The CWB Association Welding Podcast
The CWB Association Welding Podcast
Episode 216 with Jim Galloway and Max Ceron
The CWB Association brings you a weekly podcast that connects to welding professionals around the world and unrepresented communities as we continue to strive for a more diverse workforce. Join us as we celebrate National Volunteer Month to showcase the incredible contributions of our Chapter Executives from across Canada and globally.
When Jim Galloway walked into his high school welding shop in Brantford, Ontario, in the 1970s, he couldn't have predicted how far the spark would take him. His journey through the welding industry spans four decades, crossing paths with nuclear power plant construction, cutting-edge research, manufacturing management, and education—creating a roadmap for what's possible in a welding career. What truly sets Jim's story apart is his commitment to community and knowledge sharing by choosing to teach at Conestoga College. He helping develop their renowned Welding Engineering Technology program while maintaining deep involvement with professional associations.
Find your Local CWBA Chapter Here: https://www.cwbgroup.org/advocacy/membership
Thank you to our Podcast Advertisers:
Canada Welding Supply: https://canadaweldingsupply.ca/
Canaweld: https://canaweld.com/
Josef Gases: https://josefgases.com/
There is no better time to be a member! The CWB Association membership is new, improved, and focused on you. We offer a FREE membership with a full suite of benefits to build your career, stay informed, and support the Canadian welding industry. https://www.cwbgroup.org/association/become-a-member
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.
Speaker 1:Attention, welders in Canada looking for top quality welding supplies, look no further than canada welding supply. With a vast selection of premium equipment, safety gear and consumables. Cws has got you covered. They offer fast and reliable shipping across the country. And here's the best part all podcast listeners listeners get 10% off any pair of welding gloves. Can you believe that? Use code CWB10 at checkout when placing your next order, visit CanadaWeldingSupplyca now. Canada Welding Supply, your trusted welding supplier. Happy welding. Hello and welcome to another edition of the CWB Association podcast. My name is Max Suran and, as always, I am out there trying to find the best voices and stories for you, our faithful listeners. Today I have a fantastic man who has a storied career here across Canada and into the spectral universe. His name is Jim Galloway. He is a faculty at Conestoga College and just on the cusp of entering into retirement. Jim, how are you doing?
Speaker 1:Great Max Thanks for having me on. How'd you like that introduction?
Speaker 2:Oh, wonderful.
Speaker 1:On the cusp.
Speaker 2:I don't know what that actually means, but I'm on the precipice, exactly.
Speaker 1:Well, hopefully it's not a drop, it's a climb.
Speaker 2:Well, it's a change, that's right.
Speaker 1:So, jim, for the people that don't know you, you've been an instructor for a long time. I met you. You've been an instructor the whole time. I've known you. But there's probably a story which many, many people don't know, which is you know, where did Jim come from? So, why don't we start right at the start with the story for everyone? And let me ask the question, Jim, where do you call roots? What's home? Where was baby Jim from?
Speaker 2:I grew up in Brantford, which is, of course, the famous town where Wayne Gretzky came from. He's a little bit older than me, yeah just a little. So yeah, I grew up in Brantford, southwestern Ontario sort of industrial city and I grew up there and sort of middle-class lifestyle. My dad worked in the roads department at the county and my mom was a homemaker and three brothers and a sister and basically a normal, normal upbringing at the Brantford, brantford City suburbs.
Speaker 1:So it was a normal, normal, normal life Canadian kid life right Canadian kid life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was pretty normal normal kid life. Canadian kid life right Canadian kid life. Yeah, that was pretty pretty standard, you know. So you grew up, you went to school, and then you didn't know what happened next.
Speaker 1:So well, you know, in those eras, you know you're coming up in the 70s, right, I'm trying to get the timelines right here, without saying age numbers, but you know so much of the push I would say from the 50s to now has been that your children must go to university. Your children must enter some type of you know, professional education getting you know, don't get dirty, don't get you know, don't get your hands into these, these trades or stuff like that. Now for yourself, what was the upbringing like around that image? You know, what was the expectation of you growing up? To go, you know, get an education. And what did the family think you were going to do?
Speaker 2:Well, I have to say that, um, in my the my circle of friends, the people that I hung around with, not many, my circle of friends, the people that I hung around with not many, very few, went to university.
Speaker 2:It wasn't a thing In a lot of societies, a lot of groups, neighborhoods, whatever. Yeah, university was something that some people did, but not nearly to the numbers that people do in this day and age. For the most of the people that I knew it was, you went to high school and you went off and got a job.
Speaker 2:If you were fortunate you might go into a trade, but you know there was this other organization known as a technical college or community college and that was another option. But even there not many of my friends, a few of them maybe, went to college. But really the people I, my friends, a few of them maybe went to college, but really the people I hung with as a teenager, very few went to university. It wasn't as big a thing as you hear about now where it's like every other kid goes to university.
Speaker 1:It just wasn't done. It's like you have to now.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, and that's one of the things that I've always been a proponent, and I'm not sure what happened across the country, but in the late 60s in Ontario, the province established the in-between institution, which were the colleges work of colleges in Ontario. That filled the gap between skilled trades, or even they did teach skilled trades, but it also filled the gap between just going off to the workplace straight out of high school, between work and university, that vocational space yeah.
Speaker 2:So it was actually a fairly new thing, I guess, from the standpoint of time, because it really had only been around for about 10 years before I encountered, uh, that option, but uh, certainly the uh you know in high school and whatnot, uh, our, our school had a uh, a good, strong focus on it was a collegiate and vocational school so you had both options.
Speaker 2:You could go more towards the uh business and uh potentially academic side, or you can go more towards the trades and uh. Certainly my uh in terms of my siblings and my friends um the the prospect of going straight to university wasn't it was almost unattainable. Yeah, yeah yeah, not unobtainable, it's just it.
Speaker 2:It just didn't occur to a lot of people yeah okay in those days in the 70s and a lot of people could get a very decent middle-class lifestyle by graduating from high school and getting a job in a going on to the workforce or whatever, and a lot of people. That's what they're. You know, there was sort of this and I looked at it in the past uh, you, there was this big group of people who graduated from high school and immediately they got married and had kids. There's a whole bunch of them that I knew.
Speaker 2:And that was seemed, and they got a job and they worked in a factory or whatever, and bought a house and it was actually very, very, very okay. And, but there was a few of us that you know. It just wasn't. I didn't see that.
Speaker 1:Uh, that pathway yeah so what was it that you thought you wanted to do? You know? If I didn't really have a, I would have walked into your grade nine class and said hey, jim, what do you want to do?
Speaker 2:well, one of the cool things that at the high school as it was when I went there um you, if you chose a technical or trades vocation pathway, they gave you an exploratory two years where you could take um and they had it fairly well set up with different shops and, uh, trades, if you will, but um, for example, you basically took short courses in each of them, you know you went around, you know yeah, you went to the wood shop, you went to the auto shop, you went to the machine shop.
Speaker 2:They even had a uh, a print printing shop like printing presses, and I took that course and it was, it was really cool, like they had these printing presses and stuff and and uh layout text and it was. It was pretty interesting, but one of them for me was welding, and so I I hadn't really thought of welding as as an option at all, but it was just one of the things we we cycled through yeah and uh, and that was the one that kind of struck me.
Speaker 1:A lot of it, when I think back, was driven by the connection to the, the teacher at the time so much of what I hear on this show in my career working with students is that one mentor, that one person that kind of guided people into perhaps not that they were necessarily unsure or indecisive, but, you know, opened their eyes to opportunities, to things that perhaps weren't immediately obvious to them. And you know, was this person, this teacher, were they, were they, I guess, focused on welding, or they just were able to match you well no, he is his was.
Speaker 2:He was an iron worker actually oh yeah, I'm not sure how he ended up teaching at the high school. But he had been an iron worker. He worked on the cn tower and like, oh wow, big jobs down in toronto, which was a big thing back in the 70s. He had left that trade, maybe settled down with his wife or whatever, and started teaching high school. In terms of welding, he was very passionate, very good at it, but he also made it interesting, that's right.
Speaker 2:And so it wasn't for me, because I could see I was interested in a lot of things but nothing really struck me. Oh, I got to go into this or that, actually electrical things like electronics and whatnot. I had a big interest in that, so I could have easily had have gone in that direction had this particular teacher showed me welding. Okay, I'll go learn to weld. It's a good thing to know how to do. But he actually made it very interesting and it was way more than just burning rods.
Speaker 2:He actually had a strong theory program for us, and so when it basically after exploring machine shop was another thing I enjoyed, um, and so when it came time after grade 10 I guess it would be so, grade 9, 10 we had these exploratory uh sessions, and in grade 10, uh, we had we had to decide if you were going to major in one of those particular fields, and I don't remember being talked into it. I just said, well, welding was pretty cool, you know, and so that was the one I ended up in. I was, I guess, reasonably good at it. I had a good connection with the teacher.
Speaker 2:A couple of my buddies were going to go down the same pathway, and not with really a job in mind, but just welding do. Yeah, welding seemed to be something I was actually reasonably good at and the teacher made it interesting. So and uh, so yeah, in grade 10 and 11 I was able to major in welding in high school so then?
Speaker 1:so then you know, you graduate high school well, even before that though, yeah, I was just thinking in grade 11 people.
