
by Sam Hawcroft
A woman who grew up in Withernsea has been named Advanced Apprentice of the Year at the inaugural East Yorkshire Apprenticeship Awards.
Chelsea Baxter, an e-procurement analyst at Arco, recently completed her Level 3 improvement technician apprenticeship with distinction.
The awards, which celebrate apprentices, employers, colleges, trainers and supporters across the region, were held on September 19 at the MKM Stadium in Hull.
Chelsea said: “My manager, Paul Burton, had done some previous work on continuous improvement. He introduced it to the team, and I took quite an interest in it.
“The whole thing about improvement is that, with any process, you can break it down and try to make it more efficient and reduce the defects. It started in car manufacturing, but the theory of it can be applied to any process.
“We’ve got a really good learning and development team at Arco. There’s internal training but they also support apprenticeships. We just got talking about it and there was this Level 3 improvement technician apprenticeship available. I started it in November 2022, and passed with a distinction in February this year.”
Chelsea, who left Withernsea High School in 2009, studied maths and further maths at Wilberforce College and then went on to do a degree in maths. She credits the teachers at Withernsea High with fostering her initial love of the subject.
“I remember Mrs Krebs in year seven was my first maths teacher. She was great – she was so enthusiastic about the subject, which helped me as well. There was another teacher, Miss Barker, who ran after-school codebreaking classes.
“I’ve always had good maths teachers. They really encouraged you and ran extracurricular activities as well.”
Although Chelsea has moved out of Withernsea, she still has close family in the town. Her brother, Dale, once worked at the Gazette and is now a producer at BBC Radio Humberside.
Chelsea’s grandparents placed a congratulatory notice in last week’s Gazette – and the first she heard of it was from one of her Arco colleagues.
“It was so funny,” Chelsea said. “One of our customer services team messaged me saying, ‘I think your grandma has put something in the Gazette!’
“I love Withernsea, and I’m always going back to visit family. They’ve been so supportive – if ever I’ve said I’ve been thinking about doing something, they’ve always told me to go for it.
“I’d definitely encourage anyone thinking about going back into learning to just do it, whether it is an apprenticeship or something different, such as the Open University or an online course.
“It’s so worthwhile and it restores a bit of faith in yourself that you can do these things.
“It doesn’t matter whether the course lasts a week, six weeks or six months – mine was just over a year – but you’ve got to make the time for it. You have to put in the hard work, but it is really worth it at the end.
“It was scary going back into a learning environment so long after finishing university in 2014, but I had fantastic support from Arco. There are opportunities to further my apprenticeships – I could continue to do Level 4 or 5, or look into similar fields like project management.”
Arco, the UK and Ireland’s leading safety specialist, was also highly commended in the Large Employer of the Year award, which was won by BAE Systems.
Arco’s Future Experts programme was launched in 2015 and is an important part of the company’s talent development strategy. Apprentices benefit from a blend of on-the-job training and formal education, with 100 per cent of apprentices having secured permanent positions within the company after completing their training, and 75 per cent remaining employed at Arco for at least 12 months after completion.
Arco plans to expand its apprenticeship offerings in the future, increasing the number of higher and degree-level apprenticeships available to employees across the business.
Darren Ford, Arco’s head of organisational development and learning & development, said: “We are so proud of our colleague Chelsea for winning this well-deserved award, and thrilled to be highly commended as a business for our apprenticeship programme.
“At Arco, we believe that investing in the future means investing in our apprentices. The recognition at the East Yorkshire Apprenticeship Awards is a testament to our dedication to empowering individuals and driving business success through our Future Experts programme.
“We are proud of what we have achieved and excited for the future of our programme and of our apprentices.”