The CWB Association Welding Podcast
The CWB Association Welding Podcast
Episode 205 with Gabe Scigliano and Max Ceron
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.
What if the skills you learned on the ice could help you excel in the world of welding? Join us as we chat with Gabe Scigliano, a former competitive hockey player from Calgary, who successfully transitioned to a career in welding and pipe fitting. Gabe shares how an unexpected conversation led him down this new path, revealing the cultural differences he encountered between the white-collar vibe of Calgary and the blue-collar spirit of Edmonton. Through his experiences, Gabe offers a unique perspective on Alberta's workforce dynamics and the fulfillment he found in the trades after overcoming initial resistance from his family. Join us for an engaging conversation about the Boilermakers, the path to becoming a journeyman, and the importance of government-funded programs like the Filling the Gap Pressure Welding Training Program.
Check out The Filling the Gap: Advanced Pressure Welder Training Program: https://pressureweldertraining.com/
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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 Suron and, as always, I'm going east, west, north, south and inside the quantum dimension to find the speakers for you, my dear listeners, on this wonderful show. Today. I am out in the west, I'm going to Calgary to find somebody, and we've got Gabe Sigliano here. I'm trying to say that. Right, uh, gabe, uh, thanks for being on the show with us today. Uh, no problem, looking forward to chatting with it. Awesome man. So I've been reading your bio here, kind of looking over what you're doing. You're a welder, pipe fitter working with the boiler maker hall, uh, or I should say you're a boiler maker who welds pipe. So let's say get that in the right order. Yeah and uh and uh, and you know like, and you're out here in the West where it's pipe welding, boiler making world, right, it's a lot of the work that's out here. How do?
Speaker 1:you? How's Calgary treating you? How's it going out there?
Speaker 2:It's awesome. I've actually I should correct you a little bit I'm living in edmonton currently. So I grew up in calgary, lived there for my whole life and then, uh, recently, this summer, I moved out to edmonton with my girlfriend because she's pursuing her master's for physical therapy at u of a. So we relocated out here for the next couple years while she finishes school.
Speaker 2:So careful you're gonna get stuck I know, I know, yeah, there's a lot of work up here too, which has been good for me, um, but I primarily travel most of the time anyways, so it doesn't really matter. But I always consider Calgary to be home base. That's where I did all my training and I always consider that to be home yeah, well, I know it's.
Speaker 1:Uh, it's a pretty big rivalry between Nate and Sate. So I saw, I saw Sate there, so I figured Calgary but, and now you're now you're in Nate's backyard, so um yeah but that's cool, I love.
Speaker 2:Edmonton man yeah, I honestly have enjoyed the city a lot more than I thought I would. I think the move kind of initially was a little bit daunting, in the sense that I've always been in Calgary and just used to being there. You have your routines and stuff like that, so moving out here is a bit of an adjustment, but I'm really enjoying the city so far well, that's good, that's good.
Speaker 1:I know that, though, I enjoy all of Alberta's fun um. My daughter lives up in Grand Prairie, so I know them. I would say, as a young man I spent more time in the south part of the province. But as an old man, I spend a lot more time in the north. We have a headquarters in nisku, edmonton the cwb.
Speaker 1:So you know, we uh, there's a lot more for us up there, but uh, I mean props alberta, right yeah, I've definitely driven past that headquarters actually not, I'm thinking about it on my way up north.
Speaker 2:Over the years I've, uh I've driven that highway quite a few times. I've seen it there on the right hand side.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah, I mean, you're a pretty young guy though, like I mean you're, you're just coming up in the world, but you've accomplished quite a few things. Let's start at the start. You know, like you said, you're in calgary. That's where you grew up and were raised. Now calgary is kind of thought to be more of the white collar capital of alberta, where edmonton's more the blue collar city. You know, when you decided to get in the trades, was there any pushback or how did you fall into the trades?
Speaker 2:I guess I'll start. I'll start at the start of it. I I, to be honest, I didn't really, growing up, have the intentions of going into the trades. Um, I grew up playing competitive hockey for most of my childhood into my late teens, so my primary focus was always sports and I never truly thought too much beyond that about what my career path was going to be going into my adult life. And then, I think, when I decided to hang out the skates and start focusing what I was going to do with my life, I didn't necessarily jump straight into the trades being my number one pick. My father was a father for almost 47 years. He just recently retired. He worked out of the iron workers hall for many, many years and I just never really thought I would go into the trades. It wasn't talked about in my high school. It wasn't really pushed on me, like you said it's more of a white collar city.
Speaker 2:You know, all of my buddies were kind of getting ready and prepared to go to university, take business degrees and go down that path. So once I decided that I was going to get into the trades I sort of just fell into it. I had a close friend that was working with the Boilermakers Hall and he had just started his welding apprenticeship and it was kind of just a casual conversation that got the ball rolling. He basically just said like you know what a year, what are you doing? Kind of thing Like are you going to school?
Speaker 2:Are you going to you know work? What's your plans? And I just didn't really have a plan and I said, well, I'm kind of just floating in the wind a little bit.
Speaker 1:Just chilling.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like I didn't have a huge plan. So he said well, have you ever thought about trying welding? And I thought, no thought not really like.
Speaker 2:You know, my dad was a welder and, like, growing up I'd see him coming home at the end of his shifts and you know he looked so tired but didn't know, I don't want to do that like that, doesn't you know? And uh, I thought, well, you know, I'm not really doing anything, like sure. So I I went with him down to the boilermakers hall in calgary and got introduced to, uh, you know, the people that run the hall down there yeah on a lead has been a big part of my uh training and he's kind of the one that pushed me to go okay.
Speaker 2:Well, let's, let's get you rolling here. So I did a pre-aptitude programs through our hall.
Speaker 2:So we have uh you know, we have basic steps that in to, in order to get indentured as an apprentice, you go through these small courses that we offer to just kind of vet out. If you're interested in the trade, give you a chance to try welding. I had never welded before my whole life. I'd never really even been around it, even though my father was a welder for so many years. I just never really was around it and never had much experience with it.
