The CWB Association Welding Podcast
The CWB Association Welding Podcast
Episode 182 with Jeremy Belair and Max Ceron
The CWB Association hosted this year's annual CanWeld Conference in collaboration with Fabtech Canada in Toronto, ON. Join us as we bring you special episodes recorded on-site to keep our members on top of what’s new and exciting in the steel and welding industry.
What does it take to transform a passion for welding into a thriving educational institution? Join us as we welcome Jeremy Belair, the driving force behind APR Welding Academy in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. Jeremy pulls back the curtain on the innovative teaching methods and cutting-edge technologies that set his academy apart. From laser welding to confined space training, learn how Jeremy’s forward-thinking approach is shaping the next generation of welders and meeting the industry's evolving demands.
Check out APR Welding Academy:
Website: https://www.aprweldingacademy.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aprweldingacademy
A special thank you to Cooperheat Equipment for sponsoring our Podcast Booth at 2024 Fabtech Canada! https://cooperheatequipment.com/
Thank you to our Podcast Advertisers:
Canada Welding Supply: https://canadaweldingsupply.ca/
Miller: https://www.millerwelds.com/products/mobilearc
What did you think about this episode? Send a text message to the show!
All right, I can check. Check, I'm good. So I'm Max Duran. Max Duran, cwb Association Welding Podcast, pod pod podcast. Today we have a really cool guest welding podcast. The show is about to begin.
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Speaker 1:Hello and welcome to another edition of the CWB Association podcast. My name is Max Ron and, as always, trying to do the coolest thing and find the coolest people around, this week we are in Fabtech Canada here in Toronto Congress Centre. We've been doing interviews for the last two days. We're having a great time. The show floor is packed, the building is sold out, can weld sessions are rolling. Everything's going well right now. I got jeremy belair here. Belair from apr welding academy how you doing?
Speaker 2:very good. How are yourself?
Speaker 1:I'm doing good man, I'm a little tired. Day two, day three more like day 21, I feel like night last night yeah, well, let's not talk about that, but it was a very good time for the cws canada welding supply supply vip party last night. Yeah, thanks, cws. Uh, what brings you to the show, jeremy? What are you doing here?
Speaker 2:uh, so I'm here checking out the latest and greatest technology. Uh, having a fun time checking out everything that's new and that's out there and press brakes, lasers it's, it's awesome so like are you more interested in the fab side or in the welding side?
Speaker 2:honestly both. Uh. So, as far as you know I I own a welding academy, so what we're trying to do is teach the. The next thing that's going to be big right, so the laser welding is starting to come out there. Um, so I I like getting the information and seeing it for myself what it's actually capable of and where. Where it's pros and cons are Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Uh, as well, as we teach the fabricating side of things, so teaching them to use the equipment that is safer, uh, more versatile, easier to learn, um, that's also something that I want to look towards as well.
Speaker 1:So you know, you mentioned that you own a APR welding Academy. Uh, tell us what that is. What is your welding academy? What do you teach? Uh, you know, and then we'll go from there all right.
Speaker 2:So apr welding academy is, uh, a private career college that focuses mainly on fabricating welding. We also get into pipe welding, specialty welding, things like that, and our focus is trying to change the way that somebody learns right. The things they learn, the way they learn different teaching techniques, and because we're private, we don't have to go and get certified by anybody. We basically submit it into our private career college and we get it certified from a third party. It's a very quick process compared to government processes and things like that yeah, yeah exactly.
Speaker 2:And we're finding out the things that work right. You know, trying to teach confined space welding. That's something you don't really get to learn in school. And even though legally we're not allowed to actually shovel in a confined space without proper training, we are allowed to simulate it. So, simulating things like working off of a gas powered welding that's something I didn't do until I actually became a pipe welder or running off a suitcase well, there's a lot of different types of just welding challenges that people and they're not.
Speaker 1:They're everywhere. It's not like they're unique. They're all over the place.
Speaker 2:They're all over the place exactly depending on what type of welding welding the individual student is going to go into. That depends on generally what they're looking towards and sometimes their path to change Right. They might decide I want to be a pipe welder, and then they get into it and they're like you know, I think I'd like to work in a shop with newer technology or maybe different fabricating equipment.
Speaker 1:Or maybe they might just go into fabricating all together rather than being even a welder in general. So, yeah, so your background then going into this, because you seem like a fairly young guy, right and and you decide that you want to start up a welding academy likely, I'm just totally guessing, but I will see how I read you here two reasons one you you saw a need for people to learn a different way, right, yep. And number two, you were probably a pretty good welder yourself and thought you could teach what you know to people in a different way.
Speaker 2:You know what I got to learn? A lot of cool tricks and tips from a lot of older guys that I worked with, and I had the opportunity to actually soak in a lot of this knowledge at a young age, working all across Canada. So these people, I can't thank them enough for the amount of knowledge that they gave me and I really wanted to learn it all. So I just kept asking questions, right. But even after that I more so got into the fact that I realized that a lot of people don't understand these little tricks and tips and how much they can help you as a welder. So when I was training apprentices, I was a part of the local union, united Association's local 508, and then it amalgamated into 800. So I was a pipe welder. I got to weld x-ray.
Speaker 2:I got to learn a lot of things with even just welding x-ray can be a lot different than welding just normal pipe or structural steel right um, so yeah, I I got to learn a lot of things and I I felt that it it needed to be out there. It needed there. These people that taught me are now retired yeah uh, and even if they're not retired, they're tired.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're not the same, the information's going to go on the way out, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I'm finding that a lot more and more often that the information's getting lost, it's not getting passed down, and now it was getting lost. So I found myself very open to learning at a young age and it was mainly because I got humbled. I'm going to be honest. I got humbled at a young age and realized I wasn't as good as I thought I was well, there's always someone better.
