GAWDA Edge Blog 
  

The shortage of skilled welders is a well-known fact, and I think it’s great that many GAWDA members are working with schools and in other avenues to promote the trade. Who, if not you, is going to look out for the profession? These are your customers.  So what can you do to make sure the profession thrives? Are we focusing our energies in the right areas?

I came across a study today which indicated that a stigma around blue-collar jobs is partly to blame for the current blight. That stigma is proliferated by parents and educators who direct children toward college as the only path to a financially secure and fulfilling career, even if this is far from the truth.

Growing up, I was instilled with the notion that a college degree is a minimum requirement for most jobs. At college, I met a lot of people who still had no idea what they wanted to do, but they went to college because they were supposed to. How can we change this attitude?

I am not a welder, but a writer. In seventh grade home ec class, we did a research project on careers we were interested in. My teacher took me aside and told me that I shouldn’t aspire to be a writer because writers don’t make enough money. Still, I pursued writing because I loved it. Much in the same way I could not be deterred, you cannot make someone become a welder. You can only provide opportunities for students to be exposed to the welding trade.

Throughout my schooling, I was never exposed to skilled trades. Whose responsibility is it? You may have a hard time convincing schools to give more weight to skilled trades. But you can work with the schools to make a difference. Expose students to careers in the industry and engage them early. Awe them and inspire them. Get them before they’ve already chosen a career and make sure they see the welding industry as a viable option.

These are your customers. What are you doing to make sure they are plentiful for generations to come?

Over the last few days, I’ve been talking to distributors about training their salespeople. Everyone has a lot of great strategies for getting the most out of their young salespeople. One of the things I’ve been discussing is the skills that make a good salesperson. The distributors agree: personality is the ultimate key. But it’s where they don’t agree that I’m most interested in.

I’ve heard some different perspectives, and I want to know what you all think. Here’s the question: Let’s say you are in charge of hiring a new salesperson for your company. Would you prefer someone with 5 years of sales experience or someone with 5 years of technical (welding, cutting, joining, etc.) experience? Let’s assume both candidates have great personalities. There are two basic schools of thought on this.

One side says, “I’ll take the sales experience. You can always teach the technical know-how through manufacturer product training. It’s more important to know sales skills that only come from experience, such as time-management, customer service and self-motivation.”

The other side says, “Give me the welder. You can teach selling, but there’s a risk they won’t like the industry. On top of that, customers respond to a knowledgeable salesperson, so someone with technical experience has a head start.”

What do you think? I want to hear your argument for picking one side over the other.

In less than a month, Calgary, Canada, will play host to the world’s largest vocational skills competition. Workers from around the world will journey to the event for a week of trade and craft skills competitions that will display the technical and vocational prowess of each country’s representatives. And, of course, one of the skills that is put to the test at the event is welding.

A major goal of these games is to promote awareness of and education for skilled vocational trades throughout the world. Welding, along with other trades such as plumbing, IT networking and mobile robotics, is a skill set that will always continue to be necessary in the U.S. and throughout the world. WorldSkills hopes to promote the development of these skills from a young age. Participants in the competition must be under the age of 23.

These games seem like a great way to get young people interested and involved in such an important part of worldwide industry. Not only do they promote a unified international workforce, but they champion skills that are vital to the vitality and prosperity of our country and the global economy.

I’ve spent the last few weeks researching the engineering and construction of roller coasters for a story in the upcoming issue of GAWDA Edge. I’ve found a lot of interesting information in that time and I’ve decided that being a roller coaster engineer should be every child’s dream job (they get to ride roller coasters all day).

I came across an interesting story this morning about a man who was tired of waiting in hour-long lines for a 30-second ride on a roller coaster. Therefore, John Ivers took it upon himself to build his own roller coaster in his backyard. He built a 180-foot-long coaster called Blue Flash that is both safe and exhilarating, and he did it all thanks to his background in auto mechanics and welding.

Most of the metal used to build Blue Flash was scrap that Ivers took home from work (he builds grain elevators). He did all the welding and metalwork himself in his barn and pieced the ride together one section at a time. Ivers is currently working on building a second coaster that will circle his garden. The frame for his latest attraction will be a welded box frame which will make the ride smoother and sturdier.

Ivers’ creation is a fascinating example of what a person can do with a little bit of welding knowledge (and in this case some engineering and physics experience doesn’t hurt either). Be sure to check out GAWDA Edge on August 20 for more roller coaster excitement.