Speaker 2:So trying it out for the first time, I mean I think like most of us who are welders, I was absolutely terrible. I wasn't, I didn't, I wouldn't say at the start. I showed natural aptitude toward it. I wasn't necessarily a beginner. That really took a shine to it. So after trying it out I thought you know, okay, like I think I could you know, see how it goes, I'll do the pre-apprentice program that we have at the hall. So went through the program and I did well enough, I suppose, to be accepted into the Boilermakers apprenticeship program and that's kind of how I started my apprenticeship and then, once I got the ball rolling, I should say to actually start my apprenticeship. That's, I think, when that ignited that passion in me to be like, okay, I think this is going to be the path I'm going to go down. This is going to be my career.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a very interesting couple things you have in there. One of them is right off the top. Most of the best welders I know fabricators, trades, people, um are usually from a background of either sports or music. They usually had something that made them be competitive at an early age. Because once you realize that welding can be also competitive and or like internally competitive where, like, you compete with yourself, that opens up kind of a whole nother window, um, where you can connect those dots. You're like you know sports. You're judged on every single move, every single shift, every single like. I mean the better you get, the higher up you get in sports, the more critical they are on everything how you stand, how you put your knees, how your elbows cocked at a certain degree during a certain move.
Speaker 1:That level of critique is perfect for people that get into welding, because that's so similar to what we do when you start learning to weld well, like real well, not just basics. You look at everything, every angle, every piece, every possible procedure, every uh, variable, right? Did you feel that that kind of connected the same way in your world?
Speaker 2:yeah, I would definitely say that that competitive spirit that I had with playing hockey growing up translated into the welding once I got you know to my first year school, for example.
Speaker 2:You know you meet guys in your class and you kind of develop that camaraderie and it's that friendly competition to push each other to succeed, and it's not necessarily just to be better than the next guy, but it's also just to improve day over day. Every day you show up to school and you're getting in the booth and you're practicing these welds over and over again. You're getting that experience, but you're you're getting that one percent better every day and you're just progressing over time. And I think welding as a whole, that's kind of what makes guys and what and and girls separate themselves from the rest of the you know because I think there are a ton of welders in the province.
Speaker 2:I mean, I don't know the exact statistics, but I'm sure we're up there as far as, like I think, general population for uh having a lot of welders, I know in our hall personally, we have over 700 welders on our active members list and it's competitive, it's it's just an f, you know, you have to be at the top of your game, um, and I think that that growing up playing sports created that work ethic and that competitive nature to me to want to be at my absolute best every time I'm striking an arc. And those little adjustments you make in welding especially well, only pipe, uh, tig welding and things like that you're making small little changes and that can make all the difference in your world to allow you to perform well, for sure, like I mean, if, if you're not paying that attention to detail, you fall off the bus pretty quick yeah, you know, and it'll be like why is this not working?
Speaker 1:and then someone's like well, did you do this?
Speaker 2:it's like oh, right yeah yeah, it's little things. If I remember my first time, uh, tig welding. You know, I go from welding one hand to all of a sudden introducing that second hand into the equation and it's that it's legit. It's just very small adjustments and learning from people that I was very fortunate to get very good training throughout my apprenticeship, both at school and also through our union hall.
Speaker 2:I mean, we have some of the best I would argue some of the best tig welders in the province coming out of our union hall and we have a lot of really skilled trades, people that can, that were able to help me and give me those minor details to allow me to progress forward yeah, ontario, or I mean, sorry, alberta, right now, uh, as of last year, has 14,185 registered welders. Wow, yeah, I'm not surprised to hear that at all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's only. The only two provinces with more are Quebec and Ontario, which are quadruple the population. Exactly yeah so it's well, and the compulsory aspect of training of welding in Alberta really increases the ability to become an apprentice and a and a red seal right down the road. Yeah, because that's not compulsory in every other, any other province, um, and some provinces don't really even really push apprenticeship at all.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, yeah, absolutely so, for yourself.
Speaker 1:I'm interested about your family dynamic because you know dad was an iron worker. And yeah, and it's very funny because my dad was a boiler maker and I became an iron and I became an iron worker.
Speaker 1:But uh, that must have been interesting he didn't want me to get into the trades. He kind of did everything he could to kind of steer me away from that and to go to university. It was like you know, you don't want to do what I do. But then when I became a welder, I was like why would you not want me to be this? It's, I have fun at work every day. I love the people that I work with. I get to build these awesome things. And then the days fly by like a like everyone looks at a welder at the end of the day and it's like they're dirty and they're tired. But ask them how fast it went like. It's like you snap your fingers and a 10 12 hour shift is done.
Speaker 1:Now you sit 12 hours behind the desk and tell me how you feel you know what I mean that's a long day, I'd rather do 12 on the tools any day right Now, when you came home and said, hey, mom, dad, you know I'm going to try out with the Boilermakers, I'm going to see what's up with that and I might go down this path, Was there any pushback from your dad or from mom?
Speaker 2:Were they like, no, no, you could do something else, I think yeah, it's like my, my parents, it's like I grew up in a very honest household. So, and especially when I was playing sports, like there was no beating around the bush, if I had a bad game, I knew there was no, you know, oh, you did a good job.
Speaker 2:You know they give you the courtesy pat of the pat of the back, but it was always pretty honest and yeah my dad and mom, I think, knew that I didn't necessarily show great aptitude towards, like I was never gonna be the guy that was gonna go do a four-year university degree and work an office job. That just was never gonna be me. I didn't have interest in school um, that type of school I should preface, because I think once I got to SAIT I showed that I wanted to apply myself, I wanted to be there and I think I just needed to find the right thing. But to circle back to your question, like my dad didn't have anything against me getting into the trade because I think he saw that I had showed genuine interest in it. It was probably the first thing that I had ever come to them and said, like I'm really interested in this, I think I'd be good at it so they supported me the whole way.
Speaker 2:They they believed that because of the interest I was showing, that this was probably the right path for me to go down good, good, because you, you'd hate to have that struggle at home, right, absolutely yeah, because, like I mean I, think sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 1:Well it's. It's hard to do anything as it is when you're not used to it, and having to defend it is tough. But you know, I'm glad that they had that support for you yeah, I think it's.
Speaker 2:You know we me and my dad, we we, you know go back and forth and we'll have a little. You know we'll chirp at each other a little bit about which hall is better and you know who's got. You get your benefit statement and when my dad was still working he'd get his benefit statement and we'd be comparing and sitting there going, oh, oh, I got a little more money for massage this year.
Speaker 1:This or that. Just a little joke here and there.
Speaker 2:But my dad and mom have always supported me and believed that I could be good at whatever I chose to do, and because I show a passion for wilding, I think they just supported me from day one.
Speaker 1:So one of the things that happens when you become an apprentice is that there's school, you know, and then you kind of had been wanting to avoid school as much as possible. Yeah, when they're like okay, well, you know, you get to be a boiler maker, this is a part of the deal. Um, you know, what do you think about doing your first block when it comes up? Was that daunting to you? Was that something you're like oh, no school. Or did you feel better about it?
Speaker 2:I think, yeah, I'd been told. As you know, the first year, I believe personally the first year of walling school was probably the most difficult, because I think you are getting bombarded with so much information. At one time I remember getting my stack of books in the mail, you know, and it's two boxes and it's this high and you're thinking how am I going to get through all this in eight weeks?