Speaker 2:There's always going to be someone better, and you're never going to know everything so open up your ears a little bit and listen to what they have to teach you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, now for yourself to be working out there. You, you're in the welding career, you're learning, you're feeling pretty good. You got your Red Seal in welding. Yep, did you do your Red Seal? Steel fab.
Speaker 2:I did it actually. So I did it as a welder Red Seal, yeah. However, it was kind of interesting because now they have an actual pipe welder Red Seal, they do.
Speaker 1:They actually always did, but it kind of disappeared and came back.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:Same with there's a Red Seal production line welder. Did you know that? I did actually recently hear about that. Yeah, it was around forever and then it's gone and now it's back Because they are a very different field. They are yeah when.
Speaker 2:I was doing my trade school and everything. It was very different from what I was doing in the field. I was a pipe welder right.
Speaker 1:I wasn't a structural welder, I wasn't a shop welder, because that's very different as well or maintenance welder very, very different, and that was kind of what I started doing when I came back to town after I worked on the road for so long yeah I started working on a local steel plant to album of steel and that was a new construction.
Speaker 2:It was far from it. So I had to learn almost a new type of welding on welding on rust and welding on steel.
Speaker 1:It wasn't grease, oh my god. Yeah, I worked in a steel mill for like almost 10 years.
Speaker 2:Oh, my god I was the shutdown guy okay, so like maintenance some days are nice, you're doing handrails someday you're in six inches of grease or in an absolutely treacherous heat zone yeah, like furnace around you, things are flying around, oh my god, yeah don't get me wrong, it's fun in its own way, like I did have a lot of fun work in there.
Speaker 1:People would ask me what work was like. I'm like you ever played the game doom, that's my job yeah but let me tell you, it honed my skills pretty damn quick exactly because you know, my entire career.
Speaker 2:I basically focused around being, um, almost a welder as a new construction. So, x-ray, a lot of my welds were getting tested one way or another. Um, so after I kind of moved on from that and I came back home and I started working in not new construction maintenance like you were saying, or or uh, or even like small fab jobs, you know, if there's an existing line, you're kind of running a new pipe off that line into, uh, whatever another mill yeah, um.
Speaker 2:So even that was challenging in its own sense, because you're, you're now, you're not set up to be working in a shop and you're doing all the prefab work in almost like a prefabricated shop between a couple sea cans.
Speaker 1:You're kind of doing it in the field, if it's raining, you're working in the rain, you're under a tent or out the back or whatever.
Speaker 2:Right exactly yeah, so some of the welding I did before that I worked in the northwest territory, so almost everything I did was in a hoarding of some sort, because it was too cold, though, to be able to weld the material without doing a crazy preheat post heat procedure yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So once you get past minus 40, all the rules change oh my god, yeah, even your body, your changes, yeah I remember heating up i-beams in the cold because I'd have to lie on them to weld, so I'd heat the beam up first to lie on a hot beam so I could warm up, yeah, while I welded.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had a, uh, a tiger torch one day because my herman nelson that was kind of coming into my hoarding wasn't working properly. It kept running out of diesel but it was full, so like it kept kind of throwing this code. Well, it was too cold to be messing around with that kind of stuff, so I ended up just grabbing a tiger torch, shoving it in a pipe that I cut a bunch of holes in.
Speaker 3:And that was my heating source. That's your heater. So when the guy finally showed up to fix it.
Speaker 2:He's like oh, like, what's going on here? I'm like I just had to make my own.
Speaker 1:It was too cold and at that point I was in there in almost a t-shirt because it was so warm inside the hoarding so, coming in now with the experience you have and you decide to leap into teaching I was a teacher for for a number of years at the college in saskatchewan. I never planned on being a teacher. I got pulled into teaching from industry, just sort of happened, um, and it was a learning curve man. It was a big change for me. How was it for you?
Speaker 2:so I I can honestly say the biggest learning curve for me was that I went from being a hard worker and worked plenty of hours and I'd be fine with that. I I remember what. There's one particular time I went up to my boss after a 16 hour day and I said hey, man, you know if we're only going to be working part-time.
Speaker 3:I might have to drag up and find another job, and he looked at me and was like are you kidding me? You're working 16 hour days, and what's wrong with?
Speaker 2:you and I was. I was there for one reason, right.
Speaker 3:I was there to work.
Speaker 2:I enjoyed working and I was there for the money, right, so I wasn't there to party and hang out with friends after work. You're in the middle of nowhere. So, with that being said, now I became a teacher and as I was teaching, I found that I could work six hours that day and be way more tired than working a 16-hour day. It's a totally different animal.
Speaker 1:The mental drain, yeah, the mental drain. You've got to pivot your thoughts every second. Yes, just based on what the kids needs are I shouldn't say kids, students needs are. Every minute is a new challenge where, when you're welding and you're on the tools, you know what you're doing. Yeah, you just go on autopilot. You don't even notice. Five hours goes by and you just blank everybody else out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I mean, um, it's very different and you almost never get away from from the people right, which is fun in a sense too. But then you get home you're like, oh my god, I just want to sit there and pet my dog and not think about anything for 10 minutes.
Speaker 1:Talk to me, yeah exactly yes I need silence, yeah, silence, please, everybody leave me alone.
Speaker 2:And now, of course, I've gotten used to it right it's been four years now of us taking over the college and basically, you know, it's almost like I can't wait to go and get to fabricate again and get to go weld on my own when 90 people are watching me at one time. You know, between all the students and people taking videos and posting them. You know that there's going to be tons of people watching every move you make. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So as interesting as that could be too. It kind of hones your skills a little bit more. You never make mistakes. Now you went from making a odd mistake every once in a blue moon to like well, no, there is no room for mistakes yeah, you're, you're the one giving the examples, exactly right, and you want to make sure that they're learning the proper techniques.
