The CWB Association brings you a weekly podcast that connects to welding professionals around the world to share their passion and give you the right tips to stay on top of what’s happening in the welding industry.
Today is International Day of Education and to bring awareness of the importance of education in the welding industry, we are highlighting Martin Howe, UA Welding Instruction. Let's embark on a riveting exploration of life beyond the desk job with Marty, who traded corporate chains for the intense glow of a welder's torch. From his early days in Southern Ontario to the enriching experiences of rural Nova Scotia, Marty's narrative is a masterclass in resilience and adaptability.
Welding isn't just about fusing metals; it's a craft laden with challenges, growth, and mentorship opportunities that shape novices into seasoned pros. In this tell-all, Marty and I dissect the transition from the controlled confines of welding school to the demanding realities of job sites, where adaptability is king, and every day is a lesson in resourcefulness. We also celebrate the profound impact of mentorship, discussing how guidance from experienced hands can ignite a novice's potential, transforming them into skilled artisans ready to tackle the industry's most arduous tasks.
As Marty's tale unfolds, it becomes evident that the world of welding is as inclusive as it is diverse. Whether discussing the role of simulators in modern education or the celebratory acknowledgment of the Red Seal's equivalence to a college degree, this episode is a testament to the industry's evolution. We invite you to plug in and absorb valuable insights on the importance of apprenticeships, community-building, and the sheer joy of finding your tribe within the metal trades. Let the sparks fly as we delve into the tantalizing future that awaits in the realm of welding education and collaboration!
Follow Martin: https://www.instagram.com/martini31337/
Join the UA: https://ua.org/
Thank you to our Podcast Advertisers:
Canada Welding Supply: https://canadaweldingsupply.ca/
WeldReady: https://weld-ready.ca/
There is no better time to be a member! The CWB Association membership is new, improved and focused on you. We offer a FREE membership with a full suite of benefits to build your career, stay informed, and support the Canadian welding industry. https://www.cwbgroup.org/association/become-a-member
The CWB Association brings you a weekly podcast that connects to welding professionals around the world to share their passion and give you the right tips to stay on top of what’s happening in the welding industry.
Today is International Day of Education and to bring awareness of the importance of education in the welding industry, we are highlighting Martin Howe, UA Welding Instruction. Let's embark on a riveting exploration of life beyond the desk job with Marty, who traded corporate chains for the intense glow of a welder's torch. From his early days in Southern Ontario to the enriching experiences of rural Nova Scotia, Marty's narrative is a masterclass in resilience and adaptability.
Welding isn't just about fusing metals; it's a craft laden with challenges, growth, and mentorship opportunities that shape novices into seasoned pros. In this tell-all, Marty and I dissect the transition from the controlled confines of welding school to the demanding realities of job sites, where adaptability is king, and every day is a lesson in resourcefulness. We also celebrate the profound impact of mentorship, discussing how guidance from experienced hands can ignite a novice's potential, transforming them into skilled artisans ready to tackle the industry's most arduous tasks.
As Marty's tale unfolds, it becomes evident that the world of welding is as inclusive as it is diverse. Whether discussing the role of simulators in modern education or the celebratory acknowledgment of the Red Seal's equivalence to a college degree, this episode is a testament to the industry's evolution. We invite you to plug in and absorb valuable insights on the importance of apprenticeships, community-building, and the sheer joy of finding your tribe within the metal trades. Let the sparks fly as we delve into the tantalizing future that awaits in the realm of welding education and collaboration!
Follow Martin: https://www.instagram.com/martini31337/
Join the UA: https://ua.org/
Thank you to our Podcast Advertisers:
Canada Welding Supply: https://canadaweldingsupply.ca/
WeldReady: https://weld-ready.ca/
There is no better time to be a member! The CWB Association membership is new, improved and focused on you. We offer a FREE membership with a full suite of benefits to build your career, stay informed, and support the Canadian welding industry. https://www.cwbgroup.org/association/become-a-member
Alright, I checked, checked, I'm good. So I'm Max Ron. Max Max Ron, shitwb Association welding podcast podcast. Today we have a really cool guest welding podcast. The show is about to begin.
Speaker 1:This episode is sponsored by our friends at Canada Welding Supply. They are a family owned Canadian business with an awesome customer support team that's there ready to answer any questions you may have. Canada Welding Supplyca offers quick Canada wide shipping, fair prices and a massive selection of welding supplies. They carry all the cool brands, such as ESAB, lincoln Electric and Fronius, but also some of the very hard to find niche brands like Furecup, outlaw Leather and, of course, up and smoke welding apparel. Best of all, they offer exclusive discounts only for our CWBE Association members. Check out Canada Welding Supplyca today to shop for all your welding needs. Remember that's Canada Welding Supplyca. Hello and welcome to another edition of the CWBE Association podcast. My name is Max Ron and, as always, I'm checking under every rock and cranny, climbing every tree, swimming through every mountain and climbing every ocean to find the coolest stories I can across this beautiful nation of ours. And today I have Marty Howe coming to us from Toronto, ontario. Marty, how are you doing?
Speaker 2:Not too bad, max. How are you doing? My brother?
Speaker 1:I'm doing good. It's my last day before holidays. I got my toucan. I wanted to show off some of the new CWBE swag I got on. I got my Canadian welding supply sweater here that I got from Matt at Canada Welding Supply. I'm trying to go out with a bang before I got nice two weeks off.
Speaker 2:I always got to rep Matt and the CWBE folks Good stuff. I got one day left and I'm going to be off myself for a little while. I'm looking forward to it. It's been a long year.
Speaker 1:So what do you? Got planned for the holidays.
Speaker 2:What are you going to do? Not going to do anything. I'm going to relax. I've been studying pretty hard all year, so normally for the holidays I'll study something and work on a new designation or a new certification. But I did a bunch of stuff this year, so this year I think I'm just going to relax and hang out with the puppy.
Speaker 1:That sounds wonderful. I hope I get to do that too. I'm hosting Christmas this year, so I got, I think, 11 or 12 people coming to my house. But I love that, I love being a host, I love cooking and all that stuff and seeing the kids and hopefully it's chill and I can just be in my house and maybe do some, maybe go into my garage. I haven't even cleaned my garage since summer, so it's a disaster in there.
Speaker 2:That that'll happen. Luckily, I don't have to deal with a garage anymore, living in the city.
Speaker 1:All right, let's talk about where you are. You're in Toronto. Is this your birthplace? Is this where you call home or you know what's? Where did you come from?
Speaker 2:I'm actually from Southern Ontario, originally down the Niagara area. I grew up there most of my life and then when I got into welding I ended up moving away. I moved a little bit when I was younger as well, but moved out to rural Nova Scotia when I first got into the trades and cut my teeth out there and then ended up back here and then ended up in Toronto. So kind of been a little bit everywhere.
Speaker 1:So that's interesting. Why Nova Scotia Shipbuilding? What were you doing out there?
Speaker 2:Well, what happened was when I did corporate work most of my life until I was about 28 or 29, I went to welding school. So when I got out of welding school, kind of nobody in the area really wanted to touch me. There was a lot going on anyway, because it was the late recession that just happened. So I ended up going out there and looking for work out there, traveled all over Nova Scotia, went to probably 40 different fab shops through the whole province and ended up getting a job, but the last one I went to Really, so I stayed out there.
Speaker 1:Yet and what was it that you were doing out there?
Speaker 2:I was working for a mobile welding and millriding company. They did a little bit of everything. They had a shop, they had line boring, they did hydraulics, you know kind of jack of all trades, miscellaneous metal stuff. So it was. It was an interesting place to cut your teeth, to be sure that's awesome. I learned a lot out there, and I learned a lot of how not to do stuff.
Speaker 1:So well, those are the type of shops where you get experience with a little bit of everything hydraulics, mechanics, gears and it.
Speaker 2:It is and I say it to the students that I teach now I'm like the more varied your experience is even if it's not necessarily welding centric kind of stuff the more that you're around mechanical stuff, the more that you're around equipment, the more that you're around machinery, the more that you're going to learn and the better you're going to become, because you're going to understand things a little bit more than somebody that maybe just goes in and welds just pipe, or goes in and just works on one type of thing.
Speaker 1:Now you said that you went out there after you had been in corporate for a while, so welding was not the first choice.
Speaker 2:No, I'm a second career for sure. I started out doing corporate work when I was young. My father was working in business and had a financial services company, so I started really young working around him and with him. And then, as I got older, into my late teens, early 20s, I got into doing management and ended up doing some pretty big like call center management stuff. I was traveling around developing campaign sales campaigns and training them and launching them for companies that were clients of ours. And obviously when I had happened, the American dollar went to parody, so all the contracts right up. So I was eligible for retraining. So they said we'll send you to school and I said, great, I always wanted to get a business degree. And I said, no, you'll go to trade school. So then I had to quickly figure out what trade I was going to do.
Speaker 1:So why welding? What was the clincher?
Speaker 2:I picked welding because I had a couple of good friends that had gone through for retraining and were welders and were making decent money at the time. I had a friend for a long time who was an old shipbuilder, iron worker, boiler maker you name it welder and I saw the kind of lives that those guys were making, leading in the kind of money that they were making, and I was like man, you know that might be nice to be able to punch a clock three o'clock and go home and not have to think about work anymore, because in the corporate grind you're just constantly going and thinking and on and move right. So that was what it was.
Speaker 1:Well, did your parents think about that? They're like, hey, you know what, you're coming up in dad's footsteps, you're going to take over the company and rule the world in the corporate game. And then it's like, actually, I'm going to go off to retrain to be a welder. What were the thoughts around the house?
