A former au pair and nanny has been named Australia's top apprentice technician working on forklift trucks.
 
Adelaide's Belinda Reid, 26, won the Toyota Material Handling Australia (TMHA) Apprentice Skills Contest at the national final in Sydney in November.
 
She was runner-up in this year's Technical Skills Apprentice of the Year awards at O'Halloran Hill Campus in South Australia, and winner of the award for Most Outstanding Prevocational Student for Final Year Industrial Plant at O'Halloran Hill Campus.
 
The Toyota competition win has earned Belinda a trip to Sweden to visit the BT Lift Trucks factory - part of the Toyota Material Handling group of companies.
 
Belinda Reid joined Toyota Material Handling's South Australian branch in April 2007 as an adult apprentice.
 
"After I left school I spent a year as an au pair in Finland and two years as a nanny in England, before coming home to Adelaide," she said.
 
"Initially I wanted to be an automotive mechanic, but I applied for work experience here at TMH(SA) in Gepps Cross. After a week I was offered an apprenticeship - the first one here offered to a woman.
 
"Right from the start I really enjoyed the forklift side, and now I would not want to work on cars."
 
The annual TMHA skills competition is designed to keep Toyota forklift technicians at the forefront of industry standards.
 
TMHA national service manager John Pearsall said Belinda Reid's award dovetails with a company focus on encouraging more women into technical roles in the traditionally male-dominated forklift industry.
 
"Toyota pioneered specialist TAFE training for forklift technicians, and now we're leading the way in encouraging more women to join the material handling industry," he said.
 
As a fourth-year apprentice, Belinda Reid works predominantly in the THM(SA) workshop and pre-delivery area, but is increasingly going on the road with a senior technician to perform field service work.
 
The TMHA National Skills Contest consists of two forklift theory tests to establish the six apprentice finalists, followed by one day of six practical tests in Sydney.
 
"We were tested at six different workshop stations, so we had to know the electrical side of the Toyota group forklift brands - Toyota, BT and Raymond - as well as hydraulics and the internal combustion repair techniques."
 
TMHA branch manager in Adelaide, Hamish Harper, said Belinda's win was a fantastic achievement.
 
"It's a great accolade for Belinda and also a boost for the workshop team who have trained here in Adelaide," he said.