Speaker 1:So so you're almost double thinking, everything like okay, well, I want to make sure I'm not teaching anybody bad, you know habits, or anything like that, because obviously as welders we had our own bad habits, right yeah yeah, you work in the field every day, so and we all have our specific habits that work, and sometimes you have to let the students know like hey, just because it works for me doesn't mean it's going to work for you, right?
Speaker 2:that's the biggest thing about being an instructor and I actually got complimented on that exact thing last week. Um, somebody who's been a welder for a long time. She was a boiler maker, uh, welder and specialty welder and she came to do her test and something just wasn't working for her. She just wasn't having a great time, she wasn't learning or sorry, not learning, but wasn't her test wasn't going the way she had yeah but I reminded her you don't weld as much as you used to when you were a boiler maker welder.
Speaker 2:Now you're a mill worker and you know you work with multiple people, so you know you're not always going to be the welder anymore yeah so I kind of gave her a couple different techniques and the one I gave her just wasn't working for, yeah, and I was like, okay, no problem, we're going to try this out now. So I gave her a different technique and it didn't really explain too much because I didn't want her to get in her head, and it worked really well for her and I was like, there you go, like that this is yours now, like this is for you to use.
Speaker 2:And she called me after like because she was stressed out it was a PSSA test that she was doing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like the initial six or a research. It was a research, yeah.
Speaker 2:So she actually did her initial one the year before because she didn't ever prior to have pipe tickets. She was a boiler maker. So she had to come back right from the start Almost, and that's what she felt like she was like oh my God, I've been welding longer than you've been alive.
Speaker 3:And she said that to me and I'm like, you're not wrong.
Speaker 2:And you know it's okay, though we're going to work through it Right. So, that's the biggest thing with being an instructor is like knowing what works for certain people and and and trial and error and remembering what you've taught them that didn't work Right.
Speaker 1:They can kind of figure out what does work.
Speaker 2:So did you pull the school right out of the ground? Were you like, hey, I want to start a school and then you're out there looking for properties? Or like, how did this? Like? How did it play out? So basically, um, when I was a pipe welder, um, I moved back home and I started working in the steel plant, like I had said. So, uh, while I was working in the steel plant, I I've always had a dream of starting a fab shop. So basically, what I started doing was I started planning financially and mentally to start my own fab shop. So one of the biggest things that was a goal of mine was that I wanted to have a CNC plasma table. I remember using them in college. Never got to use them.
Speaker 1:You kind of need it for everything now. Oh man, and there's so much fun you could build so many cool things with it. So I honestly bought it originally as like I'm gonna put this in my garage and I'm gonna use it when I feel like maybe I'll make some fire pits to make some money on the side.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah right. Yeah, well, it ended up. I ended up getting really good at the specialty welding side of things and you utilizing the plasma table to kind of offset all the the things that would make it take too long in order to make it feasible for cost-wise. So I utilized that table and then bought some small machines, like a small Miller Diversion TIG welder. I bought a small Lincoln wire feed welder.
Speaker 1:Like an MP210 or something.
Speaker 2:Yeah it was old, it was a 200 and something it was actually big for being in my garage but it still ran up between 20, 30 amp breakers Sweet, I could use it in my garage, because that's where I was limited to was my garage. Luckily, I bought this. I was actually with the plan to eventually add this equipment, so I ended up getting so busy after work that it started interfering with my life. You know like it was like I was working crazy hours and then I'd get off work and work some more.
Speaker 2:And now work some more, which I loved it. It was still a hobby, it was different from what I was doing at work, because I was a pipe welder and at that time I was actually a foreman, but it was it's still time.
Speaker 1:Time yeah.
Speaker 2:And I wish it's still time, time, yeah, yeah, and, and I wish there was more time in a day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's the thing. You run out of time you run out of time.
Speaker 2:So, uh, essentially what I ended up doing was uh making the decision to quit my job and pursued the fab shop full-time yeah and when I did that it worked.
Speaker 2:It was awesome. I had a good crew of guys. I started doing powder coating and I started looking into like very specialty work. I did a lot of aluminum welding, a lot of stainless welding thin stainless things like that and then I was just at my welding supplier and I was looking to get gas, whatever, just refilling all the bottles for the guys, and one of the instructors was at the school, which was in the same parking lot as our welding supplier. So basically, the guy that was teaching at the college I used to work with and I loved him. He was a great guy. He teaching at the college I used to work with and I loved him. He's a great guy. He worked in the steel plant.
Speaker 3:He was actually trying to get me to take over his job in the steel plant when he retired and then it just ended up.
Speaker 2:The steel plants don't work like that it's all union. You get posted and you work your time in here yeah, so um, the job he had was like the best job in there, so there was no way I was gonna get that job but he pushed for it, he did try.
Speaker 2:Yeah, uh, so anyway, um, then I started my company after that, obviously. So then he kind of seen that, uh, I was doing well with the shop and I had guys working for me and we were doing really well, uh, so basically he was like hey, I would really love for you to come talk to my class. Like there are apprentices that you were teaching when you were a pipe. Well, well like oh cool, right on, I could definitely come talk to them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah see how they're doing, see what they're up to, see where they're working. You know, I know all the companies around town. So I went over there and as I was like kind of walking through the shop, talking all these guys, I was looking around like I used to do my testing in this school so I would, when I was doing tsa testing, cwb testing, I would go to this school, which was apr. So as I was floating around there, I man, this guy's got a lot of nice equipment that I never realized before because I was just a pipe welder right, yeah, yeah and now that I look at it from a different perspective as actually being.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's a nice break. Oh, he's got a pyramid roller. Yeah, there's toys in here. There's lots of toys in here that I could build some really cool things with. Yeah. Forget making money with it, I could make some.