Speaker 2:Well, my mom was okay. My parents had split, so my mom was okay with it because, like I say, she knew some welders. My dad, you know, he supported me whatever I wanted to do. So it took me a long time to, you know, get any best at it, but it came with time and hard work and how was it like?
Speaker 1:So let's you know, let's talk about someone who wasn't in a trades family, which you know, I'd say 90% of the people on this show are in the trades or got in the trades through a connection, whether it's family or something in their area, rural economy, whatever it is. You know you're coming from like a different background where it's like not trades centered and not even trades focused, and then it's like, hey, you need to retrain, here's some welding, get into it. You know how did you feel coming in as an older student now with some life experience, into a welding program where and you know, as an instructor for years, I know like you got 80% kids that are 18 years old, a couple of letter in their mid twenties that are retraining from something else, and then one or two of the old hands that are looking to do something different. You know how did you feel in that mix? It was interesting.
Speaker 2:I, like I, was confident that I was going to be able to do it, but I didn't. I don't think I realized how hard it was going to be because when I, like you know, I again I didn't want to wrench from Ratchett when I first started I had. You know, the first time I was in, first time I walked into welding school was probably the first time I had really ever run a bead outside, maybe seeing a mid machine in high school sometime or something. But it was. So the first three, four, five, six weeks I hated it.
Speaker 2:I went to a very traditional private career college, you know. You go in, they give you the manual, which is a, you know, a hundred pages photocopy, don't have an old Lincoln Electric Mark Bible, and then they put you in a dirty roddy booth with a grinder and a bunch of 60, 10 or 60, 11 and then tell you to go. I keep doing it until it looks all right. So it was a grind, but it was worth it and it set me up for the rest of the grind that I was gonna have to face as soon as I got out of school, which it got even worse.
Speaker 1:I never quite understood instructors using 60, 10 or 60, 11 for starting bead on plate. I get that, it strikes easier, I get it, but to say that work on this till you get a nice bead there's no nice bead, like I mean, it's kind of always ugly why wouldn't they use?
Speaker 1:a 70, 14? Like when I was teaching, I used lots of 70, 14 because it's cheap. It's just as cheap as 60, 10. And it runs a nice bead and it starts. All right, you know what I mean. It's a great time to teach them about the buttons on your welder, like arc start and hot start, and you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:We didn't have those when I first started.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, yes.
Speaker 2:They were ideal. R250s.
Speaker 1:Well, the thing is that tech has been around since like the fifties is just whether people buy it or use it, right yeah?
Speaker 2:well, the private welding career colleges weren't buying it. They were using old ideal R250s and whatnot.
Speaker 1:But so what kind of program? Was it Like a one year program, a two year program, or what was the deal?
Speaker 2:It was. It was about I think it was about eight months and it was just Monday to Friday, eight hours a day in the booths burning, and that's all you did. You went through all four positions of plate with both rods and then you started on pipe and then you went through all positions of pipe and once you finished that, you went on the next process.
Speaker 1:And did you come out with any certs? Like, if you're doing plates, you come out with some CWBs, you're doing pipe.
Speaker 2:I came out with TSS, say for seeking employment certs. So I mean we all know what there was, those worth.
Speaker 1:That means you, you know how to make grapes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, they could, but they could. They could tell the government that they were certifying us and something, and the government would pay for students to go there. It was, that was how that worked back then.
Speaker 1:So I don't feel like you got a great experience. I'm not feeling a lot of like you know, alma mater pride there.
Speaker 2:So no, no, no. I mean I haven't, haven't gone through that experience and then, having gone through, like for example, the United associations training, or even some of the training that I did at Leona when I was with them, you know what I mean Leaps and bounds, leaps and bounds difference. So there's levels to this game and I think it's a shame that a lot of sometimes these private colleges and even sometimes the public colleges you know aren't aren't giving the best education and they not necessarily could be, could be doing it, because it's important education and we're going to need people that are good at this craft.
Speaker 1:Wow and your percentage. Educators make all the difference, right, and you can always see, especially when you get involved with like at the higher levels, national programs or even skills, if you, if you work with skills Canada, you see that the same colleges produce the winners every year, the same programs produce the same welders, the same unions are representing the best every year. And then you, you notice, you notice, right, you notice that certain colleges will talk a big talk but they'll never have a welder running in the top 20 of any of the competitions ever. It's like, well, what's going on? You know 100%, 100%. So you get through the eight months, but it seems to. It seems to be changing.
Speaker 2:It seems to be changing for the better now, especially with all the attention that the trades, and specifically welding, are getting.
Speaker 1:But yeah, no, that's true, and hopefully the CWB is a part of that. You know, you know, knock on wood, we can keep supporting that stuff For sure. But you're done your eight months. You're out there with your, with your paper, your parchment, as they say. You got your parchment Cause you can't even really call it a cert, cause it's a cert for what you know. So you got your parchment and they, they send you out into the free world. And at that point where you're, like you said, you couldn't find any work and you headed out to Nova Scotia. Was that immediately following this? Or or did you go back into a different program to hone up on something, or no, no, I look for work around the area for a month or two.
Speaker 2:And then I was dating a girl from out there at the time and she said why don't we go out there for a weekend and you can relax? You've had a rough go. And when we were crossing out there I said, well, I might as well look for work out here. So I went to near every fab shop I could find, and the last one that I went to was one that was relatively near to her hometown and the guy was like, well, I've got some work coming up. He might, I might get you as you, so let me think on it. And he called me back in a couple of days and was like all right, come on in start on Monday. And I said I'll come in for two weeks and if I'm any good, you want to keep me, I'll go back home. I need 10 days. I'll sell all my stuff and I'll come back and find a place. And if not, no harm, no foul, I'll go back to Ontario.
Speaker 2:And after two weeks he said all right, we'll keep you around, kid. So he kept me around for about half a year a year and then they ran out of work. So I got laid off and ended up working at a truck and tractor repair shop that a fella just had out his backyard out there. Helping him out we built some hydraulic round bottom gravel dump trailers that he ended up selling to the local municipality out there. So that was kind of a fun project to work on. And then I ended up at another fabrication shop out there called Archies and it was there for a little while and my grandmother took it on and then I had to pack my stuff and come home to Ontario to do a family stuff.
Speaker 1:So there's some nice repair jobs in there, like a truck and trailer. You're doing attachments, you're doing buckets, you're doing skids, you're doing hydraulics, you're doing a lot of hydraulics and lining boars and you know, and that's Absolutely. That's actually pretty fun stuff. Painting. Yeah yeah, there's a little bit of everything in that gig. How did? You feel?
Speaker 1:How did you feel coming into this work site, coming into these jobs, without, let's say, the welding etiquette? Because welding skills is one thing. Ok, here, put your plate on a rod, and this is like from industry to teachers. This is a big issue where you learn in a booth at school all day, every day, on the perfect piece of material. You got six inches of weld rocket. You got a 2G, 5g rocket. Plates are cut bevel, get in there, weld, weld, weld. But then you get out to a job site and it's your. Welding is not the biggest part of your day, right, like, I mean, there's the least part.
Speaker 2:That's right. You've got a hundred other things that you've got, especially open shop. That's right. Yeah, union is one thing. If you're a union welder, generally you're pretty well just welding. But if you're working open shop, you kind of know how to do everything and you can't be scared to do anything, and if you are, you can't let anyone know. Yeah, so there were many nights that I would do stuff at work and then I'd have to go home and spend an hour going through old garage top shop floor talk forums or old welding web forums to try and figure out the answer to whatever it was I was trying to figure out from the day that we were working on it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's what I was going to ask you. Like, what was that like?
Speaker 2:It made me a lot better Because I did. Every night I would have to go home and do homework to try and figure stuff out, because I had no mechanical aptitude and no mechanical experience whatsoever. But thank goodness I knew how to research stuff and I knew how to find information. So whatever disability I had from my lack of experience or my lack of mechanical aptitude, I made up for it in tenacity and just brute force.
Speaker 1:And that's a big part of it. I came up in the trades, my dad's a tradesperson, so it's like I felt comfortable already on a work site Like the people at the workshop.
Speaker 2:You knew how they talk, that's right. That's right. You knew not to put your heart hat on the table.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there was just little things that I just knew from the people that were around my life as a kid.
Speaker 2:But for someone coming in, I had absolutely no experience with that that's right.
Speaker 1:So kind of everything you do is going to be wrong, like it's kind of like you just don't know right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, many days when I first started my career, I'd go home and cry.
Speaker 1:It was ridiculous. Yeah, it's just like. What the f*** am I?
Speaker 2:doing here? Yeah, what have I got myself into for $14 an hour?
Speaker 1:So you got a two and a half year run in Nova Scotia. It sounds like you picked up some good experience and you got some good shop experience. I would say was probably very valuable. You come back to Ontario and what's the goal? What are you looking to do?
Speaker 2:The goal was to get into doing pipe boilers or pipe, because I knew that going in circles was where the money was. I knew I wasn't there yet, so it was back to wherever I could get work, and that happened to be this small, dingy little fab shop that I hung out at. For I wasn't there very long, I was only maybe a couple of months max. I got myself a weld test with a company called Allied Marine out in Port Colver which does a lot of boat work, because there's a lot of marine work out that way. So I knew that paid a little bit better. I knew it was going to be a better experience.
Speaker 2:So I went out and did marine work for a couple of seasons or so, which you've learned a lot doing that too. I split my time. I spent most of my time in the fab shop where we had a turbo shop, we had a fab shop, we had machine shops, all of that. But the odd jobs I would get called out and have to go actually out onto the boats or do winter works out on the boats, which is an interesting experience.
