Perth Campus Alumni Crucial in Shaping Community (Part II)

This is the second part of a two-part feature on the impact graduates of Algonquin College’s Perth Campus have on the surrounding community.

Algonquin’s Perth campus is located on a leafy green lot a short drive from Perth’s heritage downtown, and features an airy student commons area, numerous student-constructed outbuildings, a tool lending library, and a joinery shop.

It’s some of these unique features—such as the joinery shop—which produce graduates who help give shape to the aesthetics of Lanark County over the course of their careers. Jason Gibson, a graduate of Perth’s Heritage Carpentry & Joinery Program (1996), is one of them.

Gibson, who is originally from Verona, a small community north of Kingston, now lives just outside of Perth, and is the owner of Jason Gibson’s School of Timber Framing, which specializes in teaching the art of traditional timber framing and has been a community mainstay for 20 years.

Timber frames are a traditional building technique that uses heavy, large timbers to frame a building, and requires a unique joinery to hold them together. “A good way to think of it,” says Gibson, “is if you’ve ever been in an old barn—that style of building with the large beams and wooden connections using mortice and tenons and pegs, that’s a traditional timber frame. In modern construction…you apply those same techniques but use them in a modern building.” People use timber framing in modern buildings to bring a traditional feel. “Like any trade,” explains Gibson, “it takes time to learn how to do it well efficiently and professionally.”

Gibson has ample practice with timber framing through his former business, Gibson Timber Frames, which he first ran out of Kingston, then later Perth, and which provided timber framing services (building and restoring) to all Eastern Ontario and beyond. He ran the business with his wife, Kandace Brown, who is a graduate of Perth’s Heritage Masonry Program herself. The timber framing school was a portion of the business they decided to keep when they sold it years ago.

Gibson’s school offers 6-day workshops where he builds a shed with the students enrolled, who are either tradespeople or hobby builders. The shed is then sold to someone in the community. The proceeds from the shed go to charity. Over the years, he has donated over $56,000 to local and international charities, including the Stewart Park Music Festival, the Guatemala Stove Project, Harrowsmith and District Social and Athletic Club, Camp IAWAH, and the Nature Conservancy of Canada, which purchases land for conversation in the Perth region.

Gibson also works with high schools, gives courses regularly at the Willowbank School of Restoration Arts, teaches at St. Lawrence College, and has even trained college instructors so they are able to deliver timber framing training in their college courses.

Gibson’s work teaching this traditional trade seems particularly important for a region renowned for its beautiful, traditional architecture, and is a reason he believes Perth is a perfect host for the Heritage Carpentry and Joinery Program

It’s a strength of the Perth campus that their programs reflect the needs of the community, whether it’s the newer Business-Agriculture Program, which combines agriculture with business and management training, skills sorely needed for the local agriculture industry, or Early Childhood Education, which, in a community full of young families, provides highly sought-after skills.

Programs offered at Perth change over time to reflect those needs. Tanya Gray, a resident of Smiths Fall who now works at the Smith Falls location of the Perth & Smith Falls District Hospital, is a graduate of Perth’s Office Admin-Executive Program, which is no longer offered on that campus.

When Gray’s kids were older and she wanted to return to school, she wasn’t sure which path would be the best fit, but a community connection made all the difference. One of the other moms of a boy her son played hockey with was a professor in the Office Admin program, and a number of conversations with her convinced Gray it was the right fit. “And it was just a bonus that it was in Perth” says Gray. “It was a lot easier than driving to Ottawa.”

Gray loved her time in the program, saying the small class size gave a sense of intimacy and community she really valued.

After graduation, she even got a part-time admin job at the College in Perth, but she eventually moved on to work for other organizations. In 2013, she started working at the Perth & Smith Falls District Hospital as a Human Resources Assistant. After doing some more education at Fanshawe College, she was promoted to the position of People Operations Professional last year, which involves working closely with the CUPE union, doing labour relations, recruiting, hiring, onboarding, and much more.

During the pandemic, she has been there to support her colleagues working the front lines of COVID. She also worked at the COVID-19 vaccination clinic the hospital put on for two full days.

Beyond being grateful for the skills the College gave her that she now puts into practice daily, she describes the Campus as “a staple in the community,” full of people who are “always willing to help. I can’t imagine it not being there.”

Christopher Hahn, Dean of the Perth Campus, echoes a similar sentiment: “We often say that the Perth Campus may be small but we certainly have a big impact– both locally and beyond. The campus program mix changes periodically but what remains constant is how our graduates go on to make a difference. Whether it is one of our Health Care graduates working in long–term care facilities, Heritage Carpenters restoring historic buildings, Early Childhood Educators taking care of our future citizens, or Police Foundations alumni taking care of the present ones – the impact is surely felt. I regularly meet graduates who have gone on to start their own businesses (just the other day I met one of our graduates who is an entrepreneur in the Horticulture business) so I know that the future of the county is in good hands with the leaders we have the privilege of learning with while they join us at the Perth campus.”

To learn more about the Perth Campus and its programs, click here.