Speaker 2:Really, you have a mandrel bender, yeah yeah, he had an awesome tube bender like oh man it was super cool.
Speaker 2:So I was like man, you have some really nice equipment in the shop and he said why don't you buy the place, literally just like that? And I'm like, interesting, it's for sale. And he's like, yeah, yeah, it's for sale. You know, I'm at that age, I'm looking to retire. So the backstory on that is he started apr in in 1997 when the college locally got rid of the welding department so he seemed that there was still a need for it. So he ended up starting up the company on a smaller scale but started up with some welding machines and the welding booth and he just started as a private career college. Well, over the years he got certified to do literally everything. We got more certifications than our local college does now as far as training goes right and testing and everything.
Speaker 2:So basically he ended up building it up to quite a very niche, um kind of school, very, very, uh, specialized yeah specialized. Yeah, thank you. So then, basically, as I was looking at it, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna lie I looked at it as buying it just for the equipment. I was like like okay, the schools were still great. I built my dream job, though right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I was looking at it financially and everything and reading the financials and going through it all with my business partner and he was like, well, I mean, you know why do you want to shut the school down? I said, well, it's not necessarily that I want to shut the school down. I said, well, it's not necessarily that I want to shut the school down, it just I, I built my dream job, I just want to be equipment, yeah. And he was like, yeah, but think about, like, what you could do it. So he didn't really elaborate on that, he just left it open-ended and I'm like you know what I will think about it. So I started thinking about it more and more and talking with my wife alissa and she was like, well, I mean, you could enjoy it, it has its benefits right you could change the way education is, is, is perceived, and and given.
Speaker 2:And you know, I mean there's things that you can change. And she's like you're a good welder, I mean you could go and teach all the things that you've learned. I was like yeah, that'd be cool yeah so basically what I did was I promised myself and her that I would try it for a year. Nothing. You can't learn anything and and really give something a solid try without at least doing it for a year nothing you can't learn anything and and really give something a solid try without at least doing it for a year?
Speaker 2:yeah, in my mind, so I did. I, I gave it a hundred percent of myself for that full year and, uh, after that I was like, wow, this is so cool, like all the things that I used to have to watch how long something took to make sure that a customer wasn't overpaying, or, um, you know, my boss was always on top of me for certain things. Now I literally got to do the things I always wanted to do but at the same time, teach somebody else yeah how to do it yeah, you're just doing your thing.
Speaker 1:I'm literally doing my thing and they're learning your thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, and it's so much fun, like the projects we get to do and the things we get to build, and you know the creative things we get to do, like making jigs for certain machines to make them do things they're really not designed to do but it's not unsafe to do it, right? These are things they actually have to do in the field, whether they're working in a shop or in the field, right? So I like to give my students a lot of almost room for creativity. Like, if we're creating a jig, I want you to tell me what the best way to do it is by using the equipment that is in our shop and the most efficient way of doing it as well. So basically, yeah, I mean I really get to and I've learned so much just since taking over the school.
Speaker 1:Well, teaching really makes you learn. It does Fast, really fast, because you don't want to get caught flat-footed. No, no, and not only that, I mean it's like you do so much more research, because you have a purpose behind it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Like it's funny because before I ever owned the school, I found myself doing a lot of research on things that I just enjoyed, like the plasma table. I learned that thing so fast because I followed like 20 different forums all at the same time. I just started hyper obsessing over like what people were doing, what worked for them, what didn't work. Yeah, I didn't want the manufacturer's specifications of how to do something, I wanted their opinion superstar one, the superstar exactly the guy that kills it on everything like how do you?
Speaker 2:how do you remove mill scale quickly? Why are we all like? Yeah, so like you don't grind anything anymore, right, and it's just like it saves you from prepping for paint and like. So there's so many little tricks out there that that the company's not gonna necessarily tell you how to do it, because you know they have a tool for that too yeah, they have a tool for that, yeah so I mean, uh it I found a lot of things like that started flabbing with the fact that now I'm teaching these things like so this is how you do it by the book.
Speaker 2:hey guys, now that you learned that you know how to it safely, now I'm going to teach you how to do this to make your life a little bit easier. Yeah, and it works right and it helps them in the field in the long run.
Speaker 1:So you take over the school? Did you keep the staff? The guy who wanted to retire did he stay? So no actually, or did he go?
Speaker 2:It was kind of funny because everybody that had currently worked there, uh, so just to put this into perspective for a minute, this was during covid, of course and so it was like the worst time to buy a school. Well, at least you know, there's no students showing up right away, no, no, and there was classes going on, but we had to learn to pivot, to go online, and that's actually where cwb came into play quite a bit. We at the time cwb was just getting into the ACORN module that they had online Online yeah.
Speaker 2:So we used that. We benefited from it quite a bit. It helped our students a lot. And then we kind of read the fine print of what the ministry was allowing us to do at the time and they were like, well, if it's anything hands-on and you need it to be hands-on, well, that's basically like they have to do it. Like great, that's awesome. So 50 of our training is is is in person.
Speaker 2:So now all the online stuff we're going to do online, but everything in person we're going to be doing on the tools yeah, so there's no classroom now, so it's it's kind of like we're we're online with the students, going through their modules with them yeah but then we get to come into the shop and still do the welding side of things. So I mean it was, uh, it was interesting. It was a huge learning curve, but nobody lost anything during that at least at apr like we.
Speaker 2:We made sure that the students were still getting the learning getting to ask questions, you know but then, especially when we're in the shop, they really were hyper focused on being the shop, because it's not like they sat in the classroom for half the day and then that's right, they're not tired, they're not bored, no, they're fresh they're. They're excited to be there because they've been sitting at home doing nothing for the whole week until that point, right?