Speaker 1:So now you're looking at, you're getting into more aluminum, you're getting into what kind of work differences, would you say is different from that? No, I'm talking like lake boats. Oh, ok, I see I see Like ships OK. So yeah, no, so this is heavy plates. It was a heavy plate.
Speaker 2:Structural Right Some piping, not a lot, but a lot of structural and a lot of heavy plate.
Speaker 1:And you're running launches like Flux Core, lots of MIG wire. What are you doing on this stuff?
Speaker 2:I was running mostly stick at that time, which made me really happy because stick is my favorite process. So most of the stuff. If we had small fabrication stuff to do we could do it with Megan the shop, but in situ it was all stick. I was telling the kids the story the other day about doing a bunch of demo on the double bottom and we didn't have torches down there. Like what'd you guys do? We turned the machines up and cut it with 50-10.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, two on your damps on 60-10. She cleans nice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like what you can do. That Like yeah, it works pretty good when you don't want to run torches Four stories down into a cold boat that's sitting in subzero water.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, actually they make electrodes for gouging now like on purpose not like. I've never played with one to see how they work, Because to me that's just gouging, or I would just, but I guess they're an actual steel insert electrode that's meant for gouging. I think Rockmount makes some. A few other companies make them. I'd like to play with them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I should see if I can get my hands on some and play with them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so for any suppliers listening to the episode, you can contact me through my email. I will gladly take some demo rods to burn in my garage and I will film it. But beware, I will give an honest review, so sometimes that's not always a good thing.
Speaker 2:Depends on what you expect out of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I guess it is what you expect. You're not looking for glass cuts with a 6010, but I mean it'll get the job done.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no. So I learned a lot in the fab shop. I worked with a couple of old hands in that fab shop that were really, really, really good. It was probably the first place I can remember working with guys and being like, oh OK, these are the guys, guys I want to work with, and they would take you and teach you and be patient with you and they were all like that. They were all good guys. So really there was one guy in there that taught me a good amount about fabricating. It really helped me in my career that way. So I did a couple of years there and then I managed to get myself into the boiler shop that I had set out to get into at the very start of my career. I managed to get my skills up to where I felt good enough to test in there and was able to get myself in for a test and got in there. So at this, point.
Speaker 1:Have you been pursuing an apprenticeship, like with these jobs? Have you been logging hours? Were you even thinking Red Seal? Because I mean, this is still time in right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, to be honest with you, I don't even think the Red Seal existed back then, because we're talking so Red Seal's been around since like 1940 something. But it was a welding Red Seal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's been a welding Red Seal since the 40s and a metal fab, I believe, since the 70s.
Speaker 2:Yeah, anyways. No none of this was counting towards anything. Nobody had told me anything about it, nobody had given me an option.
Speaker 1:Even in the school, like when you're taking those eight months, no one was like, hey, this is hours, Because I'm sure that school could have signed off on hours for something right? No, no, it wasn't a thing. That's so interesting because out West Red Seal's the game right Like you want to get that Red Seal to get top taller.
Speaker 2:Well, where I'm at now, it's the game too. But it's just in that area of the world. I guess at that time it wasn't a thing.
Speaker 1:Well, it's still a big struggle in Ontario. Like man, the amount of meetings I go to, where I'm talking to colleges in Ontario and they have no idea how the Red Seal works. And it's like, what are you talking about? Like, what's like if you don't give students a big goal, like a big star the distance.
Speaker 2:Here's the end game. Yeah, this is the end game. And now here's the steps we got to take. That's right.
Speaker 1:It's really tough to be pumped out about your career if your end game is just finishing class. Well, big whoop, big whoop.
Speaker 2:I'm done class. What does that mean? In the class Like so what right?
Speaker 2:And what does that mean in the context of my career and my life, my broader life? Excuse me in general, but and again, that's you know, that's something that I hope, as I get older and get more involved and start to get on involved in certain things that I'm getting involved in, that I can help. Change, too, is getting people to know. You know these are, this is what this career path looks like. These are what career paths open up out of this. It's not just welding. You can go any number of you know thousands of different ways For sure, yeah, so I mean I ended up teaching.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, I ended up teaching too, and I never, ever, ever thought I was going to be a teacher. I burnt rod for 27 years and then teaching landed on on my head, basically fallen, pulled into it Seems to be how it works.
Speaker 2:Seems to be how it works.
Speaker 1:Well, and then you're in the teaching game and you realize that they're so desperate for more teachers, like everyone's crazy out there trying to find, because it's hard to be a teacher, it's hard to be a good teacher.
Speaker 2:Right, like it's Well, and unfortunately, unfortunately, unfortunately, in in, in our, in our craft, one doesn't necessarily translate to the other. That's right. Because you're a good teacher doesn't mean you're going to be a good welder. And just because you're a good welder doesn't mean you're going to be able to teach it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my old college dean used to say the unicorns, you're looking for those welders that were the stars, the star welders or the star fabricators, and then they're great teachers and that's really hard to find and you know who they are. In Canada there's a handful of them. You know what I mean. Like they, and and and you run into each other all the time being like, hey, like, like, look at, like a Jim Galloway, you know out of Christoga Like there's a unicorn right Like I mean, he's got his red seal, he can weld, he can throw it out.
Speaker 1:He can put on a helmet and throw it out and right now he'll rip you a vertical 70, 18. And he knows how to build robots and teach all these other things.
Speaker 2:And he's got all the technical aspects, that's right.
Speaker 1:So like I mean there's, there's a few people like that. Like I hope in 20 years I'm I'm a Jim Galloway, right, like you, just keep learning and learning.
Speaker 2:But my mentor, my mentor at the UA of Dave Hardy was like that. He was a wizard and could throw down beats like nobody's business.
Speaker 1:Well, that's what I was going to bring up to you is the mentorship part, because you brought up, you know, having that first real mentor at the shipbuilding place and I remember my first mentor and I have two mentors, one for welding and one for fab, cause I'm also dual red seal. I got my welding red seal first, my steel fab next and, yeah, I did the same.
Speaker 2:And with welding got my silk fabricators.
Speaker 1:Oh, awesome Congrats. So my it just came in the mail yesterday. That's a tough test for anyone trying. It's not an easy test.
Speaker 2:I my students asked me after I wrote it. My welding students asked me they're like how was it? I was like that was harder than my welding red seal was. I mean in fairness. I wrote it without ever having formal fitting education. It was just based on what I had done in the field and what I knew from working in the field.
Speaker 1:I did the same thing, for sure, made a difference Cause I just challenged my, I just challenged for it.
Speaker 2:So so not an easy, not an easy seal.
Speaker 1:So, like my welding career, I feel like my welding mentor was great in teaching me like the things about being patient and watching and learning from others and all these things about welding like that. You got to watch but there was tons of great welders I met in my life that I found I learned a little bit from. Fabrication is a whole nother game and I know very few people out there that I would say are really top notch fabricators that can also teach right. They're like they're when they don't even bat an eye at a project and you just got sheets of steel and you got to turn that pile of steel into this into a vessel into a vessel and they know how to do the forming, the cutting, the round, the square round, transitions, the piping, every piece of it.
Speaker 1:they just got it.
Speaker 2:And estimated.
Speaker 1:That's right, that's right. So I had a mentor, terry. He passed away from counselor a few years ago but like he put me on that track because he noticed that I was real good at math and I was a little bit keen. And he's like hey, man, like if you're good at math and you're kind of keen, you should jump down this fabricator stream because this skill is way more in demand than welding. And I was like really, and he's like, yeah, like let's, let's try and like for you having that mentor who's going to pull you aside and teach you fabrication. I feel like that's almost necessary in the fab game because there's really very few, if almost no, schools to do it at.
Speaker 2:No, and even like a lot of the fab that I learned was stuff I used to go to the library and get books, old 1950s and 60s.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I got mine right there.
Speaker 2:Metalworking books yeah, you know, and sit home and read them. There's not a lot of people that put that kind of effort in. So when you do, and then if you're a little bit sharp and you really care and you have the opportunity where you've got a shop where you can put those skills to use, because not everybody does, that's right. You know most welders work in weld shops where they don't really have a lot of fabrication equipment. But yeah, I agree with you, it's a really important skill and I think it makes for a better welder too.
Speaker 1:Well, in the industry I don't think understands that, because you see postings online, go to day and be like you know what jobs out there, and all these shops across Canada, us, are like fitter welder, we want a fitter welder. And I actually got pissed off at those ads because it's like well, pick one, do you want a fitter or a welder? Because you're talking two different things and to say you just want a fitter welder, do you really mean that or do you just talk? Are you talking about a welder putting stuff in a jig, tacking it?
Speaker 2:welding it, because that's the guy doing the layout and bending, and that's right and welding.
Speaker 1:Because that's a different thing. And if you're just going to hire a fitter welder, I expected like eight to 10 bucks more as a fitter than I did as a welder. So I'm not even going to look at an ad that says fitter welder, because I'm going to be like you don't even know what you want, because, like which part of the game, it is it. And if you're just looking for a welder to do some tacking, more power to you but that's not fitting right.
Speaker 2:No, no, if the jigs are already built and all you're doing is cut and putting it in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean bless for all the people out there that need it done for sure, but I think that the communication, even the education for industries, lacking in terms of do they even understand what the fabrication expectations are? Fitting welding pipe. You know it's kind of blurry lines around.
Speaker 2:It is, it is and you know, let's hope with technology some of those lines get a little bit less blurred and everything gets a little bit more clear, cut, simple. We can hope.
