As Universal Electric prepares to celebrate 40 years in business next week, general manager Ray Beauline is calling on young Bermudians to learn a trade. Mr. Beauline attributes the success of the company to its employees and its ability to maintain relationships with vendor partners.

?In this type of service related industry, success almost always comes down to your employees and the level of service they are able to provide customers ? without the customers you have no business,? he said.

?Our vendors are just as important as our people as we are dependent on their support and their their ability to train our people to get the job done.?

Universal Electric was established in December 1965 and has been involved in dozens of major construction projects including the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital, the Southampton Princess Hotel, the ACE and XL buildings and CedarBridge Academy.

Universal Electric is a multi-faceted service provider with divisions such as Electrical Contracting, Electrical Services and Automated Systems.

The company?s service division also meets the needs of residential and corporate customers and can build customer-friendly security systems, climate control, close circuit television and audio visual control.

?In the electrical sector, technology has been a big factor in the changes that have taken place in the last ten years,? Mr. Beauline said.

Bermuda is an affluent society with a demand for state-of-the art systems and that demand has been a driving factor in the way the company responds to the needs of this market, he said: ?We have gone from the bricks and mortar of electrical to high technology and having to maintain and service this high level technology locally.?

He said of one challenges the company has faced in meeting the demands of the marketplace has been the lack of adequate training and apprenticeship programmes.

Since he became general manager in 2000 Mr. Beauline has been keen to promote training of Bermudians and has chaired the Occupational Advisory Board and has served on the National Training Board (NTB).

?For a number of years there wasn?t a training programme meeting international standards,? he said. ?Only in the last ten years have we developed an internationally recognised apprenticeship programme.?

In the early 1990s the company joined with the NTB and the Bermuda College to create a certificate programme for students already working in the field.

?Before the apprenticeship programme there was no opportunity to become certified to the international standard,? Mr. Beauline said.

?The programme brings a standard that middle and high school counsellors will promote trade skills. There is a unique opportunity for young Bermudians to get trained and build their own businesses.

When that is that is recognised we will see more people coming into trades.?