Speaker 1:so so so you're teaching cwb curriculum for some stuff during that. I don't know if you still are, but yeah but you say that you're kind of like in the private college sphere. I work with a few private colleges, like I mean in canada. We're still pretty tightly regulated as a private college. There's still quite a few rules. But then you compare that to private colleges out of the us, where it's the wild west oh my god, whatever, the whatever you want, yeah literally the wild west for yourself.
Speaker 1:You know how do you structure what you do, without being the same as the other schools, but still fit into those pieces Because there's still an expectation that you're going to have to be able to fit in pieces with other people, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so basically the private career college, we have to submit a curriculum. So that curriculum gets submitted to a third party and then gets approved by the ministry with that third party. So they kind of work hand inhand to make sure that it's approved for what we're actually teaching and providing, the training that we are supposed to be providing, to make it basically a level playing ground for everybody, right? So making sure they're learning at least the industry standards, right?
Speaker 1:So how deep are you willing to go? I mean, I'm sure you have levels, whether you're not an apprenticeship school.
Speaker 2:We actually do that as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Okay, so if you're going to teach apprenticeship, there's these blocks, but if someone comes in off the street to take an APR course, is there like an intermediary? Is there a novice, or is there like super advanced? Do you have a few options?
Speaker 2:So, basically, the way it works is for our welding technique and our metal fabricator program both programs. You don't need to have a whole history of being a welder beforehand, right? So those are both our entry level course. We have upgrade courses, so one of them being our pipe welder course and another one. So the weld tech is almost like the base course. So you take your welding technique course, you can upgrade that to a metal fabricator course and from the metal fabricator course you can upgrade that to a pipe course or a course. So currently we're working on creating a curriculum to have a full blown upgrade. Okay, so even somebody who might have come in off the street if they had, let's say, maybe they didn't have college experience, but they had tickets and they understand welding, they understand the fundamentals of it yeah we can even make them do an aptitude test, um, basically, they can then take a TIG course.
Speaker 2:That's something that I don't see offered very often.
Speaker 1:It's niche. It's very niche, yeah, I have a A double-sided opinion on TIG, because I didn't do a lot of it in my career. Right, I was a mining guy. You're not pulling out the TIG torch in the mine.
Speaker 3:That's not a thing, right or the steel plants or anything like that.
Speaker 2:No, no, it's not happening.
Speaker 1:And when I started teaching, they're like okay, well, you've got to teach all the TIG courses too. Students, right, and I'm going through this tag stuff and all I'm thinking is that this is never going to last.
Speaker 2:In 20 years this isn't even going to be a thing and then because it's 20 years later and you're like, wow, it's still, it's still a thing, yeah so that's where.
Speaker 1:That's where I've been stuck. I've always thought like it's too slow. There's way faster ways of doing any of these processes, and now, with laser welding, that's going to cut out like half the tig work, because it's in the same sphere the biggest thing is getting it certified right I think that's going to be the real and you know what, maybe by time I actually get this curriculum up and running.
Speaker 2:It might be a laser and big welding class like it might just be all specialty welding right. So, um, the biggest thing I find with tig is that you can do the work that other than with the laser, the work that just can't be done at more of an affordable cost.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So as of right now, the lasers are pretty, still expensive.
Speaker 1:Quite expensive, expensive, yeah, but they're not crazy expensive. Yeah, but you can set up a TIG in your garage for under $200. Yeah, exactly, and you can do really nice stainless weld with it even wanted to get into aluminum. You're under three grand that's right, so I mean it's.
Speaker 2:It's all about what you actually want to accomplish right and where tig might still come in handy is like maybe the thicker stuff that has to be 100 here. Right, it can't be full of impurities like stick welding or maybe even mig welding, where you get 40 vines over once in a blue moon. Yeah, yeah, it's definitely a higher deposition rate, but it's um there's little places for tig for me.
Speaker 1:I mean, I I'm on instagram, I see these tig masters fun right and they're just crushing it yeah becoming rich doing tig and I'm just like how, like when I, when I'm it's different places I interviewed dabs, right yeah, and his his first job was full-time tig welding. I'm like, where are these full-time TIG jobs? I was like, apparently in the US there's lots of them.
Speaker 2:I was just going to say I have friends. That own pipeline trucks. They're down in like Alberta area but they've worked in the States a lot.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And one of them specifically knew that I did a lot of TIG welding and he called me. He's like hey, man, I want you to come to this job with me. We're gonna both work off my rig and make crazy money. And I was like well, I'm really busy, I don't think I can make it. I would love to do that. It'd be so much fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I never really used my big welding skills to actually go as field work, yeah to do field work exactly and, uh, even people will come to my school and they'll be like hey man, like I can't really, uh, I can't really do this job at home because I don't have a garage like you here and I don't have a shop full of this aluminum trailer into whatever it might be, but I gotta fix this thing. Uh, school gun sucks.
Speaker 2:I'd like to do it with dick and I'm like, why? Why can't you do it in the field? But he's like, wow, I mean, you know how it is like gas, so it kept blowing away. I'm like, yeah, just grab a curtain or something like it's very yeah and he's like really? I'm like, yeah, come to the school, grab one of my curtains, throw it around you take one glove, you put it here.
Speaker 1:You take one glove, you put it here and you weld. Yeah, and honestly it doesn't take much like you use a diffusing lens, it'll.
Speaker 2:It'll spread out your argon enough to be able to do a lot of things a lot of the time. If it's not even windy out, it doesn't make a difference no, and you'll know as soon as you run out of gas, you're, you're wild and turn black you'll see it or whatever, yeah so you grind it out, you redo it, just like you would if you lost gas welding on anything else yeah, and it's not like it takes a long time to grind aluminum and it's on a trailer.