Speaker 1:So tell me about your journey into the Red Seal, because you said you weren't, really, it wasn't on your radar. You're out there working and something must have happened to say, hey, there's this thing called a welding Red Seal. You know, are you going to go down this path? Like you said, you just got your initial whether it's called an initial six there or a B pressure or whatever it is but you said you went for it and got it. Now, what you know, like what happens next?
Speaker 2:So I was there for a little while and then when I met my wife, we moved to Toronto and, as you do, when you move to Toronto, I wasn't going to. I didn't want to go out to, you know, back end of Scarborough for $14 an hour to squeeze a mig trigger. So I did what you had to do. I went weighted tables and stuff for a year until I could get myself in with the laborers union. I made a contact with the guy with the laborers union, got him to get me in on a job site through a shovel for six or eight months through my probationary period, then use that to get all my safety certifications and then use that to get my welding tickets back and then I use that to get into the UA which I used to get my Red Seal.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you got your Red Seal through the UA, you'd be local four six in Toronto, right, yeah, yeah, so local four, six, big union, strong union, I think. What's the Raylam Ustel? I think in that part of that one he's the welding specialist for UA Canada. Right, I think 20 years ago though, I think he was there.
Speaker 2:But yeah, he was a 527 guy too. I think, okay, all right.
Speaker 1:So you get into the union. Great fellow, you know he's awesome. I love him. He's a fun guy to have a beer at a table with until three in the morning, that's for sure.
Speaker 2:I've never had the privilege I met him. I've actually been talking to Ray for years online, but I met him for the first time at our Ann Arbor ITP this year Right.
Speaker 1:So you get into the union and this must have been a bit of another switch in shock for you, for culture, because you know from an open shop, fab World, where it's kind of fend for yourself, learn it all. Everyone can, as expected to kind of know a little bit of everything to the union environment and the union UA. You know this is all streamlined, everything's on the books, everything's got a place, everything's got a path and a process. Right, what was that like? Going To you Like did you love it? Or were you like there's too many rules?
Speaker 2:No, yeah, no, I loved it.
Speaker 2:Because, again, I came from a large corporate background. Right, I was working for some in some cases Fortune 500 companies, you know, handling massive amounts of responsibility for them. So to step in back into an organization where I had been used to chaos and disjointedness and just all sorts of different things, and open shop, to step into an organization of that size and that magnitude, and not only that, but somewhere I, you know that had been on my radar as a goal for my entire career up until that point to be able to be given that opportunity to, you know, to go in there and sit there, apprenticeship, and you know, take, take, take. Everything that they had to offer me. I mean, it was it. Finally, it validated all the work and all the part of my language, but all the gone through, yeah, now the tables have turned, though.
Speaker 1:You know when you started off in that eight months program you knew nothing about nothing, and you didn't even know when I think started and when we're nothing ended. You go to Nova Scotia. You pick up a little bit of something on the something. You go to shipbuilding. There's a little bit more something on the something now. And now you're coming into a fresh apprenticeship at the UA. Where you're, you are at square one. But now you know the tools, you know the welds, you know the stuff, you know some fab. Now you're in the class, not at a disadvantage, but you are the advantaged one in level one apprenticeship program. Right, yeah, so how?
Speaker 2:did you pass Go? I, I mean, I, it didn't take long for me to notice, just again, even just by my age I had you know, I could tell. But it made it interesting for me because I think I I like to hold that during those classes, that I was actually sitting in those classes, but my engagement and the communications that I had with both the teacher and the other students, like the whole, that maybe some of my experience brought something in that classroom as well.
Speaker 1:So it wasn't just me taking, maybe I was giving back to Well, I taught Red Seal for almost seven years, the 30 year Red Seal program. Let me tell you there's nothing better than having class with a lot of different people from different parts of the industry. Because if you want a successful class and everyone to get 90s and everyone to pass the Red Seal, you want to have that's right. You want this group. You're 12 or 14 students that you got. You want them to team up because at the end of the day, everyone's got a different skill that can help. And you know what? I'm a pretty good welder at almost all things, but I'm not the best at everything. So if some guy comes into my class or girl comes into my class.
Speaker 2:I've got a lot of experience with the aluminum.
Speaker 1:That's right, bro, they're up Help, help Awesome, you know like and and there's something really to be said for peer, peer learning.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:It's a comfort level. You know you're in the same boat, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I mean that's the nice thing about welding. Education too is like anything that my students have to deal with now. I know it's a lit I'd laugh with them, because I'm not laughing at you. I'm laughing with you because I remember being like that, because it wasn't that long ago that I was in your position.
Speaker 1:So you get. How did the three years of apprenticeship go? What kind of work were you doing for the hall, you know were you? Were you busy the whole time? Was there any downturns? What was those?
Speaker 2:three years like I came in. I came in and because they don't normally let apprentices go out until they've got on the red seal. But I think because I had so much experience and because my teacher was willing to vote for me and because I actually a fellow of mine that worked at another construction company, it kind of hooked me up with one of the union companies. So I started out in higher-rides. After I did basic, I did two years there, finished my intermediate and my advanced there and then, once I got my red seal, I finished the building that I was working on. And then my crew got split up my fitter went one direction, my apprentice went the other direction and I went another direction. I got brought into ICI from there with a company that does a lot of prefab work and a lot of re-en-re. So I became kind of the jam up guy.
Speaker 2:Where it was. If it was in the ceiling, in the corner, in between something, I was the guy that they would send in, which I never minded because I came from OpenShop. That was, oh wait, you mean you kind of cleaned it up for me before I go up in there. Thanks very much guys. Oh, you've run my cables, thanks. So, yeah, I never minded and I knew it was going to make you a better welder. So short-term pain for long-term gain. I learned by that point in my career that if you struggle through the worst jobs and try to take something from them, you know in terms of your head, sometimes those are the most important jobs that you'll work on Well, and they teach you patience too, because they give you a resilience.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right Now, what was it like only being used for part of your skill set? Now, though, like this is one thing. So I've been union a couple of times and left because I was. I got frustrated at only doing the one thing, you know, and I really missed the open fab. Like fab is my world and I want to fab and I want to build, and that was my stick, and when I went in union work I didn't get to touch nothing, I was just burning rod right and sure I had fun doing it, and the little bit of fit up here and there was simple at best, nothing crazy right, and and I kind of missed it I actually gravitated towards the iron workers because there was a lot more fab involved with iron workers and even just layout, which you know was fun. To spend the day laying out beams, that's a good day, right. What about for you? Like, it sounded like you really enjoyed the fab side, did you? Did you kind of have to walk away from that, or did you find you still got an opportunity?
Speaker 2:No, I still, I still got. I mean, how did we used to say it like I would never do fitting on site without a fitter, but if my fitter needed a hand I'm not gonna stand there and watch them. And yeah, for the most part, all the fitters that I worked with were all pretty reasonable about that and I prefer welding. Welding was was my first love. The fab just came as a result of you have to learn it because this is what you're doing. So when I got in and it was like, oh, I just get to burn rod all day for eight hours and everybody's gonna leave me alone and I just get Burn stick rod for eight hours, I was thrilled, even if it was, even if it wasn't, even if it was. Awful position joints up and you know Insulated pipes and horrible spots with steam lines behind you. Hey man, that makes a lot. I like burning.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that makes the fun, the job, almost more fun. You turn into like hero mode when you're like jamming your help, you know, when you have to jam your helmet into the space first and then try to get your head in there. Yeah, once you get to that point you're like, okay, I'm.
Speaker 2:I'm. You're pulling out the yeah.
Speaker 1:What do you mean? Pull out the sock, could you? You're? You're taking an old t-shirt and cutting a hole in it and sticking a lens on the end of it. So I could, sir, for fancy people, I got A fancy money here. I'm talking old t-shirts, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just tape it to the figure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're good man, yeah, so. So here we are with your with your fab ticket, let's take, or sorry, your welding ticket and you're out in the field. Let's take our break now. When we get back We'll talk about you know where that led for your career after you know you. You got your red seal and you're down the UA train. Sound good, perfect, all right. Well, we're gonna take a quick break here with Marty and we'll be right back after a break and you guys don't go anywhere. Stay tuned.
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Speaker 1:And we are back here on the CWB association podcast. My name is Max Ron. I'm here with Marty how, coming to us from UA 46 in Toronto, ontario, and talking to us about his life. So right before the break we talked about how you finally got that red seal and and you got you. Now you got this ticket in your pocket. That's forever. It gives you work kind of anywhere in the world. It's. You know, this is the beauty of of apprenticeship and of standardized welding procedures and that whole, that whole part of the the journey. A big part of our Audience is in parts of the world where they have no apprenticeship or they don't lack or they don't understand apprenticeship. We're gonna be releasing this episode actually on International Day of Education, january 24th. So give us your kind of five-minute rundown on Apprenticeship from your point of view in terms of the UA. I'm gonna put you on the spot right now. You know and say you know, marty, if you could explain to me what apprenticeship is and why it's important well.
Speaker 2:First of all, it's important because it, when you come out of it, you're not in debt. That's From a being coming from a finance background. That's the biggest thing. Yeah, it doesn't cost you anything. You're earning the whole way and With what we do and the type of work that we do, it's not something I again I came from academia from.
Speaker 2:My mother's were all my half my family or teachers. The other half were business people. So those are all skill sets so you can read a book and learn and apply them. You can't do that with what we do. There's a touch to what we do. There's a familiarity, there's a body mechanics there's you're using your body, your hands and your mind. So an apprenticeship Allows you to develop those skills over a longer period of time. You have five years to get to where your proficient at your craft without any fear of you know we're not trying to get you there faster so that you know we can make more money from it.