Speaker 2:The students today don't believe me, but in grade 11 he, uh, the teacher had us.
Speaker 2:We had to take metallurgy so grade 11 high school, yeah, yeah I'm studying the iron carbon phase diagram and and we had to memorize it, yeah, and then, and then we had to write reports. Like I remember one of the funny stories he sort of I guess he saw me as one of the kids he could maybe give something more challenging to. So he said, okay, gallo, we already had to write a report about how to weld a different type of metal. You know one kid got, you know, aluminum, another kid gets steel. And oh, galloway, you get titanium, titanium and zirconium. Yeah, good luck, I hadn't even heard of this stuff. What are you talking about? How do I find?
Speaker 2:information on this. So you know you got to pedal down to the public library and try to get information.
Speaker 1:Start with the periodic table.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so but it was cool. But I'll get to this again later. But that came right back to to to haunt me or actually not me, it was. It was a good thing because I I'd actually heard of this stuff and how to weld it. But and then in grade 12 the guy had us, uh, um, then it was welding processes in grade 12 and this, this teacher, he set up a, uh, a, a model shop, essentially a factory, where where we built these sort of garage type wood stoves for for people and we had a production line set up and we went to a local fab shop and did all the press break work and and we had to fit it all and weld it all and and then line them with bricks and put the glass in and everything and buy all the pieces and build these things and paint them and and then, and then they sold the school sold them for to make a few bucks for the shop wow, that sounds like an amazing program oh, it was unbelievable.
Speaker 2:And then like.
Speaker 1:The cost of that is almost undoable today, like well, I guess so, but we also.
Speaker 2:I also did all position um smaw stick tickets where we didn't actually have the bureau in, but we had a high school ticket which is a simulation of the uh, of the bureau's uh, the w471 test yeah, like I go to high school high school yeah, I go to high schools now and the entire welding program for the year has a 1500 budget for a welding program for the year.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's not even one kid to weld a box of 70.
Speaker 2:It's it's, it's, it's horrible, but there was a mindset change not too long after I left, where they basically decimated a lot of those shops everywhere, around, everywhere you know and and it's pitiful, but they turned the uh. My understanding was they turned the welding shop into a theater arts class, because apparently there's a lot of jobs for actors in Brantford but uh anyway, so yeah, I was very fortunate to have gone through that program with uh with if y'all mentioned his name and his name, jim Graham.
Speaker 2:I don't know if he's still with us. I haven't spoken to him in a long time, but but he was a great guy and a lot, of, a lot of students really did well in his his class.
Speaker 1:So well, when you have a great teacher, you have great students.
Speaker 2:Um, it's usually a a two-way street, you know so oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, and so, yeah, some several of us did really well and uh and uh, and, as it turned out, my my brother, older brother's friend had gone through the same thing as I had and he he said, well, you know what are you going to do after.
Speaker 2:And he, he actually went to, uh, one of the colleges which is, you know, an hour drive from where I grew up, but that's conestoga, and he took this welding technician program that, uh, I'd never even heard of before, but, you know, he had sort of paved the way. So I got talking to him and then the opportunity to go to college came up after high school.
Speaker 1:So I was going to ask did you get into working as a welder or in the trades out of high school, or did you go to college to continue training, or both a combination?
Speaker 2:Well, the high school teacher had connected us with uh some jobs and uh one of the uh the things that happened with me is I ended up uh working part-time after school. I had a couple other part-time jobs, but one of them was to work in a uh a local machine shop as a uh, as a uh a helper labor, building tables and stuff and just doing a bit of welding and fitting and whatnot, just on a sort of as needed basis.
Speaker 1:And then how long before you went and started at the college between high school and enrolling Right after high school, I was 17. I walked in the door at high school and the welding technician was welding engineering technician.
Speaker 1:And so that that program, you know the and it's for someone from the west, right, I'm in saskatchewan, that's where I cut my teeth we've never had that kind of technician, you know, allocation for the welding industry. It's, you know, it's been like welding fab, um, and we never had what has evolved now to be like a, the wet program in Ontario, which is, you know, one of the best in the world. Alberta now has WET programs. These, you know, welding engineering technician programs In Saskatchewan. They never existed and they still don't exist to this day. And it's amazing for me to hear that this, you know, these programs have been around for so long in places like Ontario, like, I mean, they really seem to be wonderful programs.
Speaker 2:Well, the welding engineering technician program that I went to the college conestoga, was teaching welding right from the get-go in 67, right, right, but more like the welder fitter program, exactly, yeah. And and then they started the technician program. These two guys, uh, started it back in the 70s, convincing, you know, the college and the industry. Industry needed it.
Speaker 2:Someone that was sort of between a skilled tradesperson and an engineer and it was this welding engineering technician program and they started that back in uh in 72 and by the time I I entered it and graduated there was grads from our program that were interviewing us for for jobs in industry. So it was quite a going concern in its day and, yeah, so I certainly didn't pave the way. But that program there's one up in Northern Ontario. Northern College had a program, but that was basically it in Ontario for that in-between the welder and the engineer type program. It was the welding engineering technician, which later became a technologist, which added a third year to it quite a bit later.
Speaker 1:Well, you know it's interesting because that need that you know, between the engineer and the welder fitter is much more obvious in a manufacturing plant, especially when you're trying to really really trying to dial in times. You know, and you know production runs and the science of manufacturing, which is why I think provinces like Ontario, which were very early in the game, very manufacturing heavy, developed these programs, whereas in Saskatchewan we've never really gotten into manufacturing until the 90s. It was basically here was like oil and gas agriculture, mining, which are, you know, kind of just straight up welding skill type programs, right yeah, it was interesting in Ontario there was sort of two big, two big directions that people would go.
Speaker 2:One was, uh, to heavy industry and the other one was to manufacturing. So there was a lot of you know, automotive production plants, large ones that would need a sort of this person to help set up the automated welding technology and robots. Eventually, but certainly the other big career path was in the power power plant construction right power generation the nuclear power industry was taking off and they had they needed.
Speaker 2:They needed someone who could deal with welding at a more technical level, to deal with the procedures and code compliance and inspection and non-destructive testing. And that's essentially the career path that I ended up was going down more of the inspection, ndt procedure, development role as opposed to, you know, just the working in a factory. So yeah, so it was. It was interesting from that perspective very heavy focus on welding skills in the first couple of years, like the first year, especially we. The interesting thing was most of us came from a program like like I mentioned, where I could weld like I, you didn't have to teach you didn't have to teach me one end of a welding machine from the other, but uh, but it was funny.
Speaker 2:Actually I remember the first day of college. Uh, the, the, the fellow that was sort of the program coordinator at the time uh, he was, uh, you know, came from holland after world war ii and, you know, grew up as a starving kid and stuff. He was a tough nut and uh. So I'm sitting there, I'm 17 years old, bunch of other young guys sitting around this room, didn't know anybody, and and he walks in and just starts yelling at us and threatening us and telling us if you want to be a welder, get out welders welding programs down the hall. You're in the welding technician program, so it's pretty cool. But he was big on layout, engineering, drawings, yeah, and yeah it was really really uh tough program.
Speaker 1:It was good well, you know, in my 35 years in the industry I've seen a uh, an evolution of programs, curriculum and it, lots of it's pushed towards fabrication.
Speaker 1:Um, you know higher know higher understanding of, of, of the, of that side of the industry. But when I've watched how the, the WET programs have developed in Ontario and Alberta and I've I've watched closely since I was young, cause they're always very interesting for me. I have two red seals, but my two red seals don't add up to a technician program. Right, like it's a different thing. Right and um, I've seen even in the last few years they've added you know, like if you want to take robotics in the last year or if you want to go down the inspection route or procedure, development, there's like branches, even now within the, the wet programs. When you were in the college, you know what was the wet program, what was it to you when you went and did the program, what were the steps that you had to learn, what?
Speaker 2:was it to you when you went and did the program? What were the steps that you had to learn? Well, it was all welding fundamentals, engineering drawings. It was all the welding process theory. And then that was mainly the year one. A lot of time in the shop doing. But we were doing not just welding skills development, we were also doing experiments Like how do we get from short circuiting transfer to spray transfer?
Speaker 2:and we'd have these labs that we'd have to do in addition to the welding skills stuff and uh, and so we would have to be experimenting we you know all the different processes that were of standard at the time. Um, and certainly we were challenged to try through a series of labs and whatnot, to develop procedures and whatnot. And that was year one. Year two the focus was on metallurgy, non-destructive testing and then electrical troubleshooting and equipment side. So we actually had courses like that and some really good instructors.
Speaker 1:It was a really interesting program and it was a certificate or a diploma program when you took it in Ontario.
Speaker 2:A certificate is a one-year program, a diploma is a two-year program and a an advanced diploma, is a three-year program. Okay, so it. At the time they only had the two-year program, so I actually had to. After graduating and working, I ended up adding my third year in metallurgy, part-time later, but at the time I graduated from the two-year program.
Speaker 1:All right. So Jim graduates his two-year program feeling pretty confident with himself and his understanding of welding and the ability to get out there and conquer the world as a welding engineering technician. Where'd you go? Where'd you go work? What was your main guiding light at that time?