Speaker 2:Man, you're not trying to stack dimes on this thing yeah, it's not going to space no, exactly.
Speaker 1:Even if it was, you'd probably still be okay, right now you got the courses running, you got your your blocks figured out for the metal fab and for the specialty welding and stuff like that. How do you recruit? How do you fill the classes?
Speaker 2:how do you get out there? So, honestly, I do a lot of uh, not even talking at high schools, but I go to a lot of high schools and show them like you know, this is how you pass the cwb test. These are my little tricks that work for me. Like and I don't necessarily sell myself, I just go out and show them like we are a thing, we are here. If you want to come here, we will teach yeah and um and we. We usually explain to them why we're different than everybody else right what?
Speaker 2:what sets us apart? And you know, of course, all these younger generation. They see the welding that's being done at like western welding academy, for example. They are an amazing school. They they push to do the field welding applications. They push to do the things that just don't get done at a college right right and I see that and I see inspiration. I'm like, yes, we need that in our, in our students, right?
Speaker 2:so we, like I was saying earlier, we do confined space, treating our training and like make sure they understand that they're going to be working in these kinds of elements and and that's where the money happens, right? Yeah, like you know, you can go work in a shop and you can make a good living for yourself, but if you want to chase the dollar, like they always see on instagram, you have to go and out there and you have to be good.
Speaker 1:Well, I was just talking about that with the fabricator guys. I was on the on their podcast and they talked about the concept of the buckets of money as a kid, you know you, you're in school and you're like you're gonna make so much money and and it's always like when we're experienced welders, we're like, well, yeah, but you're at the right place at the right time with the right attitude and you don't show up late on the first day and there's a lot of pieces that come together for that and those jobs are also highly competitive.
Speaker 1:the second you make a mistake or you have a failed x-ray, next guy's in Yep. So like it's, it's a very exhausting, hard job.
Speaker 2:It's a hard life. It's a hard life, yeah.
Speaker 1:And it's most of us who have gone down the path of welding end up making less money when we get older because we find the right job we're happy, we're happy, yeah and plus we've made good money for most of our lives already.
Speaker 2:We don't got a lot of debts, we don't got a lot of worry about that stuff yeah, a hundred percent, and I really try to teach my students that and I feel like they don't always understand that. Yes, I had a super good opportunity when I first became a welder and I was a pipe welder. I got humbled, so I mean I had already learned my lesson the hard way. I had to be good. I had to show up early every day, no matter what I don't care what anybody else is doing.
Speaker 2:You're your own person, right yeah, don't make any of your own problems the boss's problems, like, oh, my car broke, that doesn't matter call a cab. Leave your truck there, man that's not him.
Speaker 1:No, let's show up on time, no matter what happens.
Speaker 2:Plan ahead so you know your truck is not a great product and just don't plan to go and be there just on like for me, 15 minutes is on time.
Speaker 1:15 minutes early is on time. Right by the time you suit up and figure out what's going on and have a coffee. You need time to prep for work.
Speaker 2:100, yeah so I try to teach all that like to our students, make sure they understand like it's way better for you to get that job in an entry-level job and and work your way up the ladder rather than starting at the very top you start at the top and you're fresh out of school your eyes are on you, yeah, yeah and you know everybody's going to be paying attention to every single thing you're doing and they're going to be judging you for that.
Speaker 2:You're not going to have fun. There's no camaraderie at that point yeah, and that is the big thing about the trades. I don't know about yourself, but that was the biggest thing I loved about the trade, the camaraderie we're a family 100. You help each other, you work with each other, you spend most of your life with those guys right and I still keep in touch with all the people that I work with all across canada I literally run into guys here that.
Speaker 1:I worked with 20 years ago, 30 years ago, the community has just always been around. I preach it all the time, Like when I'm looking for young people are looking for advice from me. As you know, an old, established welder who has maybe the best job in Canada right now for welding and being like how did you get to where you were?
Speaker 1:It's like network, like. I mean you got to be friendly, you got to talk to to people. If someone needs a hand, help them and when you need a hand, ask yeah, like you don't just sit there in your bubble oh yeah, it's the worst thing you can do.
Speaker 2:And yeah, like I mean, as you start traveling too, you meet people that might be the project manager on the next job site or they might be.
Speaker 1:You know the, the piping supervisor they might start their own company and then be a ceo someday, yeah, and now they're calling you and saying like hey, listen, I need you to do this specialty thing. I remember you were really good at that.
Speaker 2:You're like oh, great like, and we had fun working together. So that's a bonus right so I mean, it's definitely a big thing to network in our community or as far as welders and even pipe welders, pipe fitters, anything like that, because, as you like, you're always going to run into something in your career where the work dries up and you might get super lucky. Never have that happen. Or you might have it happen a year after you started in the tree, yeah, or you might come out of school.
Speaker 1:This happened right after covid. We had students coming out of a welding program and literally there's not even like companies open for them to work. It's like I felt bad for those students. That's a rough spot to start.
Speaker 2:That's one big thing we try to help with. A lot with that APR is that trying to get them that first job is the hardest part. I remember basically handing out 60 resumes when I first finished college to try and get a welding job. I wanted to be a pipe welder. I might have handed out 60 in the pipe welders union, but like maybe one or two other companies, that I might've worked with, but I wanted to be a pipe welder so essentially, um, you know, with these students, I tell them on day one how you are in this class.
Speaker 2:I'm your number one reference. So I'm honest to every single employer that hires our students. They call me and ask me any questions. I'm honest. So were they on time? Were they late? Were they you know, how were they? How was their attitude? Did they want to learn? Did they want to be there, like if they can actually be involved when they're a student?
Speaker 2:they know when they're not getting paid, when they know that when they get them as a, as an employee, they'll be 10 times better that's right because they're there for a purpose they want to better themselves.
