A journey for Wilbard Mwetulundila
Wilbard Mwetulundila grew up in Onamutayi Village east of Ongwediva with his seven siblings. As a child, he was fascinated by battery-operated toys and his persisted of engineering curiosity birthed a Marine Electrician at Debmarine Namibia.
He has an unwavering love for engineering and on the quest to follow it though to make sure that his childhood dream of becoming an engineer is realised. “I always had a picture of myself working in an engineering space. Given that burning passion, it was just a matter of putting in the effort to fulfill my dream”.
After completing Grade 12 in 2008 at Gabriel Taapopi Senior Secondary School in Oshana Region, he enrolled at the Namibian Institute of Mining and Technology (NIMT) in Arandis and attained his Electrical General Diploma. To further augment his skills and keep growing in his career, Wilbard decided in 2018 to enroll for the Advanced Diploma in Applied Electrical Engineering (Electrical Systems) in Australia in January 2020.
Attaining his desired qualifications was not an easy journey. Upon completion of high school, Wilbard applied to study electrical engineering at NUST. He unfortunately, did not get admitted on to the course he wanted to complete. It was a sudden turn of events for him, which culminated in him having to enroll for another option. However, he vowed that he would pursue a career in engineering. He dropped out of the course and took up a general electrical course and NIMT.
Prior to his studies in Australia, he has been working for seven years in the electrical industry and felt that he accumulated enough experience to tackle his studies that he completed with flying colours. “Given the years of experience, I was under the impression that I knew it all, but one module into the course, I realized that my knowledge was only limited to the environment I was working in. Since then, I started seeing technical aspects from new perspectives.”
He joined Debmarine Namibia in 2016 as a Marine Electrician on the !Gariep, where he is responsible for performs electrical maintenance and analyzing equipment according to agreed standards and diagnosing faults and anomalies using specialized knowledge and skills amongst others.
What is the most fascinating deployments in this industry that Wilbard is so passionate about “in an era where technology is well advanced it is important that we align our thinking and do not resist change that comes with new technology. What we knew yesterday might not be applicable today and hence this necessitates the culture of continuous improvement and life-long learning”.
Wilbard says working at Debmarine Namibia has been a good journey so far. “I must say that it is one the most satisfying environment to work in but it comes with consistent challenges and never-ending learning opportunities”. The world is Wilbard’s oyster, as he decides what his next chapter is going to be. He says he is closer to achieving his career goals than ever before. For now, he is applying everything that he learned in his advanced diploma course:
Wilbard has floated the idea of doing a Bachelor of Science (Electrical Engineering) with the same institution in 2021.
He encourage young people to pursue a job in Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics industries. “without trying to dismiss the importance other field of studies, I think careers in this field are most fulfilling and offers unlimited opportunities”.
*additional information by Engineering Institute of Technology (EIT)
