top Scholarship winner. She was also named the 2019 Royal Canadian Sea Cadet of the Year and was invited to lay a wreath at the National War Memorial in Ottawa on Remembrance Day 2019.

Jack Simms, from Colliers, Newfoundland and Labrador, is now attending Memorial University’s Marine Institute in Underwater Vehicle Technology and is aware that this is the beginning of his path: “This is a challenging program which will require my strong skills in both math and physics, I am up for that challenge and looking forward to a career on the ocean.” Sara Brazeau from Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, Quebec, is attending the Institut Maritime of Quebec and will focus her efforts on creating a cleaner ocean. “Through the Sea Cadets, and the various travels I have made, I have discovered that we have a lot of work to do with the environment. My ultimate goal is to become a ship captain for companies like Ocean Cleanup, which aims to clean the oceans of plastic.”

Irving Shipbuilding’s support to the RCSCEF is part of the Value Proposition commitment under the National Shipbuilding Strategy. To date, Irving Shipbuilding has committed more than $18 million in Value Proposition investments toward creating a sustainable marine industry across Canada. One focus area of the Value Proposition is to support workforce development and the attraction of people into the marine industry in Canada.