Speaker 2:So I think just the first day jitters were very high, but I was excited because I was excited to go and learn something that I was genuinely interested in and not feel like I'm doing it because I have to be there. I'm doing it because I have to be there, I'm doing it because I want to be there. So there was some nerves and, to be honest, I did my first year of school during COVID.
Speaker 1:So you were all online.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so my first year of school experience, I think, was different than most apprentices and people who went to school at all during. Covid, I'm sure you can attest to that it was different. But I think overall, after getting through it and moving on to second year and having now completed school entirely, I think the first year overall is the most difficult. But once you get through that I think you're able to gain confidence and go. Okay, I can get through this.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. Well, let's take a break right now and when we get back I'd like to talk about. You know what that Boilermaker journey person path looks like, and then I know you've taken a special program that was offered by the Boilermakers this last year.
Speaker 1:And I want to talk about that program and how that played out, because I think that that's something really interesting that a lot of different places are starting to do specialized programming like this. But we're here with Gabe, we're talking Boilermakers, we're talking welding, we're talking Alberta, and we'll be back right after these messages from our sponsors. So don't go anywhere. Looking for top quality welding machines and accessories, look no further than CannaWeld. Based in Vaughan, ontario, cannaweld designs, assembles and tests premium welding machines right here in Canada. Our products are CSA certified and Ontario made approved, reflecting our unwavering commitment to excellence. Count on us for superior service that's faster and more efficient than market competitors. Whether you're in aerospace, education or any other precision welding industry, cannaweld has the perfect welding solution for you. Visit CannaWeldcom today to discover why professionals rely on CannaWeld for their welding needs. Cannaweld where precision meets reliability in welding. Enjoy peace of mind with our four-year warranty on most machines. Conditions do apply.
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Speaker 1:so. So let's get back to where we were. You, you know, you started your journey with the Boilermakers. You got through that first block, which is scary because that's like where you're introduced to all the terms, all the things that you may or may not have heard of, and if you haven't, then it's a big learning curve. And then you get, you know. Then you get out to the training part and you got to go work. How was that for you to be, start getting some of that work under your belt?
Speaker 2:that I would say it was probably more daunting than school. I would say our hall does a really good job of trying to prepare you as best they can. But I think that doing field work because because we have two branches right, we have field work and we have shopper I've only personally ever done field work, um, but I have a pretty good idea what the shop work is like. You know it's kind of 40 hour weeks, pretty standard, same place, every day. Field work is. I don't know how much field experience you have yourself, but you show up and it's kind of like what's happening, you know yeah, it's very confusing.
Speaker 2:You don't know where to go. It's like first day of school, right you're kind of all over the map. But having you know, I remember my first job was at a canadian natural in fort mcmurray. So I, you know, I drive eight and a half hours out to the middle of nowhere, show up and you don't really know what to expect. You kind of know, and then you get out there and you're standing in the middle of this refinery, you're looking around and you're like no clue what anything does you don't know what.
Speaker 2:You know what the names are, what they're called, you know yeah, I mean, it's like you know, and you're the new guy yeah, a lot of the most of the time I'm one of the younger guys on site and now, being more experienced, it's much easier for me to go about my day and handle my business. But showing up on the first day when my first job, you're as green as it gets and you're like you just don't know what to do. But I had a good crew that kind of held my hand and they're like come with me, buddy, I'll show you where to go and what to do, and you kind of start learning the ropes and you kind of just get your foot in the door. That first job for me was just kind of getting my feet wet and understanding the basics on a very small scale, of what it is that it means to be a boiler maker, what we do, um, and that umbrella, I'm still learning.
Speaker 2:I'm still learning things um it never really ends, honestly no it doesn't and, and especially for the, I think, the nature of our specific union and what we do. There are so many different things that we work on, there's so many different types of welds that you're going to come across, and I think throughout my apprenticeship I learned a lot about things that aren't necessarily just welding. I learned a lot about fitting and rigging and all those things that I think have helped me sort of become a more well-rounded trades person no, and that's so interesting.
Speaker 1:I remember one of the first job sites. I got dropped off on um. I wasn't meant to go to the site that day and then someone else called in sick so they're like, okay, you're going out to the site and I was like, uh, okay, you know, I was like I was like 19 and they just dropped me off like after like the sign-in booth. They just because they couldn't come in, because they weren't signed in for the job, they were just dropping me off at this door. And then they're like, like you got to go to overhead door number two. The crew's working in behind there and it's like this giant steel mill with like a thousand doors. I'm like door number two. Like where's door number two? Like I have no idea.
Speaker 1:So I just like started walking through this yard and I know now that they just did it to me to be jerks. I was like wandering aimlessly, trying to find this door number two and finally find this truck driving by, wave them down. I'm like, hey, man, I'm supposed to go to door number two. And they all started laughing. They're like all our doors are lettered, not numbered, and I was like, oh, they're like who you with? I'm like I'm with shc. They're like, oh yeah, you guys are in the background there. I'm like, thank you, but I mean, those things are scary, you don't know. But you don't know what you don't know, right, so no and I remember just my big thing was I learned quickly.
Speaker 2:You're going to make mistakes, you're going to go to the wrong place, you're going to be late, you're going to make you know and you just have to get through it and it's just part of it. Yeah, over time that goes away and you're you'll. I look back on those kind of stories that you're saying and I just laugh because it's, it's funny, it's funny yeah.
Speaker 2:You're the new guy and it's just part of the crew bringing you into the fold and bring me, you to be a part of the union or part of the crew.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and and then you know you do your time working. You got to go for block number two. Now your confidence is coming up right like you're. Yeah, you're feeling better. I know that for most people, once you start getting the the hours and the apprenticeship rolling, then you start getting a little bit of that sense of urgency, like like let's hammer this out, let's get this done. You know, uh, is that what you were feeling too?
Speaker 2:100. I mean it. I always heard guys telling me oh, you'll miss being an apprentice. Being an apprentice is awesome and I, to be honest with you, I've never felt that way. I've always wanted the day I signed up for my apprenticeship and went to my first job and got that experience on my first job. I was like I can't wait to be a journeyman. That was. I was always hungry to get my journeyman for sure.
Speaker 1:And how, how'd you find those last two blocks? How hard was it? What were like the really tough parts for you?
Speaker 2:for you. I found third year block to be probably the most challenging, just as far as like the actual difficulty of the material. Um, I found blueprint reading to be particularly difficult for me because I didn't have much experience with that a lot of people struggle with that, you know. So that was something I had to work through for sure. I was definitely leaning on my teachers a lot at SAIT to kind of help me with that and it just required a lot of extra time for sure.
