Kim Buchan has been a welder for more than 30 years. He sort of fell into
the profession.
"I was working for a paving company and they needed a welder, and so they
offered a deal -- if I went into the welding program and passed they would
pay for it," says Buchan. "When I got into it, there were so many doors that
opened up. I moved on and on and it's been a great, great career because even
when the economy was slow and a lot of people were laid off, I worked right
through it, and a lot of [other] welders do [also]."
Buchan now helps others get into the welding trade, as the coordinator
of welding programs at a college. Some new welders head off to the oil
industry where jobs are plentiful and the pay is excellent.
"I would say [job demand] is a little slower now with the economy being
down right now, but two years ago when the economy was booming anybody that
didn't have a job when they finished this program, it was because they chose
not to work," says Buchan.
Melissa Gosse had been out of high school for 10 years when she decided
to study welding. She's currently in the second year of a two-year welding
engineering technician program.
"I'd been working for 10 years and just decided this was something I wanted
to do," says Gosse. "I worked in an office and I was interested in something
that was totally different from that, something where you could travel and
do different things and work out in the field."
Gosse is planning to start off as a welder and then move into an inspection
job, or quality control.
"It's a broad range of opportunities once you finish," says Gosse. "It
just depends on how far you want to go."
Bill Komlos is another example of someone who's gone far in the welding
trade. He started as a welder's helper, certified as a welder on nuclear containment
vessels, certified as the 4th Senior Certified Welding Inspector in the country
and he went on to earn a master's degree in civil engineering. Komlos was
recently awarded a patent for a process he developed to stress-relieve welds
in very thick, welded structures.
"In my 20s I wanted to know how to fit steel together," says Komlos. "I
had to learn trigonometry and algebra to do that. Trigonometry enabled me
to calculate the slopes and angles I needed to set nozzles onto pressure vessels
or build staircases. In my 30s I wanted to run jobs."
Once Komlos became a fitter, he knew how to estimate jobs. He knew what
was needed on the shop floor, so he became a project manager. He ultimately
wound up managing a $9 million job for the Defense Nuclear Agency in White
Sands, New Mexico. He didn't have an engineering degree at that time -- what
he did have was years of experience working as a welder, fitter, and an inspector.
"Once I started seeing big structures, materials two-inch thick and more,
I wanted to learn more about the processes to effectively join those materials
and I wanted to learn why welds crack, why things failed. That's what drove
me to go back to university in my 40s. I earned a master's degree in civil
engineering, after being a remedial math guy in high school."
Today, Komlos is a welding consultant serving customers all across the
United States. "At the end of the day, what I enjoyed most about my craft
was standing back and seeing what I had built that day. Today, with almost
40-years of welding under my belt, that's still why I keep showing up. I get
to put my thumbprint on everything I do."
It's been quite the journey for Komlos. And after all these years he says
he still loves welding. The work is hard at first and there's a lot to learn,
but the rewards are there if you stick with it.
"Do your 'Cinderella work' early, get some years under you, see how things
are really done, and then the world is your oyster," says Komlos.