Speaker 2:It's interesting because a lot of the at the time and you wouldn't know this, but in the early 80s, around 1980, 81, a West was booming Alberta. In the early 80s, around 1980, 81, a West was booming Alberta and my brother's friend, who had graduated a year or two before me, he actually went out to Alberta and he's still there, like he retired out there, and I was thinking that was he was making good money and he was doing inspection in the pipeline and the oil and gas and I thought that's what I wanted to do. Of course, in 1982 they had this thing called a recession and the oil and or price of oil collapsed and, oh my gosh, you couldn't find a job for 11 or money, right, it was terrible times out west and whatnot. But luckily, the other ask other opportunity was in. In my case it was ontario hydro, which is now ontario power generation, and I actually ended up working at what is now called bruce power.
Speaker 2:bruce power which is the at the time was the largest construction project in north america and building the uh at the time. They're building bruce b, which is uh four uh 850 megawatt reactors at Bruce and they already had four built. They were also finishing Pickering B around the same time at East of Toronto and they're gearing up for Darlington. So when I showed up at this job, basically they came to college to recruit us and a handful of us ended up working up there and they did some tough interviews and whatnot and ended up being recruited straight out of school and dragged up to work on it live in a construction camp. But Bruce Power was kind of remote at the time. But yeah, it was very, very it was. My eyes were as big as saucers when I showed up and you get to walk around this reactor.
Speaker 2:And here I was. I was still, I guess, 19 years old and I'm inspecting weld for these like 50-year-old boiler makers and stuff.
Speaker 1:Well and it's all new build, like I mean those projects that you come across it in your career. You know, when you're young if you get a couple of big ones, you kind of feel like you're going to find these jobs for the rest of your life. But as you get older you realize these major construction projects are not as often as you think they're going to be. And if you get to be a part of one, especially like a new construction build of a you know a billion plus dollar projects, they're really really an interesting, you know world to be a part of for a while.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it really an interesting, you know, world to be a part of for a while. Yeah, it was. It was fascinating. I couldn't, I couldn't get enough of it, you know, and one of the funny things that happened to me was because when I knew they were going to, I wanted to get this job because, other jobs are hard to come by, and so I thought well, what do they do? They do a lot of pressure code welding.
Speaker 2:I better study the ASME boiler and pressure vessel code code welding, I better study the as me boiler and pressure vessel code.
Speaker 2:So I was reading as me nine fred to back and inside out backwards and then, uh, so of course they came to interview me and there was these were. One of the guys was a grad from our program from a few years before, and he starts asking questions. But, as me, section nine, and I kept answering the questions until he finally just gave up. We just kept going up and up and up and so, anyway, so a bunch of us get the job up there and we all show up on our first day. And so, okay, which one of you is Galloway? Okay, galloway, you're going to the test shop because you're good with asthma. Section nine what?
Speaker 1:I guess so.
Speaker 2:And all my buddies got to go to the big plant and do a field inspection and get NDE tickets, basically. Then I got to, went to the test shop and bent bent coupons for welder fit like welders yeah. Pipe coupons yeah yeah. Basically, I bent their coupons and wrote up their paperwork for for for about six months.
Speaker 1:So you worked yourself into a corner.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know. So I and, but you know my buddies were working all this overtime and I didn't get any overtime and but you know, basically I puttered around at my, I got a little dirt bike and explored the area and it was. It was good I had a good summer, a good six months or so through there.
Speaker 1:And then and then what happened, you know, did you stick around the power industry or where?
Speaker 2:Oh no I. So the power industry or where? Oh no I. So then I I whined until they moved me out of that and into the big power plant doing nde. So I was doing field inspection and visual inspection and uh, mag particle, liquid penetrant, and uh, doing piping inspection of the new build, working with the, you know, the ua pipe fitters and uh and the boiler makers and the iron workers, mainly the scheme fitters in the, in the boiler makers, because there iron workers, mainly the scheme fitters and the boiler makers because there's a lot of piping. But crawling around inside pipes and doing visuals and doing mag particle and, you know, chase it around after boiler makers and showing them where their repair is going to be. And it was just field inspections, good yeah.
Speaker 1:You know it's wild for young people that are listening to this right now, because you're talking about work that you did, you know, 30, 40 years ago, um, and it's still the same terms, you know, you're talking about nde, and you're still talking about mag, particle liquid penetration. I mean it's. It's seems like it was so long ago and it seems like we've advanced so far, but yet at the end of the day it's kind of still the same game I would be very familiar with the welding process and procedures they're doing on it.
Speaker 2:On the same job today yeah yeah, because a lot of it's going to be exactly the same exactly, exactly as different. As the people are younger and I'm older, roles have reversed. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Now, how long were you a part of the OPG family back then?
Speaker 2:Well, the interesting thing is, then an opportunity came up internally. So I was up, bruce, you know, southwestern Ontario, and an opportunity came up in the internal postings hey, welding technician Ontario Hydro Research Division. Well, that sounds cool. That sounds cool, yeah, yeah, so, but it's in Toronto. So I, I applied and, uh, ended up getting a job in their welding research group as a uh, you know, 20 year old technician, essentially by that time. So what year?
Speaker 1:is this.
Speaker 2:Oh, 83. 83. Okay, yeah, yeah, so I'm now. I'm working in our welding research lab and, uh, you know the the people there just thought I was a welder. They didn't know who like, they just needed someone to do their welds and stuff.
Speaker 1:Who's this kid?
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, and uh, and they were doing some really cool stuff and they had some really cool equipment, and uh, here, like like a guy, like a kid in the toy store, right, this is great, and uh. But then they also figured out that I could write reports and new metallurgy, and so so then they started using me for more, more serious research projects, not just doing their welds? Yeah, yeah. And what?
Speaker 1:kind of stuff would they need to research internally for the company? You know like you're coming up in a world where they're like nuclear. When the nuclear industry came out big, there was a lot of scrambling to come up with procedures and developments of how things were going to do. A lot of it was you know, build it, and they will come kind of mentality and figure, figure it out after. Once things start to calm down, right, then there's a lot of going back and procedure development and standardization.
Speaker 2:I'd imagine that that's kind of where this bubble fits in right well, there was a big push to look at more automated welding for uh pipe pipe welding. It was a big push to do. You know, pulse gas metal arc was a huge thing. They wanted to go more into and automated orbital pipe welding systems. So I was doing a lot of work with instrument tube welding like little tiny tubes, 3-h tubes for instrumentation that were they had some problems welding those and there's a big research program to solve that problem.
Speaker 2:So I worked on that. But I also got involved in failure analysis. So a weld would break somewhere or then I would maybe be part of a team to help investigate the failure. Went to a lot of power plants so they would send me out to to actually talk to the welders and and uh, they had problems with the certain types of welding electrodes or whatever. I'd have to go and investigate it.
Speaker 2:There was always stuff to do. It was really fascinating and I got to go all over the place and go back to the places like the bruise saying, hey, what are you doing back here? And that you know, and uh. But also I helped them develop new welding procedures. So if they wanted to say stainless flux score, we we'd never done lr flux score. Heavy stainless was done with uh, with stick welding and so. But there's this new stainless flux score, so we need a welding procedure. So develop a welding procedure and I go weld it and and then we get it tested, qualified and, you know, to ASME code, and so I do a lot of that stuff.
Speaker 2:And we're also researching how to encapsulate radioactive fuel in titanium and inconels and heavy copper, and we had… For like the waste product, I guess right, well, the high-level radioactive waste containment systems yeah. So I ended up working on that on and off all the way up until I left there. Yeah, so also robotics.
Speaker 1:So how long were you there?
Speaker 2:for I was there until 96. Okay, so 13 years, that's a long time, yeah yeah, 13 years, 14 years with Terra Hydro, but 13 years at the lab. We also got into they were doing getting into robotics and people. Students are shocked, but I was. I used my first robot in is 83 or 84.
Speaker 1:And it was doing non-destructive.
Speaker 2:It was doing ultrasonic inspection. And here I am like I I ain't even seen a robot before. Next thing, I'm all programming one to do ultrasonic inspection. And did you have the punch cards back then to?
Speaker 1:program it. I hadn't even seen a robot before. Next thing I know I'm programming one to do ultrasonic inspection. Did you have the punch cards back then to program it?
Speaker 2:No, I forget, there was big, gigantic floppy disks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I remember the big 10-inch, 12 inches or something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but yeah, I was doing all that. It was just mind-blowing no-transcript on chromalis and uh, tempered bead welding and it's just. It was so fascinating because it's like going to.
Speaker 2:it was like going to school for 13 years, learning from some super bright metallurgists and people like that, and that was basically what I did. It was almost like you didn't have to pay me to go there, can I just go play. But they did pay me and it was a decent job and I was living in Toronto and whatnot. I had an apartment in Toronto and whatnot's it's so interesting hearing your stories.
Speaker 1:I started welding in 93 and I worked for heavy industry most of my career, and hearing you talk about the things that you were developing and working on were the exact same things I was doing, right yeah I'm welding 052 flux core stainless because it's the new thing on the market yeah you know it's the new thing. Fine, where are you gonna get the procedures from?