Speaker 2:There's a very structured program and you go through and you learn in stages. You build a foundation, just like I'd building a house. You start with a good foundation and you build knowledge on top of that and that, with that knowledge game. You come experience and with time you get more experience and then you add more knowledge on top of it. By the time you're done, you've got a really solid build. Solidly built building yeah, it's, it's just. I think the work experience aspect of it is is really what's key.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm. And I find that so interesting because I have lots of educator friends around the world and the US, central America, south America and there the lot of these programs don't exist unless you're in a hall. So, like in Canada, we have a national apprenticeship system that really you can be an ironworker Welder, pipe fitter welder, a boiler maker welder. Well, there's a whole slew of Unions. But even if you're not union because I got my non-union I was able to get in on a company and say, hey, I want to get my red seal welder and they're like, let's go, let's do it. And they indentured me and it was a little bit different because I don't have as structured, but I can still get to the same goals because I have to learn the exact same things you did because it's it's in the book, it's like Google it. You know red seal welding and every single welder.
Speaker 1:It'll tell you what you need to know exactly what you need to know, and I'll run into a pipe fitter welder, a Ironworker welder, a boiler maker welder and me, a non-union welder. We all got red seals. We'll sit in the same room and we're talking the exact same language.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 100%, and I say that to my students. I'm like Once you have that ticket, it covers you for anywhere you want to go. Mm-hmm, it tells us our industry is so vast and so big open shop, union shop, marine agriculture there's a gazillion different types of welder you can be, and then there's a deal to gazillion paths in each of those types, mm-hmm, from there. There's so many options that open the door to you once you get that red seal and once you have it and like you said, max, one of the key things to me that always endeared me to the idea of getting it was once you have it, nobody can ever take it away. I've had a lot of certifications and a lot of different things, whether it's safety, whether it's this, whether it's that, whether it's finance, whether it's leadership, they all expire.
Speaker 2:They'll expire. Yeah, it doesn't expire this. I've earned this. It Will never go away, and to me it was the equivalent of me getting a college degree.
Speaker 1:Well, and actually I fought that. I fought that fight when I got hired at the college. They wanted to treat my red seal different than a college degree and I fought the union at the college and one. I took it to court and actually set a standard about 12 years ago for most of Canada now when if you walk into a university or college with a red seal they have to accept it as a diploma because it is a diploma. That color on that seal is the same color on your Education degree, same color seal that's on your finance degree.
Speaker 2:It's the same level and you want a secret. You want to know the secret about it. It probably took me longer than yours did.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I, and a lot more sweat and tears and and I couldn't fake my way through this seal, I couldn't cheat my way through this seal. You know the it's, it's, it's a hard-earned one. And I remember being at the college and they're like, oh, this is where you're gonna get paid. I'm like, well, why? And you know what tip me off is because I do have. I went to university for philosophy. I also had an academia. And they're like, oh well, your University will get you this much, but your trade will only get you this much. And I was like backup.
Speaker 1:You're telling go here, then yeah, like, what are you talking about? So what you're telling me is that you're gonna go here exactly because I have two. And they're like well, no, you only have one. I'm like, no, I have two. And then, when I got my rent, my steel fab I'm like now I have three, give me another bump. And I and you know I had to set that precedent because I was choked I was like so you're at actual college and you want me to teach kids that this is the way to go, and the very same college is limiting me me on where I can go. Uh-uh, or I'm not gonna sell this juice unless I can drink it too. You know what I mean? Yeah.
Speaker 2:What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
Speaker 1:That's right, that's right. So you know it is. It is great, and I think anyone who gets a red seal should be very proud of that. I've run into welders who are like, oh, I got a red seal. I'm like, is it up on your wall? No, I just keep it on a bookshelf. It's like, oh man, put that up on your wall. That's a no different than your university degree you earn that. That's not easy, yeah, and I watched a lot of great great welders fail that exam many times because it's not easy.
Speaker 2:It's not no and no, everybody is surprised with it Like it's, that's not. That's not an easy exam. There's a lot of technical stuff you need to know for that course.
Speaker 1:Yeah and then and then. How did you get on the path then for your metal fab? Because now you're not collecting hours for metal fab anymore. You know you need a whole nother 8,000 hours to pull out of your butt somewhere. So how did you do that?
Speaker 2:I. I had started teaching a couple years ago Part-time at the UA hall, doing night school, okay, and so I was like I'm pretty sure I have enough experience for this metal trades thing. So I looked up, started looking up the information, I looked at the syllabus, I looked at what there was going to be on the exam and I, you know, kind of assessed myself to it and said, you know, maybe I give this a shot. So I called some of my old bosses and said you know, hey, I need letters of reference for this. This is what I'm doing. They were willing to help.
Speaker 2:So I did the application and wrote the exam and passed it. There's really no need of me to do it. It's probably not anything. My partner that I took over for at work was like why are you doing this? I'm like, wow, I put the work in. I want the certificate for it. Right, like you say, some people don't like to hang them on their walls. I like to because I know how much work and blood, sweat and tears, especially the fabricator ticket, because it was so hard.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, that fab ticket I have. There's a big joke with the college where I was working at because my old Dean was like we wanna have all the new instructors come in dual-certed because we were expanding lots into the metal fab. Saskatchewan is one of the provinces left that even teaches metal fab at all Metal fab, right. So we were like, okay, well, every instructor that comes in should be dual-certed because you may be called upon to teach metal fab and you need to know how to use every piece of machinery in this place and why and how, right. And it was like really tricky to find people To find With a metal fab ticket, like it was brutal and then, to pay them whatever more than whatever they're making in the field, or to place them.
Speaker 1:Well, that's right, because they're all out there making 65, 75 bucks an hour, easy, right, yeah, and it was tricky and I always tell people like I took a pick out going to teach but it was very.
Speaker 2:Well, we all did.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was very worthy. It was very worthy. Yeah, I loved it and it really opened up a whole new world for me when you talk about pathways, for you know this punk rock, metalhead kid with tattoos and a mohawk at 17, to end up teaching in a college 25 years later was like I would have never thought of that, like it didn't even pop into my brain until, literally, I was at the college doing testing and the guy at the college was like man, I've seen you come in here every few years for the last 10 years recertifying and I see you help other people on their tests and you're super friendly. Have you ever thought?
Speaker 2:about teaching. Ever thought about?
Speaker 1:teaching. Yeah, and I was like no. And he's like, well, we need to substitute. It's just if you and at the time I was doing work that I was on and off. So he's like you know, if you got weeks here and there, let us know because we could bring you in, where you always need to backfill some instructors. And I was like sure, I got offered a full-time job by the end of the year, like I was like what, what's happening right now? Actually Like what? Was it like for you falling into that.
Speaker 2:So I had my mentor, dave Hardy, at the hall. I had Phil was my teacher through trade school and Dave was the Welchop supervisor. They came to me at some point and were like, have you ever thought about teaching? And I was like teaching what I didn't know. And they were like, well, we need some help with the TIG night school. And I was like, well, who would I be teaching with? And Dave said, well, we'd be with me for the first year until you got your feet wet. Then we'd put you with someone else. So I said, all right, sure. So I started doing that just a couple nights a week with Dave, and then the next year we brought in my partner that I work with now, who I've been with for a few years now.
Speaker 2:And then I guess it was about two years after I'd started teaching night school, they had come to me and said that Phil was getting ready to retire and they were thinking about somebody to replace him and my name had been kicked around. And so they asked if I thought I might be interested in what I had going on and whatnot. So I said, let me think about it. I went home, I talked to my wife and said you know, this is a little change, this is what won't change, this is what'll be better, this is what'll be worse. You know pros, cons, let's weigh it out and ultimately we made the decision that she was okay with me taking the pay cut, so to speak, and I was okay with doing it.
Speaker 2:I thought I could do a fairly good job at it and if I had to support everybody around me, I thought I could make a goal of it. So I told my training director that I was interested and the rest is at least Laura, as they say. I came. As I said, my dad and his brother were all business people, but my aunts and my mom were all teachers. So my cousins, et cetera, my aunts principal, one's a college professor, the other one, my cousin that's a college professor. So the teaching comes by. I come by it honestly.
Speaker 1:Well, that's what I was gonna ask you. That's that skill, that family skill set, that coming around the horn now to help out, yeah, yeah, and it was again because of my corporate experience.
Speaker 2:I developed and executed on training curriculum and training programs for not for welding, obviously, but standing and delivering a class. Standing and delivering a class as long as you understand the content and what you're trying to get across, it wasn't entirely foreign to me, so I like to think that I made the transition okay. I'm sure if you ask my students, they'll give you the real story there, but I like to think they'd say something nice.
Speaker 1:How did your background, your specific background with business and training, translate into what you do now? Do you get the urge? Because, as most trainers do good ones they wanna change stuff. So immediately you start teaching content and you're like I don't know if I like this part, or I don't know if I like how this is done. I wanna switch this up. Or were you like, no, this is the way it's done, I'm just gonna follow through and execute.
Speaker 2:So that's a really good question, Max. There's kind of like there's kind of two answers to that story. I'm old enough and experienced enough to know that when you come into an organization pardon my French don't try and reinvent the wheel, so, and if it's not broken, don't fix it. So did I see, was I cognizant, or do I have things now that I think I can improve upon and perhaps hopefully change a little bit and make a little bit better? Of course I do, but I'm not so naive to think that I'm gonna run in and change everything overnight, make everything a thousand times better. That's just Just gunslinger.
