Jenny Dean has three-fold expertise in what good training and education after school can do for a career, having seen three sons find successful and satisfying vocations from making the right start. The Euroa mother's 26-year-old son Alex completed his apprenticeship with Haeusler John Deere in Shepparton and now runs his own company AD Mowers & More. Stuart Dean is two years older than his brother and started out as a cabinet maker with David Powles Kitchens in Shepparton. He then completed a Certificate IV in Concreting at Benalla and finds himself as a fly-in-fly-out worker on the Snowy 2.0 hydro-tunnel project in NSW. The eldest James, 31, is a biology teacher in Kew, having chosen the university path. Jenny said there were a lot of challenges at the beginning of the boys' journeys that underlies the old adage: ‘you’ve always got something to fall back on’. “I had to remind them of this during all the years of complaining about early starts and the low pay, but it’s all paid off in the end,” Jenny said. “I don’t know how they could have lived away from home, even to feed themselves. “But there were low interest trade loans back then to get the tools they needed.” The other challenge for Jenny was the taxi service she and husband Ron provided when the boys started out. “The hardest part is that most of the time they do their apprenticeship under 18 years, so there’s a lot of driving them around. “I think kids in trades need to get their licence earlier. “They are allowed to drive off-road so it would be good if they could be exempt.”