Speaker 1:well, that wasn't me, but it would come from somewhere right, and someone would give it to me and I'd have to follow it and then like the heavy cladding of the coppers that got into style for a while, and then it was like the dissimilar metals and then inc. Huge right. Everything kind of has a cycle of popularity, kind of in the metallurgy world, where it's like this new alloy, everyone jumps on it, runs with it, and then 10 years later they're like actually no, it didn't work that well, let's try something else.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so yeah. But again, in those days, ontario Hydro was booming in terms of as a large construction company. Like we were building power plants and and you know they, you know they needed procedures and support all over the place and it was.
Speaker 2:It was a very, uh, very fun, fun times but that didn't last forever, because after they'd sort of built all the power plants they needed, they sort of stopped building them and I I I had a secure job but it would have meant leaving the lab. They're kind of winding down the welding lab activities because there was less and less new welding procedures Then money was getting tighter.
Speaker 1:It's just maintenance after that, right, so yeah.
Speaker 2:And and I could have I had an opportunity to go move to one of the power plants and support, but it would have been less research and just more routine stuff and I wouldn't have got laid off or anything, because by that time I had some pretty decent experience and whatnot. But my job would have changed. It wouldn't have been as interesting perhaps.
Speaker 1:So less welding involved. So at what point there, where did you go?
Speaker 2:Well then I had an opportunity to uh to leave, and that's why it was, I guess, 96, I, I, uh. Basically it was we're gonna shut your, your department down and you're gonna move to the power plant the other side of toronto and I just, you know, had a house and stuff, and so, ah well, I'll just uh, I'll just leave and go do something else. So yeah, I ended up going to uh work at a large company in hamilton that made uh railway cars well and, and essentially my job was their r&d coordinator.
Speaker 2:They wanted to invest a lot in new technologies and robotics and automation and, uh, they needed somebody who could do that. So they offered me the position and, uh, I I joined them for, uh, and basically it was that, thrown right into the manufacturing fire of a heavy duty. This was a huge shop like this is the I'd say at the time and maybe still is. It was probably the largest welding shop in canada in terms of volume of metal put down and number of people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we got a couple big rail, I mean Saskatchewan's rail center. We got some big like Procore and GE. We have lots of really large rail yards out here and that's heavy work, that's not easy work. That's not, and they're one of the best paying jobs. I remember when I was teaching at the college here, the students would be like, hey, I got an opportunity to go work at procore or a g.
Speaker 1:it's like, yeah, you're all man awesome, like they're gonna pay you 30 bucks an hour, right out the door, for sure yeah talk to me in six weeks, see how you feel about it yeah, it's a hard job production man, and they were, they were.
Speaker 2:I think it was like 2 000 people and 1200 of them were welders when I was there. That's because, yeah, that's 800 welding machines.
Speaker 1:Yeah you're, you're rocking and rolling, you're pulling that power from bruce power pretty hard yeah, yeah and and truckloads of welding wire coming through that place.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah for sure, just non-stop pallets, yeah. But but also so I go take this job. And you know the guy who wanted me there to help him. He ran, he started butting heads with senior management and one day I showed up and you know, come, come, the president wants to see. I thought my gosh, the president wants to see me. So I go trundling down to the president's office and basically, half jokingly, yeah, we just fired your boss and we're going to put you in his job and if we don't like it, we're going to fire you too.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, not much for negotiating.
Speaker 2:Well, half joking, but yeah, you know, they didn't really fire the other guy you had to know how to take these people.
Speaker 1:But they meant business man. Oh yeah, money's money, like at the end of the day, we're just tools that they need to make money right.
Speaker 2:So well, they had certain philosophy of how they wanted to do things and and something, something you had to toe the line right. So yeah, so I ended up, uh, being promoted by default, I guess, so so now, I'm sort of running the welding technology, uh business at this company. So I had a bunch of people working for me. I had all the welding maintenance people who fixed all the equipment and kept the lines running.
Speaker 2:And I had the welding training school and all the welding procedures and I was basically, and I had a technologist working for me on the welding procedures and the people who ran the welding services group we called it, and then the welding training school was all under my my. So next thing, you know, I got like 75 people working for me.
Speaker 2:so yeah, what the heck yeah it was it was it was tough, but I learned so much there. Oh my gosh, you really learned from the companies that make are tough right, so absolutely, absolutely, yeah. So I I learned a lot about managing and uh and welding process and you know you couldn't. It was like again. It was like a candy land for people who like a lot of weld metal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, so, yeah. So what was next after the rail yard?
Speaker 2:Well then, I got headhunted, I guess, to a job closer to home, and it was a company that made plastic injection molding machinery.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:It's a big company north of Toronto, it's called Husky injection moldings and and they were just starting up a new automated welding and fab shop and they needed someone to basically help them. Again, my job was wasn't in management, it was, uh, manufacturing engineering was my job title there, and so, again it was, but it was all. It was a greenfield brand new building. I walked in the doors like a hockey arena with nothing in it.
Speaker 2:Right, there was basically no machinery yet and we had to hire all the people and get all the procedures and all the techniques down and get the machinery Laser cutting and robots and CNC press breaks and it was really cool. And but again there I went to this non-technical, non-management position, so I could sort of say technical and next thing, you know, every time I came in somebody else got. You know it was rough there in terms of turnover of managers.
Speaker 2:let's put it that way, and so I guess they finally got fired, everybody else and said, well, put him in charge because he's still here, so he still shows up every day, so we'll get him to be in charge. So next thing, you know I'm manufacturing manager so I had a whole bunch of welder fitters and uh engine the manufacturing engineering support and uh and machinists and painters and everybody working for me in this this. But it was a neat. It was a really cool shop too, but I worked a a lot of hours trying to get that place up and running.
Speaker 1:Startup companies or fresh developments within a company are so fun but also so stressful.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, I was a good-looking dark-haired young fellow when I went there.
Speaker 1:Look at what happened to you.
Speaker 2:Next thing you know, my you know I've gained a few pounds and I'm uh, my hair turned gray and I was walking a little bit slower than I used to all right.
Speaker 1:So what came after the plant then, after that manufacturing, injection molding?
Speaker 2:well, the whole time I had been volunteering uh uh at at conestoga's advisory committee, so I had been on their program advisory committee. So, one of the fellows there basically said hey well, we've got some retirements coming up. How would you like to get? Home for dinner with your family every evening and be a college teacher, I said maybe not such a bad idea, but the.
Speaker 2:The hitch was you had to take a giant cut and pay yeah, so that's, but that's always the, that's always the catch that was a catch, so uh, but you know I had a 30. You know, by that time we had a young family and I thought, wouldn't, it'd be kind of nice to get to know the kids before they they're out of the house.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I. I took the. I took the position at the college teaching in the wealth tech program.
Speaker 1:All right. Well, that seems like the perfect segue to take our break here. For the advertisers, you know I was before we started the conversation, the podcast we talked off camera about. You know how are we going to encapsulate your life within an hour, because it's such a wild ride. I think we're doing pretty good. We're doing pretty good. Oh, yeah, yeah yeah, all right.
Speaker 1:So we'll be right back after this break here with Jim Galloway coming to us from Conestoga or from his home out there, and don't go anywhere, we'll be right back. 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. Josephgassesca, your one-stop welder's superstore. Whether you run a welding shop or are just starting your welding journey, joseph Gass, the welder's superstore is the best place for everything related to welding. Come to the site or browse our top picks of welders, helmets and welding supplies specific to your industry. Even filter out the items eligible for manufacturer cash rebates. Our intuitive search tool puts everything at your fingertips and checkout is always a breeze. Pay securely with your credit card at any time. If you are ready to streamline your welding supply shopping experience, visit josephgassesca that's Joseph with an F as in family. Start filling your cart with welder confidence.
Speaker 1:And we are back here on the CWB Association podcast. My name is Max Serron and I'm here with Jim Galloway who right before the break we went through the trajectory of Jim's life. We talked about where he worked, how he got there and then has he worked his way. He couldn't escape the management. Then he finally got the nod, the tap on the shoulder to be a teacher, which many of us got kind of voluntold into that job. And then you're at Conestoga. So let's briefly talk about your career at Conestoga as now an instructor. What was it you were initially hired for? You know in which program and to do what.
Speaker 2:Well, so, as I had mentioned, I had been uh volunteering on the uh program advisory committee, and one of the uh coordinator, or the coordinator of the program at the time it was a fellow that, a good friend of mine who's recently passed uh, karsten Madsen recently passed uh karsten madsen and uh anyway, he, uh, he and I uh sort of partners in crime. Uh helped develop the. Add the third year to the welding engineering technician program, right so they're gonna push to have a more technology based program.
Speaker 2:Um, and that would be meaning adding the third year. So we had the two-year program, welding engineering technician, and we wanted to develop a third year. So I was part of a team, a small team, that helped develop the content of the three-year welding engineering technology program. At the time we did not have the two programs with robotics and inspection, it was just sort of a mix of, and so you know I helped, uh, help lay out the course, uh, courses that would be needed, and uh, essentially I did.
Speaker 2:Now here it is a year 2000, I guess, and uh, and then I was, the program had just sort of launched, but they really needed some, some somebody to take the reins of a lot of the courses at the more technical level. And so since I had, when I was working in Toronto, I had also gone to night school and became a certified engineering technologist, so I had sort of added the third year to my two-year education by night school yeah, yeah, so I I had taking taken the the metallurgy um certificate program at ryerson university, which is now toronto metropolitan university.
