From farm to first place: Reece’s trade journey

In February 2025, Reece Gallagher, 21, was appointed TAFE QUEENSLAND GOLD COAST APPRENCE EXCELLENCE Award Winner for 2024, recognizing a prominent year of achievement in automotive electrical trade.

Reece, which grew in a dairy farm in the north of Nueva Wales del Sur, turned his childhood love for separating things into a prosperous race, and a series of main awards.

As cars become more complex, Australia faces a wide gap in qualified diagnostic technicians. Reece’s trip shows how vocational education and pure dedication can develop critical skills for future industries. “Professionally, it gives me great expectations to live up to it, which I enjoy because it pushes me to walk,” he said.

Reece completed his certificate III in automotive electrical technology on the Ashmore campus of Tafe Queensland in Gold Coast.

Despite traveling 1.5 hours per week from the distant north coast of NSW, he said the trip was worth it: “The facilities of the campus are of high quality, there is a wide variety of vehicles and fantastic diagnostic tools.”

He also recognized his teachers: “He had some great teachers, especially with the prior support to the 2023 Worldskills Nationals.”

• 🥇 He scored above 95 out of every 100 in the National Worldskills 2024, his best personal brand.

• 🧰 He completed a complete commercial qualification of Certificate III in Tafe Queensland.

• 🏆 won 2024 TAFE GOLD COAST AUTOMOTIVE APPRENCE OF THE YEARS AND 2024 LEARNING EXCELLENCE AWARD (presented in February 2025).

When I was a teenager, I didn’t even know that trade existed.

“To be honest, I didn’t even know that being a car electrician was a job,” he said.

That changed when a program of alternative routes of high school led him to a labor placement of luck.

“It was just lucky that this arose, and I knew it was for me after just a week.”

That week caused a passion. “I spent my time separating televisions, dismantling computers and fixing anything with a cable,” Reece recalled. That Tinkerer mentality became the basis of its success.

Reece also returned after missing the apprentice prize of the year in its seconds and third years.

“That meant a lot because I made sure to do my best and worked hard to win it.”

The history of Reece reflects the changing nature of the trades. With increasing electric and intelligent vehicles, the need for technical specialists is growing rapidly.

“The automotive industry will be very different in five to ten years. With the advances in modern vehicles, there is already a gap in competent diagnostic technicians, and I think that gap will only become larger.”

With your award -winning impulse and your passion for learning, it is expected that Reece will continue to excel, possibly even advising the next wave of negotiations. Your advice for others?

“It is worth trying. I didn’t know anything about this industry, but I had an interest in the type of work and I looked where it has taken me. I am very happy to have given this work an opportunity because it has given me incredible skills and even better opportunities.”