Speaker 1:But I think it's like anything you just I had at that point learned how much effort and time needs to be put in outside the classroom just reviewing and studying to succeed so at that point, I knew what the expectations were as far as like how much time per day I needed to be putting in in order to succeed it's like sports man, like I mean, game day is game day, but then, uh, if that's all the practice you're putting in is minimum practice, then then you get minimum, you know Minimum results.
Speaker 3:Minimum results For sure, and that's what you get Like it's.
Speaker 1:If you're not thinking about it, kind of as you're falling asleep, do you even really want to be there? Yeah, yeah, you know you do mention something interesting that is not necessarily common across Canada and that's the fact that you did a lot of your boiler boiler maker training at SAIT. So this isn't a hundred percent the same way in every province or every hall. Lots of halls have their standalone hall, their standalone training center, and that's it. They don't work with colleges or other groups. The unions are all different, like that, like between the iron workers, pipefitters, boilermakers they all have that kind of a different mix with that. The iron workers just shut down their college school here in Saskatchewan and went back to straight being in the hall, but you went to SAIT, so it was like a boilermaker program through the hall at SAIT, right? So are you referring to?
Speaker 1:the filling the gap program or your initial school, so all of my initial school was the welder um.
Speaker 2:I guess it'd be your journeyman welder school, your standard welder school, and I would assume that would be the same across all of alberta weather, because when I was in school I had members of my classes that were pipeliners that were working in shops that were like I was built. There was only two boiler makers in my third year class, for example okay I see, I see.
Speaker 2:So the way that our union is structured is they keep track of your hours and manage your blue book throughout your apprenticeship completed, you notify the hall that you've completed it, you send in your marks and they check that off in your blue book so you can progress.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, and see, that's not available in every province. That's an interesting thing. So, like, in some provinces it's all on the Boilermakers. They do their training in-house, they do their welding in-house, they do all the pieces, and not every facility is the same. So there's some, you know, halls and this is like I mean between all unions some halls you're getting more welding training than other halls, right, you go to some halls and they only got six welding booths and you go to another one, they got 30. It's like, okay, that's different, right, but I know that Alberta is very welding heavy. Um, but I know that Alberta is very welding heavy, right, like, I mean, a lot of the training does push towards physically welding because there's just so much work, like really, at the end of the day, there's just so much work.
Speaker 1:Did you struggle with the, with the journey person exam? Was it tough? How'd you do?
Speaker 2:I think I did very well. There's a saying, I'm sure you've heard it it's 70s a hundred.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, there's a saying I'm sure you've heard, it's 70s, 100. Yeah, oh yeah, I used to teach the Red Seal program.
Speaker 2:I hated saying it, but it's true. Yes, yeah, I'm not. Uh, I hate to say it, but I don't specifically remember what I passed my Red Seal with. I wasn't. I wasn't expecting to be in the 90s or anything, I think uh. I think I got in the 80s somewhere, but I managed to pass and that was what was most important to me. I really wanted that red seal on the first try.
Speaker 1:On the first try.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know a lot of other people. They go and they do their jury meetings and they pass. And then they go the next day, they write that red seal and unfortunately don't pass pass, and then they go the next day they write that red seal and unfortunately don't pass. And I was very, I very, very badly wanted to pass my red seal and just get it out of the way. Yeah, so I could be done and say that I completed everything on the first go yeah, more of a personable than anything.
Speaker 1:Nobody was sitting there telling me like, oh, you better get it on the first try but it was more of a personal thing again and that competitiveness in myself better get it on the first try.
Speaker 2:But it was more of a personal thing again that competitiveness in myself to get it on the first try.
Speaker 1:So there's some statistics that say you did the right thing. Because, first of all, as a teacher, anecdotally I found that if students didn't pass their red seal on the first try, their chances of coming back to finish dropped like 60%, Like.
Speaker 2:Really.
Speaker 3:Like lots If you look at the national average, only a third of apprentices.
Speaker 1:Apprentices actually get their red seal. Interesting Right, Okay, and most of those it's because they failed on their first try and then chickened out. There's a lot of test anxiety, there's a lot of fear and if you fail, like right after school, imagine taking six months off and then trying again without a teacher, without it being fresh in your mind it gets yeah it gets like scarier and scarier the further away you get from it right so yeah, it's really sad build it up yeah, exactly so it's sad to see people try and then not come back and try again.
Speaker 1:It's like, hey, we want to keep people in finish your red seal, but unfortunately not everyone does and it is a hard exam. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I remember opening the booklet and reading the first question and going well, that wasn't in my notes, you know you're just sitting there going. I just remember having this moment of panic when the first question you read, you're just like, okay, I might be in one here, yeah, and it's 124 more of those coming.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, yeah. So now, what do you do? Like? Now you got your red seal, you are, you're in, in with the boiler makers and you're working is. Is that it like? Are you set for your career? What are your kind of your goals within that?
Speaker 2:uh, I think personally, at the moment my goals lie around just developing my skittles as a, b pressure welder um that was a recent achievement I accomplished last summer was, uh, getting my bead pressure ticket. So once I got that, I mean almost 90 percent of our welding work in our hall is bead pressure work yeah, so getting thin boiler tubes headers, boiler tubes plating, you know that's rare so at this point it's now just revolved around developing my skills as a b welder so that I can progress in my career.
Speaker 2:I guess. In that way, I think most of my goals are pretty small ones, that I just have the our personal goals, because at this point it's kind of just about you know working and sort of wreaking the rewards of, you know, going through school and getting my red seal, my beat pressure. Now I'm at the point where I'm getting kind of top rate, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're getting your. You're the most money you've made. This is your opportunity now to get your name up there and develop your skills as a field b welder so that I would say overarchingly, would be my main goal um it's a.
Speaker 1:Beyond that, it's pretty competitive to be the best right, because there's a lot of good, really good, welders out there yeah, and I think I think to my age plays a factor as well.
Speaker 2:I'm 24 years old, so I think stepping onto a job site most guys are. They're looking at me, thinking I'm an apprentice or that you know just what does this guy know?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, and, and and honestly, like compared to some of the wilders that I've worked with over the past five, six years, or I don't know much- compared to these guys that have been doing it for 30 years yeah. Main goal would be to just develop my skills as a bee wilder and then long-term plan would be probably to work my way into supervision level positions and start running jobs be the long-term goal.
Speaker 1:Now, in terms of you know you get that bee pressure ticket. That was through a really interesting program. So do you want to talk about how that program worked, how you got into it and kind of what the results?