Speaker 2:It was called ryerson polytechnic at the time anyway, but they had a really good metallurgy program and so I had studied that at night school when I was uh in toronto and uh, I also took, you know, industrial engineering and some other things. So I was now an engineering technologist, sort of by the back door, and so they needed someone to help teach certain courses, and one of the ones I ended up teaching was and I'm still teaching today was operations management and so sort of the manager side of the being an engineering technologist in the welding and fab world and uh, and also metallurgy.
Speaker 2:I did the third year metallurgy course and weld design and uh, several other courses, welding labs I helped uh update a lot of their welding lab activity and uh, and so that's basically my. My focus was was on the on on the welding technology side and uh, and also not too long after that, uh and, and you might not know this, but Ontario didn't always have a welding red seal that's right, I did know that, yeah yeah, it only started about 20 years ago pretty Pretty far behind still, but it's catching up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not what it is in other provinces.
Speaker 1:No no.
Speaker 2:But one of the problems Ontario had was, yeah, we're going to have a Red Seal, but now we need people with Red Seals to teach it. So people like me had to go out and go through the back door of a trade challenger to become a welding red seal. So I could weld, you know, but certainly that I wasn't the world's greatest welder, that's by any means. Uh, when I was younger I was pretty good at it, but uh. But again, I was driving a desk more than than, uh, running a tig welding machine.
Speaker 2:So anyway, so I I did that as well. So I was teaching some skilled skills, but mostly I was teaching the theory and uh labs and metallurgy and management design things like that. So that's how I ended up uh in the at the college teaching a bunch of different things. As it turns out now, if I look at the three-year technology program, I've probably taught 70 or 80 of the courses yeah over, yeah, over time, yeah over time.
Speaker 2:I haven't taught. The only ones I haven't really taught are engineering drawings and CAD and robotics, but pretty much everything else, including skills, I've taught, and also apprentices as well.
Speaker 3:They're really scraping the bottom of the barrel when they want me to teach an apprentice a third year apprentice how to weld, though they ran out of options.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I there's a. There's a couple young, uh really good, well skilled welders that they have doing that now.
Speaker 1:But good, good, now you know you started at the college right around 2000, somewhere around there, yeah, yeah and now you're, you're, you're coming up on, you know, your retirement, 25 years in at the college, and all that time basically within this WET program, and its development over the time right, 45 years really.
Speaker 2:I've been involved in the WET program since 1980.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so there's a couple of things that I noted throughout your journey and, you know, in these 25 years at the college, you know, did you still find that, that passion to to? I guess?
Speaker 1:have that procedural development that always wanted that r&d, like you really really seem to bright, like light up when you talked about your r&d journey with x company or developing something with you know y company. When you go to the, a lot of people or a lot of instructors I've seen kind of dry up. They seem to like lose a little bit of their passion because it's it can be really repetitive if you're not careful and just you know you're teaching, you know class A and class B and repeat next year.
Speaker 1:Right, how did you find a way to keep that flame inside of you lit for those passions?
Speaker 2:I've always been extremely fascinated and curious about the welding field. It's not like some of the other fields where it's more of a science, because there's this huge mix of art buried in behind the scenes and technique and mystery and and and a lot of mythology too, in terms of why people do things and and why things they are are the way they are.
Speaker 2:and a lot of it's not well researched and and I I guess I one of my colleagues he goes like this all the time when he's talking to people. He's goes like when they're talking to him, he's like what is that? Oh, he said that's my BS detector, so he is my BS detectors going off. Yeah, so you get students using the wrong terms and and and you know it's just people as a mystery.
Speaker 2:A good example. You know it's a sad example too, but we had a graduate many, well over 20 years ago now, and I knew the. I knew the young fellow and he he went off working not too far from where I am now and became electrocuted welding on his job site and no one could figure out what had happened. And I was completely confused about how this young man, who had a young fellow, he had a young child at home and just been married and he was one of our apprentices, he had gone to the welding technician program. Then he came back as an apprentice and he was in his third year and and he got electrocuted and I said how, how did this happen? It didn't make any sense.
Speaker 2:The machine was off and and, uh, it turned out to be stray welding current. Yeah, and I thought my gosh like how, how, how, how come? I've never heard of this before and and and that, uh, that for one thing would really set me on a journey of trying to understand how can this happen and how come people don't know what happens and how can we stop it right, and and things like that. It just drives me nuts. When I don't know something, like when it's when I should be able to know it, or I should have heard of it before and somebody should have written about it, or somebody you know how can we not understand this and so?
Speaker 2:that's just one example of one of these mysteries of the welding world that you've talked to a hundred welders and you say, I quote straight welding current. They don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 2:You know and everybody calls the current return the work, lead the ground clamp when it isn't a ground and things like that and and it's been an ongoing battle for me to make people understand that, look if you, if you stop and think you can save your life, like by not burning out the electrical system, the powers of a machine, so that when you go touch something you don't get electrocuted, which essentially is what happened to this young fellow.
Speaker 1:And you know it's wild because, like I said, I came up in the mining industry and I'd be hard-pressed to find a welder that had not been electrocuted underground right, yeah, but you would have been electrocuted on the secondary.
Speaker 2:In other words you'd be getting a shock off the machine.
Speaker 1:No, we would ground to the eye beams on the machines on the first floor and weld on the 10th and run and we would just arc through the whole building right yeah, again.
Speaker 2:So and I, I've, I'm not going to go waste a whole lot of time, but if people really understand, want to understand that uh, dave heisey, who you know, right, and uh, he's the chair of the CSA W117.2 committee. He's an electrician and he's got a really good handle on the electrical side of the business. And he and I are sort of partners in crime and trying to understand this and publicize this whole phenomenon.
Speaker 1:And you've done a presentation that's fantastic too for us before on the current but there's really two mechanisms where a welder is going to get electrocuted.
Speaker 2:One is from the primary, which is stray welding current and one is from the secondary, which is your normal output terminals right, so I've been you know, and that's just one example in the welding world where people don't understand they should understand. You can read it in a book. Yeah, you can open up the manual of your welding machine and it tells you what to do, but nobody looks at this stuff and and then people start developing myths and bs, basically right and uh, and it's the same with metallurgy.
Speaker 2:It's the same with a lot of welding process theory. People. It's not that it hasn't been written about, it's just that people don't people believe the myth people would yeah and I I'm, you know, I'm very you know.
Speaker 2:Somebody says tells me something I I want to see. Is there? Maybe we can set up an experiment to prove it. Yeah, let's find out. Yeah and uh. So that's, that's kind of what's kept me interested in in, in going, in terms of trying to keep understanding what's happening, and I've also had the opportunity that a lot of welders and even um instructors at campuses that uh may be more remote from where I am, but I know the, the, what, the research activities at the university of waterloo, at the, and and uh.
Speaker 2:I know you, you're more familiar with what goes on in alberta, but you know, I'm a half an hour away from you know, one of the biggest welding research, uh facilities in the world and and I I'm very uh friendly with a lot of the professors up there and I try to, if I can, attend seminars, so I I try to stay in tune with that real academic and high level research world, the leading edge bridge that, bridge that back into teaching welders and try to be that, the sort of the bridge between those two worlds.
Speaker 2:And uh, try I can, I can understand just enough to make be dangerous about what they're doing at the university and I know just enough about welding to be real dangerous to, to work, to work in the world of the welders. And there's this opportunity maybe to bridge that gap. And sometimes it means running a little experiment. Uh, you know, let's, I I got, I know so many little things I want to do, uh, experiments I want to run and and you know articles I can write about it and and that's what I've been interested in and I just again, I see, learning teaching people is really giving me an, an opportunity to learn more about that thing and after I learn, if I learn more and I'll teach you what I know and then, together, we'll go off on a journey to find out even more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and anybody that says they understand welding completely is it's not a thing, not a thing yeah, I remember someone told me once that you never really learn until you teach, and I didn't really get that sure until I taught when I got that first, you know, because I was, you know, 20 years on the tools I know welding and I got two red seals and you know I know my stuff I'm. And then you go to teach the first class and you get a whole bunch of whys and whys and whys and whys and whys and then you really got to get deep in the barrel to the point where you're like you hit the wall and you're like I don't know. I got to go find out, because it's okay to not know but it's not not okay to leave it hanging.
Speaker 2:I but it's also true that the more you.
Speaker 1:You know, you find out the less the more questions sometimes that come up.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, so you know, and so that's. It's never ending. I keep these questions just keep popping in my head like geez, it would be really easy to set up an experiment to do this. Right, yeah and so, uh, and that's been challenging because colleges aren't really set up to do research.
Speaker 1:No, they'll say their funding is limited, like I mean it's, and the bureaucracy is slow.
Speaker 2:The bureaucracy, oh the bureaucracy is almost beyond slow. It's actually it's a terminal illness at some of these places, because they, they really they put a bureaucrat in charge of things that they really have no idea about. And then they're trying to tell and even they don't, even, they don't even understand sometimes, that there are people who not everybody, but there are people who just want to find out because it's interesting and they're curious and they they. They can't conceive of that because they're. I guess the opposite of curious is incurious yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So they're just, they don't care status quo, move forward, don't care.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's that's not me and I've never been that way, and and you know, it seems like the now that my you know my family's more out of the house and whatnot and I have more time on my hands, it's sort of become my hobby is, uh, is, uh, is finding out more about welding.
