74 April 2019 _ PopularMechanics.com
College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita, California, echoes that.
Speaking about his high-school-age son, he says, “All he hears is college,
college, college.”
Oddly enough, the trades bear some responsibility. As the construction
industry waxed and waned over the years, one of the places it looked to
cut costs was training. This led to a shortage of helpers and apprentices.
“Journeymen did everything themselves. That worked for a while,
but you see where that got us,” says William Fuller, craft development
manager for the Houston-area Construction and Maintenance Education
Foundation, the educational affiliate of the trade association Associated
Builders and Contractors (ABC). Fuller should know. He was recently
named Craft Instructor of the Year, no small achievement for a guy who
started out at 13 digging ditches with a shovel. He went on to become a
heav y-equipment operator, carpenter, boilermaker, rigger, and crane
operator.
ABC contractors are also on the front lines of getting students prepared
as early as possible, while they’re still in high school. Trained high school
graduates are deemed “trade ready” when they can read a set of plans, set
up a job, and work with journeymen. They may stay with their trades train-
ing to pursue journeyman status, exit to college, or pursue both.
A blended profession consisting of college and trades education that’s
achieved incrementally, without college debt, is appealing to many and
a smart way to hedge your bets. “The trades are a way to earn and learn,”
IAM’s Reid says. “They’re a way to still have college available to you. It’s
a way to secure your future.” He started out as an auto-body mechanic,
became a machinist, and went on to get two bachelor’s degrees, one in
labor studies and another in education.
Another example of the trades-college track is our longtime trades
advisor, Pat Porzio, a second-generation tradesman with three trade
licenses (electrical contractor, master plumber, and master HVAC);
he also has a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering. Today he’s HVAC
manager for Russo Bros. & Co., a plumbing and HVAC company in East
Hanover, New Jersey.
Finally, consider Dan Maurer, a journeyman pipefitter with United
Association Local 190, a plumber and pipe trades union in Ann Arbor,
Michigan. He’s one class away from an associate degree in applied science.
He left general construction and carpentry to pursue the mechanical
trades and today does welding, plumbing, and medical gas piping for
Boone & Darr, a mechanical contractor in Ann Arbor. A rock-solid mid-
dle-class breadwinner, Maurer is the sole support for his stay-at-home
wife and two young daughters, no small feat today for any young family.
A future in the trades begins even before you graduate high school,
he says: “Pay attention while you’re in public school to the education that’s
right in front of you. It’s free. It’s a gift. When you go on from there to pur-
sue a trade, remember that whatever you put into it is what you get out of it.”
I’ll leave the final words of advice and encouragement to Greg Size-
more, ABC’s vice president of environment, health, safety, and workforce
development. His advice is directed as much at the parents as the stu-
dents. “Parents shouldn’t push kids who are performing poorly in the
classroom toward a future in construction, assuming that the student
won’t need math or communication skills. We want not only the best stu-
dent, we want the right student.”
“The trades,” said Sizemore, “are not merely an alternative to college. A
trade is equal to college. If you’re a Ph.D. and you’re at home on a Saturday
night in July and your air conditioner quits, the smartest person around is
somebody who can fix that air conditioner. The trades are one of the most
noble career choices that any individual can make. Banks would not be
built. Buildings to house machines, hospitals, and any other structure
would not be built without the trades. It’s a career choice, not just a job.”WELDERS USE any one of a number of processes to
join metal using molten metal. When everything
cools, you’ve got a joint that’s as strong or stronger
than the base metal. The median pay for welders,
according to the American Welding Society, is
$41,000. That doesn’t tell you a whole lot because
there are some welding specialists out there who
make a lot more. Most welders have a certification
to weld something very specific, and they’ve built
a career out of that, such as gas pipeline welding.
They travel the country, and maybe even the world,
plying that craft. Many others have a specialty but
also weld a wide variety of materials. My nephew
Andrew is a good example: He’s a union welder in
New Jersey whose specialty is welding an exotic
material called duplex stainless steel. But he’s also
certified to do a large variety of other welding jobs,
some of which are checked by X-ray inspection.
Simply put, give him some metal to weld, and he’s
a happy man.
The entry path of most welders is pretty sim-
ple. Many try their hand at it in a high school metal
shop, on the farm under their dad’s tutelage, or
out of sheer curiosity they take a crack at it in
some other course. Ashlyn Childs took a welding
class as part of a summer camp in middle school
and took more welding classes in high school.
Now she’s enrolled at Ferris State University in
Big Rapids, Michigan, pursuing a bachelor of sci-
ence in weld engineering technology. She expects
to graduate in 2022. She’s worked summers for a
company that designs and builds shipping contain-
ers in steel, stainless steel, and aluminum. “What I
enjoy about welding is that everything I put into it
comes back to me. My five- or si x-year plan was com-
pletely different a year ago. I’m finding new careers
in welding every day. The trades are an opportunity
to be independent. You’re set for wherever life takes
you.” I don’t think any welder could put it better.Matt Turner, 38
WELDINGWelder