Speaker 2:were um, and to be honest, I think probably a good portion of my skill development took place in that two month period that I did the utip course. That really helped me progress as a welder. So I did that, uh, as soon as I finished third year school it was just before christmas, I finished third year school at the time and then I went straight into the filling the gap program in the new year. And they start right away First day, welding on six inch pipe, getting ready to do your B pressure test or your C pressure test, depending on if you were an apprentice or a journeyman. At the time I didn't have enough hours so I was still an apprentice apprentice even though I completed all my schooling.
Speaker 2:So I was preparing to do the z pressure certification same test, but um so basically, like the starting point, they're just getting you prepared to do your b pressure exam. They're teaching you. We teach primarily the tig route. Uh, you're given the option of 6010 route over carbon tig route I chose to do the tig route because I found that I had more success with it and I found it to be a little more forgiving. I suppose when you make a mistake you can. I found it easier to kind of knife in there, make it a little correction. We call it not a repair it's a correction, but uh yeah.
Speaker 2:So that program overall teaches you basically everything you would need to know as far as becoming a skilled b pressure welder, with our all as much as they can without giving you hands-on field experience. You're starting with your b pressure um. You even do your cwb certifications, which I think are very important foundationally to be able to just use your CWB certs.
Speaker 1:I've used them throughout my whole apprenticeship in the field, there's always something structural around. You know, always, always.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of B welders. At certain points of their career they kind of cast the CWB certification to the side a little bit because they're so focused on welding pipe. But I've always maintained my cwb certifications because I've found them to be very important on jobs.
Speaker 1:I've always found the way to use it at some point oh, yeah, yeah, even just welding brackets on for the electricians or something like that, like I mean, all those things have to be certified exactly, and uh, after your cwb certifications through the program you move on to uh small bore pipes.
Speaker 2:So you're moving down from the six inch pipe down to a two inch pipe. So it's a little bit different process. You're moving from a weed bead on your caps and stuff to stringer bead. It's different positioning and you move through carbon alloys or sorry, carbon to the alloys same with us and Inconaut all the way up to Chrome and our instructors at the time. I mean we have what I would say is the best training program that I've heard of.
Speaker 2:I mean we have top notch instruction that helps you start from zero take the experience and can get you all the way to the point of some some members of my filling the gap last minute. All the way to the ink and alloy and past past of certifications, having zero, take experience and not having a beat pressure in the matter of eight weeks. Yeah, so it's a very effective program. It gives you all the tools you would need to get from basically like zero to as certified as you can possibly be how many people were in your class?
Speaker 1:we had eight people, eight people and how did they select those eight like how did you apply? How did like? How'd you hear about it?
Speaker 2:so I heard about it from the. So sean ouellette is the head of our cal reunion hall down there or one of the managers of the hall down there and he runs the welding center down there.
Speaker 2:So he's the head examiner and I've always had a really good relationship from him, with him from day one, and he kind of told me about it that they were introducing the program like a year before I did it they said look, you know, get your name on the list. They're starting to collect names for people that are interested in doing the program. And so I did. I jumped on it right away because I thought you know what, that's probably going to be my best shot at getting my certifications through the hall. I developed my skills.
Speaker 2:It's all paid for, obviously by government funding and I thought it was probably the best opportunity I'd have to get some good training. So I just I literally just put my name down on the list and was able to fortunately snag a spot, because it was in a very high demand program.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is In her hall. Well, they've ran them all across the country a couple of hundreds, I think 140. Some people have gone through it. Now Seems to be that everyone's loving it. Yeah, your instructor for that program. Was it a hall instructor? Was it someone they brought in?
Speaker 2:yeah, so my instructor his name was lincoln brown, who is a very successful bee welder through our hall.
Speaker 2:And then he, you know, and sean all that over, he was the overseer of the whole program but but Lincoln did our day-to-day instruction, so it was kind of like a chain of command thing but, he, primarily, was with us in the booth every single day, showing us everything and giving us those demos, hands on you know, he was on you and you had eight people in the class so there wasn't really anywhere to hide. So if you were in your booth leaning on your jig and not welding and you'd, he'd see it for sure and he'd get on you.
Speaker 1:Well, and you know it's interesting that you get to go through so many types of materials. That's always the biggest thing that catches anything in the pipe world. And you know, like you, you get your initial six inch. Everyone does it F3, f4, the 60, 60, 10 roots, 70, 18, fill and cap. That's kind of like the standard everyone knows about, whether it's SCED 40 or SCED 80. That's, that's neither here. That's, that's your max out deposit, whatever. But past that is where people start to get hung up. Right, it's like do I go six inch to two inch and get my my small bore? Or do I go six inch and just go to an f5, f6 and do my tig root carbon out or stainless root carbon out on on uh, on pipe at six inch? Or do you know there's so many variations. Your p44s, which are your nickels, your 40, what you know what was 47 is ink.
Speaker 1:now there's a bazillion numbers and positions and then do you need, uh, do you need it in 6G or do you need it in 5G, 2g? It's a lot of information and if you go to ASME 9,. It doesn't help. Those documents are confusing as and even the people that test ASME 9, the pipe testers. They can't even agree on what's allowed sometimes, like you're talking about. Is it a repair? Well, you don't say that word. You know, but can?
Speaker 1:you grind out a stop, 100%, you can. You know, like, and if I happen to have to grind back three inches from that stop, meh, well, you know, things happen, prayer, and then it's like and then how much deposit is allowed on the inside? Is it the three mil everyone always tells you, or more or less, and it's a lot to navigate right. And when you get pulled into a program like that, it kind of you can just dial it in. Okay, what do you want to learn? What's next? And we got a person here to teach you.
Speaker 2:Let's hammer it out, right yeah, you get a path, and I think that's you know, we have opportunity to go and practice. If you're a path and I think that's what, uh, you know we have opportunity to go and practice. If you're a member and get standing with our hall, you can go practice at any time if you're not working at that time.
Speaker 2:You can go, utilize the hall's resources at any point. But having a structured program like the filling the gap program, that gives you a path to be like okay, your b pressure, and then you do your F3, f4, and then you do your F6, f4, there's a path and it kind of gives you a structured in the same way school does. It gives you a structure and an outline so that you know what you need to do, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then, when that program was over, you know how did that affect your career. Was it a? Did you see an immediate bump in the type of work or the work you could do? Wages you know what was. What was the benefits? The?
Speaker 2:benefits, truthfully, were mainly confidence. Yeah, and I think that's probably the biggest determining factor when it comes to a welder's success, especially in the field, is just having the confidence to even try to do.