Speaker 1:So well, one of the things that's been a theme since I've known you and even prior to me knowing you because I heard of you, um in in this field was how involved you always were with your students, not just as a teacher, because you know there's lots of great teachers out there and that's what they do they teach and they go home.
Speaker 1:I've had some great instructors that I have no idea you know. Even you know what they do or if they have a wife or kids or nothing like it's just they just taught me. But you're the type of teacher that you know you put in the extra time and this podcast is going to be released during, you know, volunteer month here in april, and one of the things that that's come up throughout our other uh podcasts for the month is is why you know why someone like you who's got a family, you got a job, you, you're busy, you're you're, you know things, you're inquisitive, you want experiments. It's not like you don't know how to fill your 24 hour clock, Jim, like you you can fill your 24 hour clock very easily, yeah.
Speaker 1:But what is it that makes you want to take on that extra task to volunteer for your local associations, going to the seminars that no one makes you go to, it's just to participate and network with these groups, be a part of these things that are, you know, in your field but outside of your realm of necessary. What is it that makes you want to do that?
Speaker 2:Well, even as example, when I was in college, the local chapter in Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge was called the Golden Triangle.
Speaker 1:The Golden.
Speaker 2:Triangle. That's right, and it was the Welding Institute of Canada.
Speaker 2:It was WIC no it was before, not too long before that it was the Canadian Welding Society or something. I forget what years it changed, but anyway it was might have been wick by that point welding institute of canada. Yeah, um, but you might not even know this. I mentioned I worked at ontario hydro's research division, but just before I had gone there and they were it, the wick was actually the canadian welding society and the canadian welding development institute, and the canadian welding development is Institute had their lab next door to the lab that I was in at Ontario. Hydro.
Speaker 2:They used a space at Ontario Hydro. And then they got their own building in Oakville in this old elementary school and they had this big lab in Oakville, ontario. By that time it had joined and become the WIC.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I have all the original WIC procedural books from my dad from when? He was a part of WIC. Because he was a boiler maker. He was a part of WIC in the 80s here in Canada, and so when he retired he gave me all his old books and I have the full set.
Speaker 2:Well, that would have been what they called the Gooderham modules.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the Gooderham modules, I have them all, yeah, and those were super interesting those were developed.
Speaker 2:I don't know what year, but yeah, it was uh so. But the welding institute of canada was a real going concern. They was a it was. They had lots of meetings.
Speaker 2:I remember I saw my first plasma arc cutter at a chapter when I was in college we went up somewhere, is that one of the uh, one of the gas distributors had it and uh, you could go in and, uh, play with a plasma cutter. And I'd never even heard of such a thing. We didn't. I guess we'd heard of things but we'd never seen one. Yeah, so I got to go play with the plasma cutter and things like that, like that. Where do you get that experience? And you know, it wasn't just me, but all the students like, hey, let's go look at this.
Speaker 2:It was a.
Speaker 2:You know we'll pile in a car and it went down to these meetings and, and next thing you know, there's people talking to you about, you know, jobs jobs and yeah yeah, it was pretty interesting and uh so and then and then when I later, when I was up at bruce power, uh, in the construction it was, it was kind of remote, so we didn't really get involved from that perspective. But but when I moved to toronto, uh, I was in the research lab in the research lab and my boss at the time he was starting a family and whatnot and so he didn't really have time for the association, but he had been heavily involved. And then he said hey, you're new, and you're just new to Toronto, why don't you go join? So next thing you know, I'm a member of the local chapter, the Toronto chapter. Now what?
Speaker 1:about the CWA, then yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, that was the WIC by that Still.
Speaker 1:WIC.
Speaker 2:It was WIC until late nineties, I think.
Speaker 1:I think it was like 98 or somewhere around there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and so now I'm going to. You know, I remember I met Dan Taddick in 1984 or something at some meeting at the Oakville place.
Speaker 1:We used to go to meetings at the Oakville. He was probably with the gas supplier? I don't remember why it was at an aluminum conference.
Speaker 2:I remember I was going through some stuff. I was cleaning out my desk. I found this old there's all the list of attendees I should have kept it somewhere. That's awesome, but Tadd, all the list of attendees. I should have kept it somewhere, but that's awesome. Tattic was one of them and and I learned through the oh yeah, dan tattic's on there, so I met him way back right so, yeah, so, but you know, we had the.
Speaker 2:We had a real going concern our toronto chapter and I was one of the members executive and and uh, and you know we did all kinds of cool stuff. We had regular monthly meetings and the famous rubber chicken we used to have at the dinner meetings at one of the hotels in Toronto and all kinds of guest speakers and got to know a lot of people and, yeah, it was great and I had been involved. Ever since then I've been involved in wherever, either the Toronto chapter or now, more recently, what we call the Kitchener chapter, which is the one close to home here and certainly, yeah, i's met a lot of people and I've always encouraged the students to get involved.
Speaker 2:And graduates, as they come through the technology program, they're going off and I say you're moving, oh, I got a job, I'm going to move to Calgary or I'm moving to Vancouver or whatever. I say, well, okay, first thing you do when you get off the plane is join the local, find out who the local chapter executives are and volunteer and get to know people and start networking.
Speaker 2:It'll help your career immediately oh, and I swear, the one time I was out at we have you know the uh. What do they call the meeting? Uh, the nac meeting, the nac for those that don't know, it's that the national association of the chapters and they have an annual meeting and I went to one of the Chapters and they have an annual meeting and I went to one of the NAC meetings and there was the chair of the Vancouver, calgary and Edmonton chapter. Were recent grads from Conestoga's WellTech program.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I was representing the Kitchener chapter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's been a great opportunity. So again, I always encourage and then, and then my colleague helped get the, you know, encourage the students and mentor them into starting up the Conestoga student chapter.
Speaker 1:So so now.
Speaker 2:I'm kind of got my my my when we go to the trivia night I'm not sure if which club. I should join, but. Well, no one from Ontario won this year, so oh yeah, I didn join, but well, no one from ontario won this year. So oh yeah, I didn't hear. I. I didn't.
Speaker 1:I was about to log in, but I missed the deadline or something, but edmonton took the prize and not even the uva edmonton themselves.
Speaker 2:So oh, good for them yeah, but uh yeah, so I so you know, but it's, it's for those who don't really engage in the different chapters. Step forward, literally. I found that as a networking, you can use LinkedIn and all this stuff, but I can pick up the phone and I can. Oh, I know this person in the Calgary chapter. I wonder if he knows this company. And sure enough it's like you know, is it the old movie Six Degrees of Separation?
Speaker 2:But it's like in the welding field. It's like. It's like three tops Maximum two maybe. But you know, if I wanted to talk to somebody in Nova Scotia or Newfoundland or whatever, if there's an active chapter out there, I can easily get hold of that person and uh and uh, certainly get, and and and track down something or somebody that would be able to help me with something or answer a question. So, uh, it's been, it's been great from that perspective. So, yeah, it's uh what about the development.
Speaker 1:You know you talked about the difference. It's something I talk about with my dad all the time. I'm second generation in the steel fields and and uh and my sister also works in the steel industry, so it's a family affair in our house. So around the kitchen table, you know I'll I'll listen to my dad talk about stuff and he initially is the one that got me to join the chapter. I was. I actually was against it. I was like I'm too cool for that, like I'm a welder. I know what's up, I know what I'm doing. I'm making good money. I don't need this weird. You know rubber chicken dinners to prove anything and I was kind of stubborn about it.
Speaker 1:But you know he talks about how much things have changed and also how much things stay the same within. You know his perspective of working for 50 years in the industry. Now for yourself, from the volunteer perspective. You know from you know being in college and seeing your first plasma cutters with these. You know meetings that were being held by the, by the association then to today, what kind of. You know what's really stood out to you as something that's different and what has stood out to you as something that's kind of exactly the same.
Speaker 2:The challenges are the same in terms of getting one of the one of the sort of negative reputations that we had as an association especially back, you know, 20, 30 years ago, was it's for engineers and salespeople?
Speaker 1:Right, right.
Speaker 2:Well, there's no battle that I still battle that, yeah, you know you got to do. I have to wear a tie to this, you know? No, you know that kind of thing. So welcoming some of the more hands-on people into these meetings and and getting them engaged has always been a challenge. It's you know it's just, you know, I always say it's. You know, one of the reasons welders are welders because they can shut the helmet and hide the world out and focus.
Speaker 2:You know, it's not like you're. You have to interact with, uh, with people you can actually. Or what does my colleague say? Uh, in welding. There are no tears in welding. Or my other colleague said uh, one reason we put our mask down is because no one can see our tears right so but no, it, it is a.
Speaker 2:It is the type of thing that it is difficult to get people to engage, and I think you would say the same in any industrial society like this if you were the machining society or the, you know the. I don't know whatever would be, equivalent.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I think they all struggle with the same thing, so that would be the same. I guess that the good thing would be the same. I guess that the the the good thing would be the the ease at which people can participate with remote technologies and it used to be, if you had to even look at toronto chapter. I want to go to a meeting in toronto chapter. I leave my house in kitchener at rush hour like that's a heck of a trip, yeah forget about it a couple hours on traffic.