Speaker 1:They want they're there for more than the money at that yeah right, I had a guy come to me today and he said hey, I'm a small shop owner here in southern ontario. Um, we are having a half a time trying to find good young welders. We feel like we put ads out and we just can't seem to find any good young welders right now and I said, okay, well, what are you doing different to find them? Like what do you mean? It's like, well, we put an ad out, we put an ad out in the paper looking for welders. I'm like is there a local welding program in your area? It's like, yeah, we got two schools in our area. Do you know when they graduate? No, did you ask? No, well, go introduce yourself to the instructors at the school, ask them when they graduate. Go back to that school the week before they graduate, ask who the top three students were. They'll tell you 100% they will. And then poach.
Speaker 3:It's the.
Speaker 1:NHL man Grab the all-stars right away. Don't sit and wait for the all-stars to come to you.
Speaker 2:Someone's going to get them. The all-stars aren't going to come to you.
Speaker 1:They're not exactly gone, they're already gone I taught for eight years and every best student ever had had a job before he was done school 100 they all got poached 100.
Speaker 2:Get in there and poach right, and even uh, to elaborate on that a little bit. I tell my students, like, if you're gonna be in a booth, you want to be presentable, right you? Want to be like presented. I don't mean that like not having a ripped sweater.
Speaker 2:We're well, they get ripped yeah they get, or they get well burns in them, whatever. But what I mean is your cables, your machine settings, like have everything neat, have everything tidy. When you're wrapping up at the end of the day, even if you go to grab a machine that somebody else used before, you, don't wrap the cable super tight around the the reel that's in there, like you want to wrap it up nice, so that the guy can just grab it, drag it out into his booth.
Speaker 3:You have nice parallel cables.
Speaker 2:Because when these employers come around the shop, they're going to go through and they're going to say, hey, who's that guy? He looks like, he's working, like I don't even care what his welds look like at this point, look at this cable, it's going to meet his. He has, he's not gonna trip, he's not gonna wipe out. And then they say, like who is that guy and what his welds look like, and what kind of personality does he have? Like yeah, okay, yeah, I think that that kid would fit in our shop good, like. He might not be the best welder in the shop, but he definitely has the best attitude.
Speaker 1:yeah, he's neat, his name is johnny ocd, but whatever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah exactly so it's uh, it's one of those things that it's the first thing they notice as an employer like you're looking for safe workers, right? So they're going to be safe and they have a decent welding capability. They're only going to learn from there, right? Like it's a fundamental thing that they learn, like building, right?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, well and and how useful you're in a shop. Like. Sometimes you make choices in life that make you, uh, harder to hire right and that's just life. Like for myself. Tattoos I used to have a bunch of piercings. Uh, I used to have a bright red mohawk, 18 years old, trying to get right, trying to get not so easy to find work when you're looking like a, like a skid, right.
Speaker 1:But then it's like, okay, if I to look this way, I had to take stock of myself and be like I got to prove in other ways that I'm worth having. So I was the person that would stay five minutes after everybody and just sweep everyone's area. I already got the broom in my hand. I already cleaned my area. I might as well just give a quick run of the whole side. I wasn't at a shop two weeks. When someone's like why are you doing that? It's like, why are you doing that? It's like, oh, it just looks nice, like they're like my fave. Yeah, like you're in, yeah, you're in. And then I got to go like on the shop runs and on the fun stuff because they knew that I wasn't going to make a mess and I was going to be clean and tidy and that stuff is very noticeable well, even just as far as like like doing the shop runs, for example, how many employees have you seen like maybe not necessarily working for you, but even working with that?
Speaker 2:they're like I'm just gonna make a timmy's run while I'm out and I'm just gonna go to the store because I gotta get that thing for my wife, like I'm supposed to go after work. Well, no man, you're on the clock like treat it as such and respect your employer right yeah don't abuse them, because they might not notice it this time or even next time, but eventually they will be getting layoffs to coming and you know they're like oh, I remember he used to take like three times longer just to go to the welding supply store, to go to canadian welding supply and grab a couple boxes of water air like we need to grab some gas like yeah, yeah
Speaker 1:it's just one of those things that it's, there's no reason for it, and people do notice and, like I've always said and this is a harsh opinion that a lot of people Don't like to hear but there's enough Welding work for every welder in Canada right now, if you run into a welder that's not working, he did something wrong, like something happened. I brought that up recently.
Speaker 2:Actually, I've had a very similar conversation recently with somebody I know and I basically said there's so much work out there and we get so many phone calls in a week looking for welders, looking for fabricators, looking for somebody with specific tickets yeah and I've I've said many of times if there's people telling you that they're not working and they can't find work, it's because they're not trying to find work yeah, there's something going on, they're purposely not working yeah, like maybe they're being too picky about where they're working or how they're going to be working or where they're going to be.
Speaker 2:You know what kind of welding they might be doing. Maybe they want to be a specialty welder, like the tig welding thing. It's hard to find a job like that because there's a lot of shops that refuse to do it yeah specifically because it's hard to find somebody and then that person knows their value yeah, yeah, you're not getting them cheap.
Speaker 1:No exactly, nor nor nor should you.
Speaker 2:No exactly, they've worked hard to get those skills honed in. But I mean at the same time, maybe the employer just isn't prepared for that, they don't want to take on that Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Now one of the last points that I'd like to bring up is I got noted here that you guys are actually a certified Aboriginal business. Yes, so did that come with, or is that something that you guys built up that?
Speaker 2:was something I implemented into the business almost immediately once I took over. So, by myself, I am a status card holder, so I'm part of the Mississauga band and basically, yeah, I mean I've seen the benefit of being an Aboriginally Certified company. You know, there's a lot of benefits to even our students getting hired.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So it's.