Speaker 2:When you're dealing when you're working with organizations of this size and when you're working with something as important as these kids' futures, you don't wanna make hasty decisions. If you're gonna change one the same with mig welding, right, you're mig welding. Do you change four different variables at a time? No, because you don't. It's having what effect. So slow, incremental change sometimes is the best way to do it, because that way you can really measure whether you're having any impact or not and what kind of impact that is. Is it the kind of impact we want or is it something else?
Speaker 1:What about the new technologies coming up? I know You're gonna ask me about simulators.
Speaker 1:Well, we're not there yet. But look, I have my thoughts about technology and I believe that technology is very important to be taught in an educational system because, as a school, your job is to prepare them for any possible eventualities. And, yes, 90% of the machines you're gonna run into are not the most expensive machines you buy, absolutely. But what if they come across one? You don't want your student to be the dummy standing in front of the machine being like I have no idea what this is. But in the union environment I found and this is my personal opinion, so correct me if I'm wrong that there seems to be a little bit more of a pushback against some of the technologies that are coming out, especially when it comes to some of the open root processes that I see out there in the welding world. What are your thoughts about that?
Speaker 2:Are you talking? Are you getting into S-D-T-R-M-D discussion?
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, I'm going there, I'm going there.
Speaker 2:It has its place, for sure. I mean it makes the process very easy. It's nice if you're in a shop for spinning stuff out. Do I see it being real practical in the kind of work that I did in the field? Not really, not really. Yeah, but that's not to say that it doesn't have its place. Every process has its place. I was at a demo the other night that the CWB Association put on for laser welding and, like the guys from IPG were saying, is this going to change the world? Maybe it will, maybe it won't. Is it going to get rid of stick welding and MIG welding and TIG welding? No, but it'll find its niche and it'll have its spot and those processes will do the same. They're not particularly interesting processes to me personally because I'm a TIG welder. So I like hand welding and I, like you know, I like the sensory part of it, the tactile part of it. You know, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean I'm certainly they have their place. We have our MD and STT machines at my shop, at my hall.
Speaker 1:Are they included in the curriculum? Are they part of the standard curriculum? Cause I know I fought tooth and nail in Saskatchewan to get modified waveforms added to the GMAW curriculum because they really didn't want it, and then I had to fight apprenticeship for allowing modified waveform to not. You know, that's the generic name for the open root welds on the red seal, because they there is that open root MIG flat in red seal that you have to do and I was like, well, can I do it with a with STT machines that we had? And they're like, well, no. And I was like, well, why not Show me in the code where it says no, it says yeah.
Speaker 2:And they couldn't, so I. What was their argument? They didn't have, you, didn't have a WPS for it.
Speaker 1:Well, we do.
Speaker 1:I mean there's WPS for everything Like I mean all I do is contact CWB and they got one, they got the library right, and so every argument that gave me they lost and eventually they had to back off and just say, well, hey, we'll let you do it. I was like, don't pretend, like you're letting me do it, you can't stop me because your code says it's okay. And when you go to STT or a modified waveform for an open root, make flat on a six inch piece, you pass every time noted all the instructors out there. That's a cheat code. That's not a cheat, it's legit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's, yeah, it's, it's, it's pretty, it's pretty straightforward and it's pretty wild what you can do with it. We run it on pipe a little bit and it's it's pretty impressive. Again, it's our guys don't use it a lot, so it's not something that we focus a lot on there. You know, we talk about it, we discuss it, but it's not something that's part of the curriculum.
Speaker 1:So it's not in the curriculum.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, like it's again, we, we bring it up, but we're not just, we're not.
Speaker 1:I get into the basics of what it is, but they're not no, no, no, no, I did.
Speaker 2:That being said, I do have a lot of friends that run it, that run it, union guys that work in union shops. That's all they do all day is run RMD or STT or modified waveform whatever name you want to put to it and they love it. So it definitely has its place.
Speaker 1:Now, what about? You know the dirty simulator word, you know. Do you see a place for this in learning institutions or not? I was an early adopter at our college for a simulator and then found that it gathered more dust than use. And but now, on this other side of the fence that I sit on as a director for the CWB, I do see where it fits, but I don't know. It's not colleges, you know it's not. That's not where it fits. No, you know what.
Speaker 2:Okay, so where I saw it that I was like you know what? That's a really good execution and I can get behind. That is, we had former minister Monty McNaughton, who's a former minister of labor for the PC government here in Ontario. He was out at our hall doing an announcement or something and they brought in one of the mobile training centers for that that they take around to the high school kids. So it had, you know, a heavy equipment operating deck. It had a welding deck. It had you know different areas that you could go to. That's a great opportunity.
Speaker 2:Something like that where you're going out to, say, high schools or even elementary schools, you know where you don't necessarily want to give the kids the exposure to the big, heavy, loud machines, the energies, energized, whatnot. Yeah, take a simulator out there. This is what it's like. But I think, like you say, when you get to the, when you start getting to the college or post-secondary level, or you know people that have had experience with welding before it, part of the joy of welding to me is the noise, is the heat, is the, the action of it all, and I think you lose some of that with the simulators. Now, that being said, like I say I think you know, for using them to introduce younger kids or younger generations, or you know people that are apprehensive for whatever reason, or disabilities Because of the sparks. Yeah, sure, absolutely, absolutely. And I mean speaking of disabilities. There's no reason anyone can't weld. I mean, I learned with a bum hand. I learned with a bum hand.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when I got friends that are deaf, I've got friends in the red seals that missing arms and missing a foot, and then I got a red seal buddy with a wheelchair, like I mean I, I've, I, in my 30 years in the industry I have now lost any reason why anyone could not be a welder, unless you're completely blind. But even then I bet there's a way. I bet, if you really wanted to figure it out because let me tell you, like you talk about sensory I walk into the front of a shop, walk in the front door of a shop. I'll take a big whiff of the air, take five minutes or not even five seconds, 10 seconds to listen and I'll know the process that's being run, the type of material and the type of weld and the type of rod. Just from smell and sound you like I mean I can you get to the point where you just burn rod. You don't even have to look at it. You know what's going on, you know especially if it's chat rod.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're throwing down some 70, 24, 532. Man, you just walk away from that and come back after coffee. It's good.
Speaker 2:I was trying to explain it to the kids the other day. I'm like it's just you just lay it down and it just goes.
Speaker 1:And you know they still use it lots for four plates. Ironworkers still use lots of jet rod.
Speaker 2:Oh for sure, yeah, no, it's a great rod.
Speaker 1:No one calls a jet rod anymore, though that makes you old. Did you know that?
Speaker 2:Does it? Yeah, they still call 60, 13 farmers around?
Speaker 1:Yeah, they do. Well, I do cause I'm old so I'm probably the wrong person to ask, but I got all those old names for it. But you know, back in the day people asked me, a student asked me once why they call it jet rod and the company that used to make jet rod had a little picture of an airplane on the rod and so like, yeah, a little jet on it, and there was, jet rod had a little jet on it. They're like really, Because now jet rod doesn't come with a jet on it, so they have no idea what you're talking about Like Ha ha ha.
Speaker 2:Generational differences it is, it is.
Speaker 1:And what do you do? I mean, they'll learn. I wish they still put cute little cartoons on them, but I guess not anymore. Ha ha, ha so.
Speaker 2:Stories will carry on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the story will carry on. We'll keep the dream alive, buddy. We'll keep the dream alive. Ha ha, ha ha.
Speaker 1:So you know, as as an instructor now, there's kind of two frame, two schools of thought for teaching One of them, and I think both are needed and both are important. There's the instructors that really get passionate about their students and want their students to pass and be the best they can be, but those instructors are 100% happy teaching what they teach and that's what they teach. Then there's the other group of instructors that I would say are a little bit more of the free thinkers that don't necessarily always want they love being with the students but don't necessarily always want it because they want to be learning the next technology, they want to be getting the next cert, they want to be getting the next level, because they want to bring back that new knowledge to the students. Right, and and I think both are very important you need those stalwart teachers that are just like you know there's, there's, you know there's Jenny.
Speaker 1:Jenny is the best 70, 18 welder you will ever know. They will do that better than anyone and that's their stick and they're going to rock that and she's going to do that for 50 years. But then there's, you know, billy's Billy Bob, who is learning every new piece of equipment that comes on the market and that's also important. You know, where do you fit within these two? Would you see yourself being like the traditional get it done or the kind of the more on the what's new out there Can I bring to the table?
Speaker 2:I mean, I don't think that, I don't think that they're mutually exclusive, that's right. Uh, certainly I think that my my own personal education and training record, even this, just this year I've done my four, three, seven, a red seal, ncso uh designation. I just finished my CWI with 31 three endorsement. Uh, I've just got on two technical committees. I just volunteered with CWB association Toronto chapter. I think my resume in that regard speaks for itself. Yeah.
Speaker 1:You're reaching out again.
Speaker 2:That being said, I also don't want I'm only new to teaching, this is my first year my fellow that I've taken over for who's been doing it forever Phil, god bless him. Uh, you know I'm not going to. I'm not, I'm not going to come in and change everything that he's done, cause what he's been doing has been working for 25 years yeah.
Speaker 2:If I can add to it, if I can add to it and if I can grow along with the students and give them a better experience every class and, you know, bring it every day then I think I'm doing my job. But I I never want to stop learning and I free educate. I love free education. That's why I joined the union is cause I get a bunch of free education. My health and safety education has all been paid for my you know all of this stuff. I get tons of education and if I'm not immediately getting paid for it, I'm getting work that's allowing me afford to be able to do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I heard someone say that to me once long time ago, being like why do you keep signing up for training? It's not like the company will pay you more. I'm like, yeah, this company, yeah, yeah, when I leave here, guaranteed the next one will, because I have all this training.
