Wintec celebrates 90th anniversary

Students and staff of Wintec are collaborating to create a book celebrating the institute’s 90th anniversary.

The book, named The Wintec Journey, will include a history of the organisation, historical photos and profiles of students, staff and alumni, and traces Wintec back to the Hamilton Technical College, founded in 1924.

Since then the institute has seen many changes, becoming the Waikato Technical Institute in 1968 before being renamed Wintec in 2003.

The project is being coordinated by Hannah White, Wintec’s Communications Manager, whose job it was to assemble a team of student journalists, hunt out historical photos and write a history of the institute. White said that in total, about 45 people contributed to the book.

Each of the 21 journalism students involved contributed a profile of someone who has a connection to Wintec. These have included alumni such as TV3 journalist Carly Flynn, celebrity chef Josh Emett and musician Dave Baxter. Also profiled were a Wintec chief executive from the 1960s, and students from the 1940s.

“It’s about telling the story of the rich characters who have been involved with Wintec over the years,” said White.

One of the biggest achievements of the publication will be to “give the students something that they have published that they can take on with them,” said White, adding that having something already published that you can show employers is an invaluable head start.

White said as far as she knows this is the first time a book like this has been written about Wintec. The book is not just about broadcasting that Wintec has been around for 90 years but showing the journey from its beginnings to what it is now and “portraying that in a really interesting and colourful way”, said White.

The idea for the book was conceived at the beginning of the year and initial work began in February. A launch will take place on September 3rd at Wintec’s city campus.