Connection Through the Trade
For Wade and Tarkyn, working at CPP has created something neither necessarily expected: a new dimension to their relationship as father and son.
Wade has spent around 20 years in the industry and four and a half years with CPP. A qualified lineworker, his career has taken him from the tools and crew leadership into site management and construction supervision. Tarkyn, his eldest son, is now two and a half years into his lineworker apprenticeship with CPP.
It wasn’t a career Tarkyn had always planned to pursue.
Before joining CPP, he was working a series of jobs and was relatively comfortable with where he was. It was Wade who first suggested he consider an apprenticeship as CPP’s Transmission Lines division continued to grow.
Wade knew what the opportunity could offer, but he was careful not to make the decision for him.
“He didn’t put too much pressure on my decision,” Tarkyn says. “It wasn’t, ‘Do it.’ It was, ‘It’s here, it’s up to you. Think about it. If it’s what you want to do, I’ll be there. If it’s not, I’ll still be there.”
When Tarkyn decided to apply, Wade helped him get his résumé together and then stepped away.
“I said, ‘That’s all I’m doing. The rest is on you,’” Wade recalls.
For Wade, hearing that his eldest son was going to become a lineworker brought a quiet sense of pride.
“I played it down, like, ‘Oh yeah, cool,’” he says. “But you’ve now got your oldest son jumping on the lines. He’s following in your footsteps.”
It also presented a new dynamic for both of them.
Wade has spent much of his career working away from home, through an era when long rosters were simply accepted as part of the industry. There were periods when being away meant missing significant parts of family life.
Today, father and son still work away, but they are often on the same projects. It has given them something Wade didn’t have when Tarkyn was growing up: more time together.
“You get to keep more contact, you get to keep that bond,” Wade says. “You get to talk about work, share some of the lessons you’ve learned in the industry and share some of the skills you’ve learned too.”
“We’ve always had sport and family life, but now we’ve got a similar interest with our careers. It gives you something else to connect to.”
Tarkyn sees it much the same way.
“I think it’s added different layers to our relationship,” he says.
He remembers a time when seeing his dad meant waiting for the weekends Wade was home. Now their conversations have expanded beyond footy and basketball to projects, the business and the realities of working away.
Having Wade nearby also brings a familiarity to life on site.
“Even though we’re not at home, we still have that feeling that home’s pretty close if we’re not too far from each other.”
There is, of course, a course to navigate between father and son and supervisor and apprentice.
Wade admits he has occasionally been harder on Tarkyn than he would be on others, to the point where senior members of the crew have had to remind him to ease up.
Tarkyn has had to make his own adjustment.
“Sometimes I’ll answer a question as a son when I should answer it as an employee,” he says. “I catch myself doing that a little bit.”
But working in the same environment has also given Tarkyn a new appreciation for his father’s career.
As he has learned more about the industry and the responsibility that comes with Wade’s role, he has begun to understand the demands his father has managed throughout his career.
“I think he has a pretty important role,” Tarkyn says. “With the way projects and things unfold, I think he manages it very, very well.”
Wade’s pride comes from watching Tarkyn establish a reputation of his own.
He deliberately keeps some distance on site, preferring to hear about Tarkyn’s performance from the people working alongside him.
“I’m proud of the feedback I get,” Wade says. “I’ll walk out to site and ask one of the senior crew leaders or some of the older guys, ‘How’s he going?’ And they’ll say, ‘He’s all over it. He’s smashing it.’”
For Wade, that feedback means more than knowing Tarkyn is becoming a capable apprentice.
“You’re not just watching him develop as an apprentice, you’re watching him develop as a man.”
Some of Wade’s influence is already showing in smaller ways.
Tarkyn says there are moments on site when something suddenly makes sense and he realises what his dad had been trying to teach him. His colleagues notice it too.
“I get a lot of comments: ‘You’re just like your dad,’” he says.
One similarity is their approach to the people around them. Both take the work seriously, but Tarkyn has also inherited Wade’s belief that camaraderie matters.
“We take our job very seriously, look out for our mates…but you’ve got to have a bit of fun in there too.”
For Wade, having Tarkyn at CPP has also connected two stages of his own career.
He was part of CPP’s Transmission Lines division as it grew, and today he is watching his son develop within the same team.
“It means a lot,” Wade says. “I’d like to think we’ve played a big role in the development of CPP’s Transmission Lines division. Now Tarkyn is in that crew, being part of the development and success of the team as well.”
There is pride beyond the two of them.
Photos from site make their way into the family group chat. Their family asks about the projects, the towers and where Tarkyn is working. The infrastructure Wade and Tarkyn help deliver has become something the wider family recognises and shares.
“It gives the whole family something to talk about and be proud of,” Wade says.
Tarkyn already understands that feeling.
“I’m 24 and I do it right now,” he says. “I drive past something we’ve done and make sure everyone stops and admires it as much as I do.”
Tarkyn isn’t trying to map out where his career will eventually take him. Progression matters, but so does learning what is in front of him.
“It’s always a goal to progress, but I’ve learned not to look too far ahead,” he says. “Just take the journey as it comes and make sure you take everything in on the way.”
For Wade, seeing his son establish himself in a trade he knows so well brings a different kind of satisfaction.
“He’s on a path now. He’s part of a good company and a good crew. The rest is up to him.”
Their careers may have brought Wade and Tarkyn together at CPP, but the opportunity has given them something more enduring than a shared workplace. After years when the realities of the industry often meant time apart, they now share an understanding of the work, its challenges and the pride that comes with it.
It has given a father the opportunity to pass on what he has learned, and a son the chance to understand his father in a new way.
Most importantly, it has given them another reason to stay connected.
