Three Alabama high school welding instructors had their classes interrupted with oversized $30,000 checks, balloons, and surprise celebrations after being named the first-ever winners of the Extreme Trades Makeover: Future Welders competition.
The winners were:
- Joe Abercrombie, Edward Bell Career Technical Center in Camp Hill
- Marty Long, Escambia Career Readiness Center in Brewton
- Jarrod Pope, Lowndes County Career Technical Center in Haynesville
The Extreme Trades Makeover: Future Welders competition is designed to help meet the critical need for skilled welders in the U.S. maritime industry by awarding three deserving Alabama public high school vocational/trades teachers with $30,000 in welding equipment packages or other upgrades to help their students learn this highly sought-after skill.
Why welders?
The need for skilled welders is significant. The submarine industrial base needs tens of thousands of skilled tradespeople to help build and sustain the Navy’s submarine fleet and maintain the nation’s undersea advantage. Meeting that demand will require continued investment in recruiting, training and retaining workers for high-demand maritime trades. “Over the next 10 years we have a workforce need for around 100,000 maritime workers,” said Jennifer Hall, southern region workforce director for the Alabama Community College System. “That includes welders, as well as shipbuilders, pipefitters and marine electrical workers. This program will help us build that workforce pipeline.”
Pope helps students achieve a better life
Jarrod Pope checks a student's work during welding class. Pope is welding instructor at Lowndes County Career Technical Center in Haynesville, Ala.
For welding instructors like Haynesville’s Jarrod Pope, training his students in the welding trade gives them an opportunity for a better life.”
“This can be life-changing for them,” he said. “Welding is an escape, it’s a way students can make it out and give them hope.” While his name is on the oversized check he received, he says helping his students is a community effort that involves everyone at the school. “This means a lot, not just for me but for my students.”
It’s the high school welding shops like those of the winners that Extreme Trades Makeover: Future Welders was intended to support.
Abercrombie needs more shop space
At Edward Bell Career Technical School, welding instructor Joe Abercrombie said interest in the program continues to grow. And while he has the equipment that he needs to teach, his limited shop space has made it difficult to expand opportunities for them. With the support from Extreme Trades Makeover: Future Welders, Abercrombie hopes to create a second welding shop that will give students more room to learn and train on equipment safely and efficiently. “We’ve been able to buy a couple of shipping containers and get a slab poured,” Abercrombie said. “I hope to use these funds to enclose that container space to where I can get my steel storage and my cutting units in there and have two shops instead of one small shop.”
For Abercrombie, the additional space represents more than a facility upgrade, it highlights the ability to serve more students and better prepare them for careers in the skilled trades. By expanding the shop, students will have greater access to hands-on instruction and the opportunity to develop skills that can lead directly to high-demand careers in welding and manufacturing.
Long eyes basic and digital equipment
Marty Long and some of his students pose with the $30,000 oversized check Long received as one of three winners of Extreme Trades Makeover: Future Welders.
Marty Long at Escambia Career Readiness Center said he needs basic equipment and has an eye on some newer electronics as well.
“We plan on getting some welding machines, new grinders, some welding rods, anything we can do to make this better for welding,” he said. Long added that he hopes to purchase some of the new digital welding equipment “where you just dial it in and go. You need to be prepared to go into the workforce for that.”
“The maritime industrial base relies heavily on skilled welders to maintain a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines and other vessels critical to the defense of our country,” said Jennifer Tyrell, ORAU associate manager for K-12 STEM Education. “As a generation of welders retire, the demand for newly trained welders increases, creating a growing need for skilled tradespeople. The Extreme Trades Makeover: Future Welders program hopes to help fill that need by inspiring and better equipping a new generation of these talented and skilled individuals.”
About Extreme Trades Makeover: Future Welders
To be eligible for the competition, teachers had to be actively teaching or planning to teach welding in an Alabama public school. They were asked to submit a short creative video highlighting their need for welding equipment or other upgrades and how the equipment would be used in their classrooms.
Winners were determined by a panel of educators, welding industry professionals, and program staff. Entries were judged on how well they clearly articulate the imperative for innovation, evolution, and creation of new and existing welding programs and pathways; effectively showcase how the new equipment or other upgrades will be utilized to enhance student learning; display creativity and originality in the video submission; and provide a thoughtful explanation of the teaching philosophy or approach that will expand welding education and inspire students to pursue careers in the field.
For more information about the Extreme Trades Makeover: Future Welders competition, visit https://orau.org/extreme-trades/.