Speaker 2:You know we have some pretty difficult position welds in position welds in the field that we as boilermakers have to make, and I think just having the overall confidence to go of an attempt to the joint and know that you are going to be able to do it successfully, that's what that program gave me. It was a confidence to be able to go ahead and and and every single job I go to I do shut down work, so I work for maybe five different contractors a year, or sometimes two, or it just depends on the lengths of jobs. Every single job I go to, though, I have to do a well test for, and obviously that's pretty similar for most uh industry, most people in the industry. They have to test a lot, but that program also gave me the confidence to go and do well tests and not have no plan. There was no wingy and I had a plan because of the filling the gap program.
Speaker 2:I know when I'm doing a F3, f4, right 60, 10, root, 70, 18, fill cap, I have a process in my mind.
Speaker 1:You know the numbers already.
Speaker 2:I know what I'm going to run my heat at. I know, I just know because of the program, though.
Speaker 1:You know where you struggle, you know which part of the clock is not your favorite part, and you program though. You know where you struggle, you know which part of the clock is not your favorite part in the, and you're like, all of it was 60 10 to be honest, but I'm old so we only got trained on 60 10 when I was coming up, and then when I did my first tig route, I was like, oh my god, this is so much easier. Slower, yeah, slower, but uh, but I mean it depends how hard they're holding you on that three hour slot to get it done. Um, but I mean, when you get down to the two inch 60 10 on a two inch barf, that's not fun at all, like yeah, it's.
Speaker 2:I remember my first time attempting one, thinking oh yeah, like I just welded, I'd been welding. This was in the fifth in the gap program I'd been welding 60 temp in school like I had a pretty good idea what was going on, but I had never welded one on that small bore pipe yeah and I remember around it's like red hot and like half a freaking rod I got about halfway around the pipe before I was key holing about a quarter inch you know, and you
Speaker 2:realize okay, I got some work to do here. This is not.
Speaker 1:uh, take your time and move. You got to move a lot quicker yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:There's a big learning curve. I remember that yeah.
Speaker 1:And if you get a chance, go for max deposit, not just because you get to weld more, but because there's more of a heat sink. The more material to suck that heat out of that joint, the better, honestly. Absolutely.
Speaker 1:So what about other things? So what's left on your wish list for things you'd like to learn welding, you know, because there's new technologies all the time right now, and big in the pipe world is the rolling 1G STT routes or modified waveform routes. So MIG route, flux, core, fill and cap. That sounds really boring to a lot of people, but you know what, when you see it in a shop or somewhere running live, you get it. These machines are sweet, they blow it in there and you can get a giant well done in minutes. Right, they're looking at you know there's probably gonna be new shirts coming out for stuff like that in the future because things are getting pretty fancy, right?
Speaker 2:yeah, I had a small experience with. I mean, I worked on a project in bc a couple years ago now and I was there for over a year and a half and we built the large I believe it's the largest liquid natural gas tank in north america well, clng went up north yeah yeah, so when we were building that tank because, as I'm sure you know, all tanks are built using automatic well, they're sub-automatic and horizontal, and I had never worked or experienced sub arc at all so, getting that experience, I realized, like, how efficient those machines become when you have them set and dialed correctly, like when they're dialed in, especially the guys that were running them every day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's so sweet yeah and they just they just hit the button off, it went. They're chipping the slag a little bit. I don't know. I always used to I'd be watching them while on back grinding some big for sitting there watching them.
Speaker 1:I'm like super jealous yeah, I need to learn how to be that guy yeah I learned to run sub arc when I was pretty young and a lot of people were like, isn't it boring? I'm like, well, it is boring, but things are only boring if you get bored, and I'm not really a bored type of person. So, like I would, I would try to figure the machine out. Like I mean, it's one thing to just run a machine, but then it's another thing to really learn the machine what it can do. And then, by my, you know, by the second year we bought, after we bought that sub arc at that shop, I became like the sub arc dude, which I had no problems being that guy.
Speaker 1:Like I mean, no one else was stepping up and I was the only person that showed interest in the machine. Everyone thought it was boring, but then I became the sub arc guy. And then, after I became the sub arc guy, then they were like you're, you're our automation guy. You're our automation guy, you're going to learn how to do automatic bead rolling, you know automatic this and automatic that. And I was like it's that easy, like you just got to show the interest in the right spot at the right time and then you get, you go with it, right, you just kind of get to run with it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had a similar experience because I was an apprentice when I was working on that tank, and almost all apprentice guys that worked on tanks as an apprentice will tell you your primary job is to grind Grind. Yeah, that is your gig. And I had been on this project for probably six months at a certain point and I finally they came to me and they said, hey, we got this sub arc starting up here. We're going to start welding the floor. Are you in learning?
Speaker 2:track yeah yeah, and at that point I didn't even know really what sub arc was but it didn't sound like grinding yeah, so I said sign me up, and I took it. It's saying kind of similar story. As you, I took it and ran with it and I became the sub arc guy on our ship for doing the floor plate and doing the corner scenes and all that stuff, and I learned a ton and I took that experience with me and you take pride in it because you can do a really good job.
Speaker 1:You can also make a really big mistake really fast with sub arc. Oh, and I did Like. People are like oh, I got porosity, try getting porosity with sub arc. You're grinding for the next three hours, yeah.
Speaker 2:I remember I punched you it was real thin plate, this floor plate, and I punched a hole like right through it, cause I wasn't paying attention. You know we were on a 14 and seven schedule on night shift. So I was on. I think I was on like day 13 or 14. It was like close to going home time.
Speaker 2:So my brain was fried yeah, and I'm on my little sub-arc machine, I'm on the tractor and I get my you know what I thought was the right heat, and I hit, go and I and it, and I always could tell by the sound oh yeah, I'm sure you can relate to that you know when it's running good. And I just remember I heard this pop and I looked down and there was probably about a loony size hole in the spore and I punched a hole right through it and I'm thinking, oh God.
Speaker 1:And where did that slag go? Just like down on someone's head, yeah.
Speaker 2:Not ideal situation, for sure.
Speaker 1:Well then you pull out the stick machine and you start filling it in. Grind it smooth, run the pass over top of it. No one will ever know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they know now that I'm telling this story, but yeah, they'll never find the exact spot yeah, yeah, as far as I know, that tank's in operation now.
Speaker 1:It must be all good they check it, they have testers, they have inspectors. They're good yeah so what's, what do you see yourself doing in the future? You know, as we get to the end of the interview, you know like you got your long time goals. You said you want to get your skills up for sure. Um, usually people that are like you, that are quite ambitious with skills and looking to grow, you also really start to realize that you like learning and that you kind of like teaching too.
Speaker 1:That seems to be kind of a cycle for a lot of people that I see in these situations. Have you gotten to that point yet? Where you're, you don't mind teaching, or or maybe you see it as a someday future job, or are you just full-on? Teach me as much as you can.