Speaker 2:Yeah you're gonna be a road warrior to do that and I've done enough commuting over the years. I don't know if I want to, but you know if push comes to shove I'll do it. But you know it's not something that I would.
Speaker 1:But now you have the option to just sit on your computer and watch it.
Speaker 2:You know, yeah, but it's not the same you know really isn't, but it's something you know, it's so it's easier that way, but also there's so much more noise now it used to be an event where people, would you know, pile in a car and go to the welding association meeting and eat, eat rubber chicken and have a few beers and and, uh, you know it'd be, uh, you know, more more like a social event. Yeah, and uh, and and I think some of that's coming back like it's certainly uh, the kitchener chapter and, of course, you know, jackie morris, and yeah, and and, and the crew that's uh sort of leading the charge right now. Uh, they've been uh very, very good at, uh, the social aspect, uh, but again, we have to keep, keep in mind that there's a technical aspect and we have to, but it's it's hard to get a sexy talk yeah oh, come out and learn about csa.
Speaker 2:Well, csa welding codes. Okay, welding codes and standards.
Speaker 1:I love that you know yeah it's got to be a good mix. You got to have like uh, you got to play all the crowds right?
Speaker 2:yeah, that's right, and that's always a challenge um and uh, getting the right topic, getting good speakers, and uh, but y'all had a. I I was invited to be a speaker at the toronto chapter. Uh, and getting the right topic, getting good speakers. But I was invited to be a speaker at the Toronto chapter, I guess in December, and I did a talk on the additive manufacturing work that we do at the college and it was well attended. I couldn't believe it. They had like 70 people.
Speaker 1:Chapters across Canada have been having record attendances the last couple of years, and I feel like there's almost a desire. Post-covid, everyone was scared for a bit, but now it's like everyone's like maybe we really need to interact with humans, maybe that's actually important yeah.
Speaker 2:So that's been encouraging to see that and I have to hand it to you know the association in terms of the events they put on nationally, like the CanWeld the last couple of years and the one in well, the Industry Day that's coming up in West.
Speaker 2:So it's good. So it's good to get people out. I know it's still a challenge and now with everything going on with the economy and tariffs and you know it's going to be put a bit downer on on everybody, but but I think it's. It's important that we do keep interacting as humans on a human level well, that's the way we're going to solution these things.
Speaker 1:You know, we're not going to solution these tough times alone and like this is what I was pitching to the company, because even cwb group, at the end of the day, it's a it's an industry it's a business and you know there's talks about.
Speaker 1:You know, do we cancel this, do we cancel that? And you know I had to put my foot down and be like look, at the end of the day, we're getting all the smartest people in this country in one room. If we're having a bad time in the country, this is probably the best time to get all the smartest people in one room because yeah we this is a good time to get some opinions and some feedback and get some thoughts, because we need it now.
Speaker 2:You know, we can't just give up Like no, you're not.
Speaker 1:What are you going to just give up and walk away Like let's get everyone together and say, all right, well, this is a Canadian welding bureau association. We're Canadians, we're in welding, let's associate let Canadians we're in welding.
Speaker 2:Let's associate, let's figure this out. Yeah, so again the other thing. I was going to give you a compliment too. I remember and it was funny it was actually at CanWeld in 2022 and I was thinking it was in Toronto. It was just after COVID, and you and I were there and we were sort of standing in a circle with a few other people and somebody comes running up to you and said the speaker just cancelled.
Speaker 2:I don't know who he was or what it was, it doesn't matter, and and we're all kind of looking at each other they need a speaker like to jump in, and I'm breaking out in a sweat because people are starting to look at me like holy smokes, what am I going to talk about? I'm not ready for this. And then, and then, of course, max just jumps in and does a great job. It was hilarious. There's probably nobody else in the country that could have just jumped in and did that, so I got to compliment you on that. You've done a great job and you have a way about you that certainly helps the passion that you exude comes out in many ways, and certainly that was.
Speaker 1:It was pretty hilarious, though, because I I just think, oh my gosh, I dodged that bullet because they started looking, people started looking at me like I don't have another presentation, I just did two, you know well, it was funny because in the post-event survey of that conference I won the award for the highest rated speed. The talk of the week.
Speaker 3:And I thought that was so funny because I had no.
Speaker 2:I had no, nothing ready, no notes or anything, nothing, it was like, and it had to do it right then, like there was no prep time or anything. And it was pretty funny because and it wasn't.
Speaker 1:it wasn't in the welding conference, it was in the manufacturing one or something. That's right I had to do. I'm not sure how it all works, but I had to do a, basically did an hour on how to do you streamline your manufacturing processes on the industry floor like oh my, oh, my gosh and I had I had a presentation that I probably could have pulled up. I don't think I had it with me because I have, you know, probably a dozen in the pocket.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah yeah, so it's just I don't know if I had it on the memory stick that I I would have, I don't know where I could have downloaded or whatever, but well, the that.
Speaker 1:That compliment goes both ways. Uh, jim, because I've, I've, I've leaned on you pretty heavily at many things. You present for our chapters, you present for our conferences, and your and your presentations are always well attended so that you know like. I mean that's, I'm not letting you run away that easily.
Speaker 2:People talk to us. Again, it's, I get lots of practice. Yeah, the only thing is the students have to listen to me for an hour or two, but Well, that's what someone said.
Speaker 1:They're like oh well, you know, I think it was someone like in the GTA. They're like oh, we already seen Jim before. I'm like yeah, but you got to remember that the rest of the country hasn't Right, so you can't just hide this guy in your Ontario borders. We can share him, that's all right.
Speaker 2:Like I say so, I've got various passions. One would be welding safety, another one would be, you know, the uh welding procedure, development and processes. And the other one now is more this additive manufacturing stuff, that uh that we've been playing with at the college and uh. So that that's that's actually what you asked me. One of the what, what keeps you excited. But and I use this analogy I said just imagine that aliens drop this new type of metal on the ground out in front of your house, and you go and pick it up and, oh, this is cool. I wonder how they made this right. I wonder what it does Like essentially, this additive manufacturing. Can I bend it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, how do I test it? How do I? What happens if I heat treat it? How do I make more of it? It's basically like roswell in 1947. You know, you get this. Oh well, this is really cool alien metal, right. So but uh, and that's the way you know, we're looking at the additive manufacturing. Um opportunity is that you, basically you have this new way of making metal that's not, you know, it's not rolling, it's not extruding, it's not forging and it's not casting. I guess it's more like casting than any of the others, but it's different enough, it's not extruding.
Speaker 2:It's not forging and it's not casting. I guess it's more like casting than any of the others, but it's different enough that it's just a new manufacturing method and the material is not really in the codes and they don't know what to do with it.
Speaker 1:You can change things on the spot, basically, yeah, you can change the mixes up.
Speaker 2:How does it corrode compared to casting? What happens? How do you bend, test it? How do you inspect it? All these so that opened up like a whole world of mystery again, of everything that we know about forging and casting and a raw product. Now we have to learn about this new manufacturing method, this new product form so alloying, mixing alloys, um, having a alloy that's, uh, you know, soft on the bottom, like a softer alloy, gradually becoming a gradient, yeah, yeah, transitioning and all that stuff is possible.
Speaker 2:So it's opened up a lot, of, a lot of fun opportunities for me in terms of just uh, exploring it's a hot welding world.
Speaker 1:I was just down in chile at the university of santiago, and oh yeah, dr carom, tello she there she has, uh, her, and she's like devoting basically a big chunk of her lab into the same thing, into wham. You know like additive manufacturing because the same thing. She's like well, nothing's off the drawing board now. You know like additive manufacturing because the same thing she's like well, nothing's off the drawing board now. You know like it's like, uh, I'm baking cakes now and I just gotta tell me how sweet or how sour or how tall or how short, and I'll just bake the cake. You know like, yeah yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:Do you want it hard? You want it, you want it soft. You want to harden this spot and crows resistant in that spot, do you want?
Speaker 1:it jelly filled, or do you want sprinkles on top? Whatever you want, man, yeah, basically yeah.
Speaker 2:It's actually fascinating and if you listen to the true experts who are developing this stuff and there's not many centers of excellence in Canada on this- Down at Dalhousie University, Dr Ali Nassiri has got some capability and University of Waterloo has capability and University of Alberta has capability. How's the university? I should connect you to, dr.
Speaker 2:Karam, dr Ali Naseeri's got some capability and University of Waterloo has capability and University of Alberta has capability and there's little pockets springing up of expertise. But there's a lot of research to be done, a lot to learn, and certainly Conestoga's played a role. We started doing this 10 years ago or so.
Speaker 1:Myself and my colleague Dr.
Speaker 2:Tam colleague, uh, dr tam win. Yeah, he's wonderful, he's a great guy and uh and very he's kind of he's similar to myself. He just can't learn enough about this, this whole, this whole business.
Speaker 1:So well, I have one of your gifts that you gave me, little wham gifts here that you gave me.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the coaster, yeah, the coaster.