Speaker 2:Like and it's it. It's validation to me that I know what I'm doing. Mm. Hmm, you know what I mean. Those certificates that hang on my wall or that are going to hang on my wall will let me and everybody else know that, yeah, you put the time in and you are in it and you know this stuff.
Speaker 1:How did you like the NCSO course? How did you like taking the nationally certified safety officer course?
Speaker 2:It's a national construction safety officer. I did it kind of by accident. Um, I, when I was with the laborers union, I took a bunch of training. I took everything I could, specifically health and safety, because that was my first union gig, it was the first time I'd had been able to take safety training. That you know wasn't ridiculous. So I took a bunch of it and and because I wanted to know about all the risks that I had taken in open shop and all the things that I had been exposed to an op that I maybe didn't even realize. So I did a bunch of safety training with them guys and then made it over the UA and focused more on my red seal and getting my welding tickets and things like that. Um, but then once I got my welding red seal, I was like I'm only three, three courses short, shy of being able to challenge for the NCSO. I might as well do that. So then I got the NSSO and then I did the four, three, seven a and then I did the weld inspector.
Speaker 1:You know that's funny. My brother just got his NCLA about a year ago. He came up through scaffolding, got his red seal and scaffolding and got hurt. While he was hurt he took a pile of safety courses and the exact same that happened. He's like well, I'm already almost all the way there. Why don't I just finish this?
Speaker 2:off. Yeah, I've got a friend who's a, who's a site super for PCL out here in Toronto working on big projects and he's doing the same thing. He's like I've got all the courses. I might as well just challenge it. Yeah, it's a, it's a big one. I don't think people realize there's only 700, there's less than 700 of them in the country.
Speaker 1:Maybe I should get mine, cause I need to do some.
Speaker 2:And it's, and it's, it's. It's a good one because it's it's like mine. I'll never be able to get mine again because I don't work in the field anymore, but it's a it's a field designation, so you have to be able to prove that you've been working in the field for the last X number of years or whatever. Yeah, so it's not. You know, you know as well as I do. Max you get on sites and these safety guys They've been, you know, three weeks out of school. They've never been on a construction site before.
Speaker 1:If I'm a company, I don't know that I want to rest my health and safety program on that kind of they might have a great plan on paper, but man paper hits the deck as soon as you're outside.
Speaker 2:So everyone's got a plan until they get punched in the mouth.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, mike Tyson. So you know now, now you're a teacher, what's the? What's your kind of future goals? Now, like, obviously, you said you're kind of you're loving the training and the free training and eat it up. Man, I loved it too when I was teaching. I took as much as I could.
Speaker 2:Now, yeah, as much as I have time for.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly Now going forward. What's the plan? What's Marty's plan? Teach for 20 years, 30 years, or do you not like to think that far ahead? You know what? What do you think's coming up for you?
Speaker 2:I don't know the way I'll figure that out for me. I'm just going to show up to work every day and do the best job I can, and you know what it's. That's all I've done since I got in, and it's.
Speaker 1:It's worked out they haven't steered me.
Speaker 2:They haven't steered me wrong yet. So if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing. Like I said, I'm trying to focus on on volunteering more this year, getting involved with some technical committees, doing some work with y'all at CWB association and just continuing to learn. Uh, just January I'm going to be applying to Washington, our community college down in Ann Arbor. We were doing instructor training. They do an associate's degree in industrial training, so I'm going to go after that. Nice, I'm going to be helping more CWI code and reimbursements that I want to go after and it'll be a conversation with the powers to be at work. What, what do I take next? Where do I go next? I mean, that's, that's who you ask right Is the boss, absolutely.
Speaker 1:I just put in a request to my boss yesterday for some training, so hopefully you'll give it to me. I doubt he'll say no, he's pretty good.
Speaker 1:So my mind's my mind's pretty stellar too, so yeah, Now let's talk about your volunteering with the CWB association Cause. At the end of the day, this is this is the stick I volunteered since I was like in my twenties in my local chapter here in Regina. It helped me immensely in my career to volunteer. I met mentors. I met people that helped bring me up to be where I am now as the director. There's no way I could be in this chair if it wasn't for the thousands of people that helped me along my career Right Now it does.
Speaker 1:It really does. And now my job here is to really try to find people like you, people across this world that I can be like. I want to support you in your mission to help the industry, you know. So when you looked at the, the association, was this your first time really getting involved with them. How did you find out about them? What made you want to volunteer with your local chapter?
Speaker 2:So I I started going to meetings six months ago. Whatever it was the Toronto chapter put on a meeting it was actually originally it was supposed to be an industrial hygienist. With three am doing a talk on welding respiratory safety.
Speaker 1:I remember that yeah.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I bought. He ended up not being able to make it, cause of COVID or something, but I ended up going and I was like I met Chris Rebeller, who I'm sure you know from IW721, shot the breeze with him and, you know, realized what they were trying to do, saw a lot of value in it. So the next one I brought a couple of students to and now I'm trying to bring more, more students than the last one I went to. I brought a couple of welders and you know, trying to just get people engaged, and I'm lucky and my students are lucky and so far as we're union. So there's, they have a very strong support structure and framework already accessible to them just by proxy. But there's no reason that they can't go get involved in welding as a whole anyways, because, again, the welders that I generally tend to train really, really want to be welders. They're nerds for it, so they want to get involved, they want to go to this stuff.
Speaker 2:So if I can learn all this other stuff, you know sure and if I can, if I can help open those doors by even just saying to them hey guys, there's this meeting on Wednesday night. I go there all the time. You should come check it out. We'll have a bite to eat and talk to a bunch of other welders and not just welders, but engineers, inspectors, association guys, code guys. You know what I mean. That opens up a world of access to these kids who may otherwise never get an opportunity to speak to a welding engineer and not really understand what they do.
Speaker 2:Now you can have dinner with a guy and say what does it you actually do day to day? How did you get to where you're at? You know what I mean? Yeah, so it just it opens up communication avenues for them, that's all.
Speaker 1:Well, and you know I always tell people like in my life as a volunteer, I met lots of other young people my age, let's say. Go back in time. I'm 25 years old, I'm welding, I'm just welding, that's all I care about is just being a good welder. And I'm meeting all these other people, like you said engineers, fabricators, whatever, whatever, whatnot. I live in Saskatchewan, so it's a lot of mining, a lot of ag, right, yeah? So I was like I'm not going to get into mining.
Speaker 1:I was in a shop and I was like I want to get into this mining game. Just kept seeing these mining guys like raking in you know six K a week and I was like I need to get into that game because it's cool money and I know how to weld, and you know you start meeting them. But what I didn't realize then and you don't realize till you're much older and I try to really let you know, young people know this is the friends I made then were the future GFs. They're the future site form, they're the future leaders, shop owners, they're the future union, you know stewards. And now I'm 48 years old and my fellow 48 year old buddies that I made 20 years ago. They're at the top of their food chain and we can now make a difference, those changes that we, about 20 years ago. Now we're the people in charge, that we can be like. Let's do it, man, let's finally fix these things that we can.
Speaker 2:You're in a spot where you understand each other, you have the shit experience and he's in a spot where he can pull the trigger and make the work happen.
Speaker 1:That's right, it's the same thing.
Speaker 2:I ran around with one particular fitter for a couple of years. He and I were really really tight, went to a bunch of different jobs together. You know we split off after a time and you know he's out working with a new plant running a you know with a white hat now running the job. I'm at the hall teaching our apprentices off with a white hat running work at a water treatment plant. You know what I mean. So it's fun to watch that. And I say to the kids in class all the time I'm like you have to slow down and savor this. You only get to do it once and two years down the road, five years down the road, 10 years down the road, 15 years down the road. It's not going to be the the really tough time you had with the horizontal weld. It's not going to be the whatever bad day you had at this site. It's going to be the relationships that you made and the fun that you've had and being able to look back and go look at how far we all came together.
Speaker 1:No, and it's a small world.
Speaker 2:It's a small, very small world.
Speaker 1:Like I mean, I always tell the story. I did a training program over in Ghana in Africa and then last year I was up in Edmonton at Nate visiting my buddies out there and the chapter checking in on everybody and students from the whole yeah, students from the training program in Ghana where. Edmonton that's right. They're up at Edmonton at state doing a training and running into them just like blindly was mind blowing.
Speaker 2:And they're like.
Speaker 1:Professor Max, professor Max, I was like what are you guys doing here? But it was like so awesome for me to see people that I started on a welding journey three years earlier now, working towards their inspector's tickets at SAIT. Because they continued, they stayed on the path, they kept at it Right and it's like, oh man, like what are the like? It just I could tell that story a thousand times and be like a smile every time.
Speaker 1:Be like man. That's the difference that you know you're going to make. You know that, hopefully, your students are going to make two right.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, at the end of the day, that was kind of the those are. The crux of the conversation I had with my wife is we're talking about teaching full time and taking it on as, and is my impract or imprint on the world going to be more beneficial and more of a ripple effect if I teach for the next 20 years and turn hundreds of people out as welders? Or is it going to be if I just go to the site and do all the overtime and make all the money and then what do I have at the end of it? What's my legacy? Those buildings or those people?
Speaker 1:and they're both valuable. But what do you want, Right?
Speaker 2:Exactly I. If I can teach a hundred people and those hundred people each teach 10 people, then I've taught a thousand people, Right?