Speaker 2:You want to learn I think at this stage of my career, based on my experience level, I don't think I'm in a position to be teaching people if that makes sense, yeah I guess on a smaller scale.
Speaker 2:If I was teaching somebody how to pass their b or do something that I've already done, then I would feel confident teaching and instructing somebody. But I love passing that knowledge on to somebody. Like I would love to be able to save other people. The grief, grief that I yeah, that I had to deal with sometimes but I think it in the future I would absolutely love to become an instructor. I think that would be like at the end of sort of the welding career for me would be the goal. Or, like I said, just getting myself into supervision. But I think at the moment I just want to gain experience and develop my own skills.
Speaker 1:Is there any sites you'd love to go to? Any places you'd love to go work Like I've been able to travel kind of the world Once you start thinking about all the jobs out there. You got a travel bug in you at all or do you like being close to home? I?
Speaker 2:do like I think, when I was younger. I I mean I guess you're still young, but when I first got going, I only I didn't care where the job was, I didn't care, I was just like how much are they paying? When do I?
Speaker 2:start. That was all I cared about, I think. Now, um, I would really like to work more primarily around where I can be at home as much as I can. I suppose um, we're supposed to have a pretty heavy shutdown season next spring, hopefully, and I'm hoping to land somewhere more around this area fort saskatchewan, somewhere in edmonton.
Speaker 1:I've actually never worked in edmonton in my whole time being with the boilermakers, surprisingly so well, most of the guys, most of the team that's at the boilermakers all in edmonton is going to be the people with quite a bit of seniority. Right, those are the steady eddie jobs that they're to hold on to pretty tight. There is pretty big manufacturing facilities in Edmonton, though, that feed the mines and feed the oil and gas.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what I'm referring to. Yeah, would you be?
Speaker 1:interested in getting into the fabrication side of it, then Like is that something you?
Speaker 2:see yourself go doing, you know, I mean really anything. I'm kind of at the point, I think, now where I'm trying to navigate what type of welder I really want to dive into being do I want to be like a tech guy? Do I want to be like a production guy? That's kind of where I'm navigating, I think, at the moment.
Speaker 1:So well and you can always switch as an old guy, don't stress too much about it. Look around you. What's the best opportunity you got, you go with it. I always tell people it's funny because I used to play hockey, so you'll get the analogy but I always told students, welding is the nhl of trades, right, we get to kind of pick the teams we want to be on. We got to kind of get to pick and you look at your own skills. Am I a scorer? Am I a defenseman? Am I a goalie? So then what company needs that position? So for me, I was a stainless guy. I got really good at stainless. I loved welding. Stainless Stick, make flux, core, take, I don't care, stainless is my baby. Then I became the stainless guy. So whenever I saw shutdowns come up for like need stainless welder. I'm drafted, I'm going in.
Speaker 1:And you just write it with what your skills are and over time you'd be amazed at the teams you play on and the groups you get to meet. And I only did shutdowns for a few years and then I tried going back in my 30s to do another one. That was a mistake. Shutdowns are kind of a young person's gig, like I mean, unless you're a supervisor. It's hard to do shutdowns when you're a supervisor. It's hard to do shutdowns when you're in your 30s. So that's the only kind of advice I'd give yeah.
Speaker 2:No, I think, even learning I learned that pretty quick that you know, if you want to, I think to have longevity, I don't necessarily see myself doing shutdowns forever, Although we all know that 60 year old who still does shutdowns.
Speaker 1:You're like wow, you're like crazy, it's yeah, I remember.
Speaker 2:I'll never forget this fella. I worked with this fella named Carmen and he was 70. And this guy worked like harder than anybody I've ever seen in my life. It's like just non-stop go, go, go, go, go, go go just hard and you think you work hard until you see a guy like that yeah exactly never mind to see a machine like that yeah, I know those.
Speaker 1:They do. It happens to me. I remember trying to carry I went so before my second marriage. I wanted to make some money for the wedding, so I'm like I'll pick up a shutdown. That's an easy way to make some quick money. I'm in s Saskatchewan. There's mines everywhere. I'd done lots of mines in my younger life so I threw my name in at the iron workers. I'm like, hey, can I just go in on a permit? They still remembered me. They're like yeah, man we'll send you out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, when do you want to start? Whenever Monday you're going out. So I agree on mine. I was like, okay, I hadn't done it like in 10 years. Man, they knew who I was. At that time I was already teaching. So I'm the teacher that had the summer off that came to do a shutdown. So they're like, oh, the teacher maxes back. So you know, ride me a bit. And I was like like, oh, man, I still got the skills, don't worry about it. First job was hauling cable. Really, guys, you're gonna make me haul the cable. We got all these 17 year old kids standing around and you're gonna make the 37 year old guy who hasn't done a shutdown in 10 years haul 180 pounds of cables up 13 flights. Thank you, thank you very much. Yeah, that's that's how it goes. That's how it goes. But let me tell you, I lost like 20 pounds by the end of my stint and I got back and I fit my suit perfectly. So I was in great shape after that. It's like that is the best workout plan ever.
Speaker 2:I think shutdown work has to be next to tank work at least in my experience, has to be some of the most physically challenging work, sometimes just because of the spots you end up getting into and not walking.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it can really end up, and down walking, not side to side, up and down. Right yeah, Stairs and stairs and stairs and stairs. Tanks is just hot and the apparatus you got to wear, right when you're sitting in 70 degrees and you're breathing your own farts that's not fun, right like it's.
Speaker 2:We have a saying like tanks, but no tanks, and that's kind of how some guys think about tanks. I personally, to be honest with you, I'm a bit of a sicko.
Speaker 1:I absolutely love tanks and I would go back the quietness and the solitude you just know what you're doing every day.
Speaker 2:You just show up and you do the work. And that's what I enjoyed about it the most, but I also do enjoy the shutdown work. I mean, you're doing something different every day, so that's cool too. You're learning new stuff all the time, yeah.
Speaker 1:Awesome, man. Well, let's wrap up the interview here. I want to ask you just one last question. You know, for the people that are thinking about Boilermakers and the Boilermakers are a great union my dad was a Boilermaker for forever. I have his tickets right in my drawer here. Actually, I keep all his tickets because my dad had a pile of them and I just like to look at them sometimes.
Speaker 2:Was he a welder? He was a welder. Yeah, he was a welder boiler maker Cool.
