Fleming College

Duncan Cobb

Fish and Wildlife Technician - 2014, Aquaculture - 2015

Meeting new people and being able to travel the world are some of the career highlights for Duncan Cobb, graduate of the Fish & Wildlife Technician program (2014) and the Aquaculture graduate certificate program (2015). Duncan is currently working in Tasmania, Australia as a Farm Attendant for the salmon farming company Tassal. He spends his workday traveling by boat to the farms in the area and helping with getting the pens ready for fish; setting seine nets and bathing fish in freshwater.

My favourite part of the job is the locations I get to work in. Surrounded by mountains, I've seen everything from bald eagles to dolphins and orcas swimming by. I've even seen penguins swimming by our boat in Southern Tasmania."

Duncan chose to attend Fleming College for the hands-on experiences that he knew would help him on his chosen career path. Reflecting on his time at the Frost Campus in Lindsay, Duncan says, “I absolutely loved my experience at Fleming. The campus was great and the professors were always helpful and had real-world knowledge…the campus was full of like-minded people and I’ve make plenty of life-long friendships.”

Before moving to Tasmania, Duncan spent four years working on the beautiful West Coast of Vancouver Island for Cermaq Canada, a salmon farming company. He worked his way up to Assistant Manager on a saltwater farm, leading a team from smolt entry (smolt is a stage of a salmon life cycle that is getting ready to go out to sea) straight through to harvesting the fish to feed thousands of families around the world.

His advice to new graduates is to not be afraid to go where the work is. Duncan says, “Doing this has brought me across Canada and now across the world. I've met some amazing people and been on plenty of adventures that I'll remember for the rest of my life.”