SPOTLIGHT
EMPLOYEE SPOTLIGHT
BARRY THIBEAU
Shipwright Barry Thibeau has been an invaluable member of the West Head crew for over three years . He ’ s a longtime colleague of our manager , Dana Stewart , who you may remember was featured as the employee spotlight in the last issue of West Head Magazine . Dana recruited Barry to work with him at Aylward Fibreglass when he was manager there , then later recruited him again to come work with us here .
Barry fell in love with the nautical life after college when he spent a summer working on a little cruise ship called the Scotia Prince . By the time the season was over , he was hooked . Barry spent the next 20 years sailing on cruise ships with a company that operated the tax- and duty-free gift shops on most of the larger vessels . In that time , he was fortunate to travel all over the world .
When he reached 40 , Barry decided it was time for a change of pace . Continuing to work with vessels was a natural fit , so he entered the world of boatbuilding . Throughout his boatbuilding career , Barry has worked on 15 rigs . The most recent , Callie Rosie , was just launched in the last week of February after a year in the works .
With every build , Barry learns something new . Injuries aside , Barry ’ s favorite thing about boat building is that there ’ s no mistake you can ’ t fix . No matter what goes wrong from start to finish , there ’ s always a solution and the opportunity to learn .
BARRY LIKES TO TAKE PROGRESS PICTURES AND VIDEOS THROUGHOUT THE PROCESS OF EACH BUILD .
As a habit , Barry likes to take progress pictures and videos throughout the process of each build . Over time , he ’ s amassed quite a collection . With twin teen girls living in England , Barry wanted to find a fun way to give his girls a glimpse into his life as a shipwright . In August of 2020 , Barry decided to use his progress pictures and footage to start a TikTok channel for them . His girls were thrilled to see dad work , so he kept on posting more .
As it turned out , Barry ’ s daughters weren ’ t the only ones fascinated by his career . The channel has accumulated over 1,160 followers and 165,000 views from all over the world . Initially , the channel followed the second half of the construction of the Callie Rosie , and it will soon feature our next big project . You can tune in yourself by following Barry @ woodwrkr2020 on the TikTok app .
Building boats isn ’ t Barry ’ s only passion . In his spare time , Barry builds drones that he uses to fly around and shoot bird ’ s eye videos . He ’ s built about a dozen so far and is excited to start experimenting by capturing drone footage of boat launches to include on his TikTok channel .
Barry ’ s grateful each day to be healthy and to have a career that he thoroughly enjoys . He ’ s excited for his future at West Head and continuing his journey to become a journeyman shipwright .
SCAN FOR BARRY ’ S TIKTOK
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