Speaker 1:So for the young people that want to get into this trade, first of all, the caveat is you can't just walk into any boiler maker all and expect a job. It doesn't work that way. You have to apply for membership, you kind of have to have a backer. There has to be kind of a way in. And they protect their numbers on purpose, for real and for real good reasons too, because they want to ensure that they have enough work for all their members, and that's great. But there's other opportunities to get into the field. Right, you can take courses like pressure piping courses. You can learn to pressure pipe on your own, really like, if you wanted to. There's lots of ways to get in there. From your point of view, now that you kind of are a red seal, you're a journey person, you're, you're already destined to be a mentor and a leader. What do you say to anyone that comes up to you say, hey, man, I want to get into this. What do I do?
Speaker 2:I think I think this the first question I would ask would be like why? And not to be like negative and say like, yeah, why would you want to do this? That's not what I'm getting at. I'm saying well, let's play this scenario.
Speaker 1:I like I like this, let's play. We'll do a couple back and forth, all right, sure? Hey, gabe, I'd really like to get into this, and you say why? And I say because I want to make fast money I would say that that's probably the wrong reason.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree. I agree Because it's too hard to work your way up to where you're a journeyman, a Red Seal bead welder, and go through the years of apprenticeship just to do it, because it's not going to be money like that, right, it's going to be slow. Your pay rate increases ideally year over year if you're getting your hours in and you're going to school every year.
Speaker 2:Ideally, your pay rate increases every year, but it's a slow build I mean I would say I'm still very much in the building stages of my career. I'm nowhere near established to the point where I would feel like I've made it Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I think if somebody was coming to me saying like, I want to get into it because I want to make fast money, I would say that's probably the wrong reason. If you come to me and say I want to be a great pipe welder, I want to be a great tradesman, I want to travel, I want to experience what it's like to work in the field, I would say yes, come join the boilermakers for sure but if it was someone that was coming up to say hey, gabe, I really like to work with my hands, but I'm really not into school, like I've just never been able to, to do that.
Speaker 1:But you know, like I like tinkering around with stuff, would I have a spot with the boiler makers or in your trade?
Speaker 2:I think as long as you have the work ethic and the desire to learn, absolutely. But I think it is and I shared this misconception. It's probably a bit of a misconception that you are going to join any trade and school is just a non-factor. I firmly believe that a school, that going to school for a trade is still really difficult, and I definitely had that misconception that I was like no, like this will be easy, like a little bit for sure yeah and it is still really difficult to go to school for a trade.
Speaker 2:You have a lot to learn in a little bit for sure. Yeah, and it is still really difficult to go to school for a trade. You have a lot to learn in a short amount of time well, and it's uh, it's, it's uh, these are real diplomas right we're not.
Speaker 1:We're not bs, we're not just a fake thing. Um, trade school is school and there's expectations and homework and studying and um, um. But I will say this, and this is the big difference between any university trade schools any trade school doesn't matter if it's through a union or non-union. They offer a lot of support for you If you have trouble with reading, if you have trouble with ADHD, if you have trouble with sitting down, any of these things, whatever it is, they'll help you because at the end of the day we need trades people to build stuff.
Speaker 1:So if school's your your hang up, we'll help you with school and we're not going to make it easier for you, like it's. We're not dumbing it down, but we're just going to help you get to the level where you can. You can crush it right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, give you every tool that you can to succeed and I I think state did it. I'll give them a lot of credit.
Speaker 1:I was given every opportunity possible to succeed at school yeah, and you know we see it time and time again where most of the time, where people feel like their learning disability is the reason they're not doing well. That's not the reason you're not doing well. We all have disabilities of our own kind. The reason you're not doing well and this is a self-mirror check for everyone listening is you. It's your self-confidence, it's your self-worth, your self-confidence, it's your self-worth. That's what's holding you back. Because I've seen some people in my life who are incredibly intelligent and gifted fail miserably because they didn't put the work in. And then I've seen people with grade three educations own billion dollar companies because they just don't give up, right. So you find yourself on that scale, saying you don't like to learn or you're not good at learning. It's not really an excuse. Figure it out. Someone will help you figure it out. There's people that will help you figure it out. Get on it.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I think if I could say anything too and this isn't to brag, but I received an award in my last year of school for being the top apprentice in welding for the craw. When I started welding I was absolutely terrible. So if somebody who had absolutely no natural aptitude towards it can reach the point of being named top apprentice in the province. That tells you like, trust me, I'm not special by any means. It's just work. It's just putting in the time, putting in the work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just did a podcast this morning and we talked about that. You can't train ambition. You can train a lot of things. You can train a lot, and this comes back to sports and music and all these other skills too. The desire is the fire. That's number one. You don't got that fire, then it doesn't really matter what you pick. You're not going to, you're not going to do.
Speaker 1:Well, you got to have that fire in you to, to, to do it, to do well and to ask the questions, and and get past your shyness and your fear to be like yo, I suck.
Speaker 4:Help me Right Then and then things get way easier once you get there right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely awesome man. Well, I can't wait to see you in your career over the next 20 years. I'm always in and around alberta and I'm always doing work with the boiler makers and other stuff. Cwb, you know where to find me, um, but I've loved this interview. I think you got lots of great advice and stories for young people and people looking to get in the trades. How do people find you? Are you on social media or anything? If anyone's got a question for you or your haul?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can. If you're interested in getting involved with Boilermakers, just look us up online at Boilermakers146. You typed that into google and hop on our website. All our contacts are listed there. Uh, and as for myself personally, I'm on facebook. If you look me up just by my name, it should come up there. Um yeah, that's pretty much all I got awesome man.
Speaker 1:Any shout outs for anybody you want to say hi to.
Speaker 2:I guess just shout out to everyone. That's kind of helped me along my journey. You know who you are. I'm really happy we had this chat, max, this was great awesome.
Speaker 1:Well, thanks for coming on the show, man. I really enjoyed it. Awesome thanks, man, and for all the people that keep supporting this amazing show and my staff and the crew you know, make sure you download, watch, listen, like all our episodes. We do have a new fan mail feature on our Buzzsprout. If you want to send in messages to us, we're down. If you have questions, we love fielding questions. I reply to every DM, trust me. I set time aside to answer all the DMs I get because it's about community, it's about supporting the industry and we want to make sure that we're doing the best thing we can here at CWB. And remember, at the end of the day, we're a not-for-profit. All the money we make goes back into you, the listeners, people out there in the industry, and try to make it better for all of us. So keep supporting us. We'll keep being there, check out our podcasts and if you catch us live somewhere, make sure you don't miss us. But until then, I'll catch you at the next episode, we hope you enjoy the show.
Speaker 3:You've been listening to the CWB Association Welding Podcast with Max Serrano. 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 Serrano, this podcast serves to educate and connect the welding community. Please subscribe and thank you for listening.