Speaker 1:And you know like were you at the Toronto. Oh no, maybe that was Ottawa chapter. I go to so many chapter events, but there was a guy named Eric Dickerson.
Speaker 2:I've been taught. Okay, do you want a funny story about Eric?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, give it to me, because he's an example of ripple effect from just being a welder Like be okay, that's right.
Speaker 2:I'm an example of that, okay, so I have been talking to that man for Okay. Okay, go ahead. There's more I'm sorry about asking. Hmm, 14, 15 years now? Okay, never ever spoke to him on the phone, just back and forth in email. He posted on a welding forum 15 years ago about some work that he was doing and I started following him and sent him an email and said hey, I aspire to be what you're like. Da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da da. Something with a fanboy email. Yeah, yeah, again, 09, 0809 it would have been.
Speaker 2:Yeah, talked to him often on through my whole career over the years. I would. Every year or two I'd ping him and he'd get back to me and say something and give me a word of advice or whatever. So then I got into 46. So now I'm into 46. I'm like this guy's been at the Nuke plants. Surely the goodness, I'll be able to find somebody I know that knows them. Ask everybody, I know nobody knows them. It wasn't until I started teaching and I had a couple of students they were brothers and their dad was an old hand in the hall. He came by one time and he's like talking to me and I said wait, you're an old pickering guy, right? He says yeah. I said did you ever work with a guy by the name of Eric Dickerson? He, goes.
Speaker 2:Dengie. Oh yeah, dengie worked together for years. He said what do you ask? So I told him the story. He said wow, wasn't that something? And then, so further than that, he did that. I saw him doing that event and I was like dang, I wish I would have known, I would have showed up.
Speaker 1:I was at that event. It was amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I spoke to one of the guys from up there Kent.
Speaker 1:I brought a shirt down for him, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I said how was Eric's speech? He's like man, that guy can talk, but boy is it interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I want to put him on a big stage. Like legit, I might fly him out somewhere to put him on a big stage. He's awesome.
Speaker 2:No, I can't wait to meet him and shake hands with him. It's going to be hilarious, cause, like I said, I've been talking to him for 15 years and I've never seen the guy and I've never heard his voice.
Speaker 1:And that's an that. There is an awesome example of that ripple effect, of, like you know, welder versus teacher. There's no, it's just pluses and minuses of either side. Right, yeah, because Eric Degerson is a person who's ripple affected so many people just through his amazing welding Cause. That dude is like. I sat through his presentation, I saw some of his coupons and, like he brought a coupon that was like a $20,000 piece of titanium inch and a half thick titanium plate that he had welded out and it was a fail. Like he's like I failed this weld exam. He's like this is a $20,000 fail and that puts things in perspective. Like this dude's in the real leagues. Like this I'm nowhere near that Like yeah, no, he's something else.
Speaker 2:He's something else. That's funny, small world, you say.
Speaker 1:It is, it is. It's a small world. So we were talking about forward. We're up at we're almost at the end of the interview here, so you know we're talking about the future and your ripple effect with teaching. So it sounds like you're in it for the hall here. You like teaching, you want to be it, you want to go forward. Now, in terms of the volunteer side, do you want to bring that teaching side? Are you interested in doing a presentation for the Toronto chapter on? You know what your hall's doing, what's going on in that world.
Speaker 2:And you know like yeah, we've. Actually I was talking with Chris Revolvo about that and my training director about possibly putting together a event at our hall where we can show you guys some of, because I, you know, we're the pipe side of things. So there's probably some stuff that we could cool, stuff that we could show you guys that you're not necessarily used to dealing with.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that'd be a hundred. I'd love the collab.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, I'd totally be talking about that, like the more connections we can all make. Like you know, people always make the inter trade jokes on the iron workers, pipe fitters. At the end of the day, we're all welders. Yeah, that's what I, that's what I am.
Speaker 1:And you're all working at the same sites Different parts. When people ask me what I do for a living.
Speaker 2:I don't say I work for the plumbers union or I work for the pipe fitters union. I say I'm a welder. So, and the iron workers are the same? Yeah, the boiler makers are the same. The welders are the welders. We're all a little bit different. That's why we're welders.
Speaker 1:Oh, my dad was a boiler maker and he's always got that high and mighty boiler and boiler maker attitude. It's like get out of here, dad, you and your God dang boiler maker talk. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Everything's under an inch whoop to do.
Speaker 2:Like yeah.
Speaker 1:All right, man. Well, this has been super, super good. I'd like to just kind of finish off with a couple of questions here. Number one as an educator, you know now, where do you see one of your major? Where needs to be one of the major focuses for Canada to try to combat this skills gap? This, you know, this, you know, work force gap that we have right now. We need welders around the world, or across Canada, like crazy. You know, as an educator, how are we going to start tackling that? What do we need to do to get more people interested in this trade?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, obviously the obvious answer is outreach, but I think that everyone's been pretty well aware of that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that ship has kind of sailed and everybody's doing the right things there. I think, in terms of like what's happening on social media, it's becoming cool to be a welder. I don't think that's going to hurt anything. Again, it's getting the art of management and having the right resources and the right places at the right time right. So it's getting. If we have a pool of welders, it's figuring out who wants to go where and do what kind of work, and I think that could be made more clear in terms of when people are coming into the trades.
Speaker 2:I don't think that if you asked many high school kids in this country what's the difference between a boiler maker welder, a da-da-da welder, an iron worker welder, an electrical welder, a gas line welder is, or a fabricator, or a heavy equipment mechanic welder, or you know what I mean. I think there needs to be not necessarily more streamlining, but more awareness brought to the pathways. The pathways outside of this is the dollar amount that you're going to get paid per hour, because that is a lot that, at the end of the day, that's why we all go to work right, but I've certainly taken jobs for less money because I didn't enjoy the job more. So I think that that needs to be a focus and I think people need to understand the different, how many different areas and how many different avenues you can go down.
Speaker 2:Absolutely In any of the metal trades.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I always tell students some of the best years of my life were at the lowest wage and some of the worst years of my life were at the highest wage. And you just gotta step back sometimes and, like I'll, kids always ask how much do you make man? Literally there's jobs for over $100 an hour for a red show. Right now I see them posted like you can go online and get a match and the LNGs and the they're a hundred and seven bucks an hour. But do I want that job? Probably not.
Speaker 2:That's probably there's a reason, right, it's the same here. You're everyone's pipeline, pipeline, pipeline. I'm like, yeah, but you don't understand what those guys have to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not fun. Like I mean there's parts of it that are fun.
Speaker 2:I'm not gonna like I mean If it was easy, everyone would be doing it, that's right. I'd say I'd like to do it, like if this was easy, everyone would be doing it. We wouldn't get paid what we do.
Speaker 1:And I remember when I worked I did my time in a manufacturing shop for a while just building part A every day, and then next week was part B every day, and you know what. There is a boring aspect to that, but then there's a lot of fun in that kind of work too.
Speaker 2:Some guys are geared for that. I was not one of those guys. I did not like production.
Speaker 1:And you have a lot more community. In a production shop there's barbecues, there's get togethers, there's you know, there's like hanging, like. You have a lot more time to shoot the with your buddies in the shops.
Speaker 2:You know what you need to get done. You've got the equipment on site. There's no surprises, no, everything's easy.
Speaker 1:You need a tool. The tool shows up, there's no crying about it. You know, and like I mean it's not like you're welding wrenches together out in the field because you got to smash some things apart Like it teach their own right. It's where you want to be.
Speaker 2:And again, there's, like you know, and there's different levels of production too, there's different levels to field work. It's just you got to find your niche and find. I think the big thing is finding your people. Yeah, yeah, who are your? People Find the people you like to spend their time with, and go, spend your time with them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, awesome man. Well, this has been great. Last question Any shout outs Anything you want to say. Any hello shout outs Any, any. How do people find you? How do people find your UA? How to let us know what's what's up?
Speaker 2:So the UA local 46 is. I think it's at UA local 46 on Instagram. My Instagram is martini31337, I think. Other than that, get involved. That's all I can say. All right, it takes a village.
Speaker 1:It does take a village, and we're trying to make that village accessible to everybody. So thank you very much, marty, for being on the show with me today.
Speaker 2:My pleasure, Max. I appreciate your time. I finally get to break some bread with you. We've been talking about doing this for a long time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we will, and you know what we're going to get. I'm going to be in the Toronto area. I'm there every couple of months, so we'll make sure we get together.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know you're here all the time, yeah.
Speaker 1:And we'll get together and we'll go up for some beers.
Speaker 2:Awesome, so that's good brother.
Speaker 1:All right, and for all the people that have been listening and following along, make sure you check everything out, the UA's. If you got questions about apprenticeship, reach out to any local union hall in your area, doesn't matter which one. They all got great information. Make an informed decision and, hey, career changes are allowed. I've been in and out of two different unions three actually in my life. No hard feelings. You do what you want to do, like you said. Like Marty said, find your people right, like I mean, then that's what it is. It's finding your people and finding out where your skills can be best utilized, and that makes you happy. It gives you a sense of accomplishment when you can use your skills to achieve something. And keep following us, downloading and sharing the podcast. Thank you very much and take care out there. We hope you enjoy the show.
Speaker 3:You've been listening to the CWB Association Welding podcast with Max Seren. If you enjoyed what you heard today, rate our podcast and visit us at cwbassociationorg to learn more. Feel free to contact us if you have any questions or suggestions on what you'd like to learn about in the future. Produced by the CWB group and presented by Max Seren, this podcast serves to educate and connect the Welding community. Please subscribe and thank you for listening.