Speaker 1:Does that tap you into funding opportunities for your students easier? Or does that Because I know it's a mess of politics for funding it?
Speaker 2:kind of does. So it sort of does and sort of doesn't. So I mean in the sense that students, it helps them when they call me and they're like, hey, we've got this guy coming to your school or this girl coming to your school and she said she needs a laptop. Is this true? And I can they trust when I say yes or no right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Or like it could help, but it's not necessarily mandatory for them or whatever it might right, or when they say like did they need the $700 welding shield?
Speaker 3:No, they don't need the $700. No $200 will go far, yeah. They go to Walmart and buy a lens if they really wanted to Walmart and buy a lens if they really wanted to like, it'll help them probably, as they're learning but uh, but, yeah, it's, uh, it's, it's, it's one of those things.
Speaker 2:I feel like it's more of a trust factor with the reserves around um, and I'm kind of hoping that it helps get us further ahead of the public college that's the biggest thing being a private career. College is everything is is riding on on us right as personal owners yeah, you're not guaranteed funding.
Speaker 1:We're not money coming from the government.
Speaker 2:No, exactly, and I mean, I've been taught many times nothing's guaranteed ever um. However, I feel like eventually it will help us get our, our facility up into the the more technical, technical technological.
Speaker 3:I can't even tell I'm going to give up on that word there.
Speaker 2:But advanced right. More advanced equipment that helps for teaching. It helps for preparing them better for the field and it helps them as students Better prepare them for what they're going to be Up against as soon as they graduate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what's your ratio? Like of aboriginal versus non, or like or non-indigenous.
Speaker 2:For students like okay uh, so it's honestly all over the place yeah, we've had one class that was like 60 percent filled with aboriginal aboriginal students and indigenous students, and then we've had other classes that have none, and this is like recent and not so recent yeah, this is like, although it's kind of all over the map and so there's not like a direct pathway Like I'm envisioning you becoming like hey, we're a certified, you know Aboriginal center and then every reserve in the area is going to be like telling their kids go there.
Speaker 1:But it doesn't really play out like that Not yet.
Speaker 2:I feel like a lot of people don't even know that we are Aboriginal certified yet. And also I feel like people are having a hard time realizing that we're an option. We're still getting out there, we're still pushing to make sure that people know we're around.
Speaker 2:And obviously, it's still up to them to decide where they're going to go for schooling. However, yeah, I think that it's definitely a possibility for our future that we kind of partner with these, these communities, and one of my personal goals with with owning the school is is involved with trying to get, um, almost uh, a training facility that's portable, like I don't like a mobile mobile training center like a ccan with the six pack of well, there's a class and there's a few around the country.
Speaker 1:They're pretty dope, yeah, they're sick yeah so what?
Speaker 2:what my plan is is I would really love to to get into these communities and provide the training so they don't have to leave. I think that's the hardest part in these communities we gotta talk because we are trying to do the same thing and we're trying to partner up with people well, and we have connections for like indigenous funding for stuff like that.
Speaker 1:There's a project in Saskatchewan northern communities, there's one in Ontario, I think. Right, we just helped fund one in Halifax. Oh, cool yeah, so that is something that I think is also very key because, first of all, some of these northern communities or indigenous communities, they don't even have the power supplies that would even run welders. Let's say I could magically bring in 10 welders. They don't even have the power infrastructure to plug them in.
Speaker 2:Right, and you see that often.
Speaker 1:Yeah so.
Speaker 2:I mean, I can just imagine having a couple big diesel welders that not only could weld off of the welder itself, but you also have welders that could plug in off of those welders and run basically the same the shop.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, literally, basically the shop yeah, I started a school in africa. I started with five gen sets.
Speaker 2:It basically ran the school until I got power pipe. That's amazing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like I mean super cool you just, and I didn't at the time I didn't know you could stack gen sets, but you can stack gen, yeah, yeah all right, man. Well, we've had a wonderful interview. Uh, where our time's up. Thank you very much, jeremy, for being on the show with us. Let people know how to get a hold of APR Welding Academy and how to get enrolled. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:So APR Welding Academy is on all social media platforms. We do a lot of funny videos as well. We like to be involved in the community and the trends that are going out there. Honestly, it's just fun to run this company. We have a blast. We have a great team. Honestly, it's just fun to run this company. We have a blast. We have a great team. Um, we have a website aprweldingacademycom. Um, yeah, so if you guys want to enroll, we are more than welcome to show you our facility. We're more than welcome to even give you pointers, even if it's not necessarily something you want to get into. We can always give you advice and we're we're not biased, you know we we want to see people succeed more than anything, and not just by coming to us.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of people that will call us and they just want to learn how to maybe even just do a hobby course. We offer hobby courses too, like they don't need a full college course. I just want to do stuff in the garage, right? Yeah, yeah, that's fair I mean yeah, there's lots of ways to get ahold of us. You can find us on to school. You're going to be speaking to my wife, alissa. She's awesome. So she actually has as much knowledge as I do by now.
Speaker 2:Awesome she asks me a million questions a day and then she remembers, remembers it all right so it's impressive what she can remember awesome man.
Speaker 1:Well, thanks for coming on the show and I hope you enjoy the rest of the fab tech show thank you so much for having me all right and for the people that have been following along, all the information for apr welding academy will be online with the release of this podcast. We're also going to be doing many more podcasts here at Fabtech Canada over the next couple days. We're tired and we're going to push through and we're going to bring you the best content 16-hour mental days.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 16-hour mental days.
Speaker 1:We're going hard.
Speaker 3:Yeah, all right, so we hope you in the future. Produced by the CWB Group and presented by Max Horn, this podcast serves to educate and connect the welding community. Please subscribe and thank you for listening.