Speaker 1:I still got it here. I love it. Yeah, yeah, I show it to people. They're like yeah, what's the big deal? It's like oh, you just don't understand.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that has certainly lit a fire under me in terms of trying to learn more about welding. And again, just a new application for welding and a great opportunity for the welding industry to basically apply themselves to a new technology. So it's been great, so that's been a lot of fun. That gets me, opens my eyes again to all the possibilities, and so I've been working on that as well.
Speaker 1:So at the end of the interview now we've kind of rolled through the train. Now the train's leaving the station, right, you got a month left before the contract's up and summer holidays hit and this is going to be the long summer now, right. So what are you thinking? What's exciting? You now, as you look into the window of retirement and I'm very curious to hear your stakes my dad did not retire well. My dad fought retirement like a grumpy old man. It took him a bit to get into it. You know like.
Speaker 2:Yeah well, I guess I'm grumpy some days, but generally I try to be pretty positive. But I really am I going to fully retire?
Speaker 1:Highly unlikely. No, no way yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to just you're healthy, you're good, yeah yeah, I'm not gonna sink into the couch and uh with a beer in my hand and uh, fade away. There's no way. I just can't. And I'm not gonna be out in a golf course. Uh, my one, my one, uh fear is that, uh, all these little jobs that I told my wife that I'll put, I'll do that when I retire. I'll focus on that when I retire. So, all these little projects around the house, my wife's looking at me now I say well, you are retiring right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she'll pull out the master list on you.
Speaker 2:So I have to, I have to, I have to coax it. Well, it's a semi-retirement, so I have to keep playing my games, For example. I'm going to go to Red Deer and I'll see you out there. And again, it's just. It's what else I'm going to do. I really haven't had a chance to think through it all, simply because I've been in the thick of doing my job, Right.
Speaker 2:So you know, today I left the house at quarter to seven. I was at the campus at seven o'clock. I was in in class, uh, from eight o'clock, and then I had another class and then, uh, I had to teach a lab and I went down in the machine shop and one of the fellows was, uh, helping me, one of the my colleagues.
Speaker 2:I was trying to make these um bars so I could heat, treat them, uh, from square to round and uh, I haven't used a four jaw chuck on a laser in a long time, so he was helping me get it centered, yeah yeah, so get it, so I could make make these. You know you need a four jaw chuck, not a three jaw chuck, to hold square things and uh anyway.
Speaker 2:So, uh, he was helping with that, so and then, and then I zipped home and jumped on this meeting. So it's been a to stop and think about what my next steps are. I have not done that thoroughly, but it will be something. I just don't know what.
Speaker 1:Well, I am hoping and I'm going to put five bucks down that you still are involved with the chapters and I still can count on you for the volunteer work that you do, because as a mentor, you got another 30 year career ahead of you, right Like oh sure Because the mentorship side, like I mean, look at how much I lean on Dan Taddick still you know like I mean I, I understand the value of mentorship.
Speaker 1:I've had some great mentors. I hope to be a good mentor someday, as you, as you guys are. I hope to be a good mentor someday, as you, as you guys are. And you know, and I, I'm excited for this next stage of your life because you know you're going to get some. Some things will be easier for you, right. Some things will be less bureaucracy. Some things will be more just because you want to right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and. And on the other side of that, there will be days, jim, where you wake up and think you know what I do want to sit on my couch and drink a beer all day, and you can.
Speaker 2:And kudos to you, brother Like good, yeah, yeah, well, I guess, yeah, it's just that it's like Galloway, unchanged.
Speaker 1:No bureaucracy. Yeah, yeah, he's free, he's free.
Speaker 2:But then again, if I wake up and it's a miserable snowy morning and I don't want to get up and do anything, I don't have to right.
Speaker 1:You don't have to. Yeah, that's the. That's when it really was good, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so again, uh, I haven't really come to grips with it all, but, uh, I, I, there's a lot, a lot of things I need to. I need, well, and uh, and uh, who knows where it takes me, awesome well, it's been wonderful having you here on the show.
Speaker 1:Um, you know it's great, uh, which is your local chapter, that you work with both kitchener and the student chapter, I assume in costco, yeah technically, I'm kitchener chapter.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm only student chapter because I'm in the class with the students all the time who are the student chapter, so it's uh, it's hard to separate the two sometimes, but Jeff Moulton is the key mentor for the student chapter Awesome and Josh Hyde has been mentoring them for a number of years.
Speaker 2:He's very heavily involved in Skills Canada and Skills. Ontario and so he's sort of stepped back from mentoring the chapter. And Jeff Moulton, one of my faculty colleagues, has jumped into the fray and been helping the students get organized. But the students ultimately run the chapter. But, as you can appreciate, student chapters have a high turnover rate. They do, it's not because of anything other than they graduate and get jobs.
Speaker 1:The turnover rate's equal to equal to success yes, that's right.
Speaker 2:So uh, but you know, we've had a thriving student chapter for, I'm guessing, 10 or 12 years yeah, it's got to be over 10 by now. Yeah yeah, I, I don't know exactly, but, and all the students who have gone through and you've met a lot of them who are the chapter chairs of students, but uh, again, uh, so I some days I'm not sure which chapter I'm in, but definitely it's the industrial version, not the student version.
Speaker 1:That's the well, if you're in the gta and you loved this podcast. Make sure you join your local chapter, really anywhere in canada.
Speaker 2:Make sure you're joining your local chapter because jim is one of the people you will meet at the networking events and and at the things we're doing and you know much as much fun as we've had on this podcast in person, we have way more fun oh yeah it is actually, you know, I it's very one thing I've noticed about people in the welding industry, and I don't know if you this your experience, but I find them relatively friendly compared to other skilled trades, and I think I attribute that to if you're a jerk and you work in a welding shop, you're bringing a bunch in the nose right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you don't last.
Speaker 2:You can't be a jerk because you're just not going to be successful. You're going to get seline somehow. I'm sure there are jerks in every field, but but generally in the welding world people are, I find, are friendly and, I agree, engaging and, uh and and willing to talk yeah, yeah, a lot of interesting characters that, uh, that I've encountered, people I've worked with, uh, you know funny stories and characters that I've worked with.
Speaker 3:It, it's just it's it's always been a lot of fun and that's what I it's.
Speaker 2:I guess maybe that's what brings me back as much as anything is just the people getting to in, the young people and some of the stories they tell and your experiences it's and going to work. You know, let's face it, I'm like. I'm like the one of these mythical creatures that sucks energy from young things. Well, I didn't want to go that far.
Speaker 1:Okay, a welding vampire. We'll call it that. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:Welding energy vampire.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, it is true. It's funny that you bring up that welders are a special type or people in the steel trades. If I'm out camping or at the mall or something and I happen, I don't know, I'll see someone with a Miller jacket. I'll be like, oh hey, are you a welder? My wife at that point will leave me.
Speaker 1:She's off shopping on her own because she knows for the next hour I'm going to make friends with this random stranger and we're going to talk for an hour because it's it's like we just love talking about our industry, you know yeah, yeah, it's, it's, you'll see it at every level you do, you see these, uh, the people, the uh researchers that university of waterloo or university of alberta and you know some of the characters I'm talking about, yeah, but very passionate people and very entertaining and engaging people, and you'll see it.
Speaker 2:Uh, you know the, the instructors that you've known, and very entertaining and engaging people, and you'll see it. You know the instructors that you've known and worked with and the ones that I've known and worked with, and the students.
Speaker 1:And the suppliers and the salesmen and the suppliers, like all over, like everyone that touches them.
Speaker 2:You just got to. You got to take the. You know there was always bad, but you got to. You got to appreciate the good, because I think there's a lot of industries where they don't have nearly as much fun.
Speaker 1:I always say that I don't. I actually don't know of any other industry that has even something remote to what we have as an association like number one we're over a hundred years old and like I'm not yet no, but I mean the association is over a hundred okay, sorry right, the Sorry, the electricians, the plumbers, they all have unions, they have things like that, but they don't have outside professional associations that do it just for the sake of the industry. Well, one of the interesting things.
Speaker 2:You mentioned electrical. They have something called the Electrical League. Are you familiar with that?
Speaker 1:No, no, I don't.
Speaker 2:Yeah, maybe it's just Ontario, but anyway it's the Ontario Electric League and I went to one of their meetings one time to talk about welding electrical safety, but it wasn't electricians, it was electrical contractors, it was the owners. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Which is kind of a specific audience, I guess.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you got the distinct impression that there was an owner's club and then maybe there's the the junior club somewhere else. Well then, there's more of the trade union club what is? It International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. I don't think those two groups meld. That's just my. I could be wrong and maybe they're missing something.
Speaker 1:I think it is like that, because it's like that, I think, and even some of the steel trades were.
Speaker 2:I think, and even some of the steel trades were. I mean, that's another conversation to have, yeah, but I think the welding association, the way it's established, is welcoming to both the hands-on folk and the business owners and the engineering people that support it. And that's where the networking comes in and the engagement comes in. Well, awesome, jim, thank you so much, and I know you had a great last night that support it. And that's where the networking comes in and the engagement comes in so well.
Speaker 1:Awesome, jim, uh, thank you so much and I know you had a great last night.
Speaker 2:Uh, uh, you know they had the roast of jim galloway at the conestoga event last night there well, I told, I told the students it wasn't about me, it was uh. For those who aren't aware what we're talking about, last night the student chapter had their awards night and gala and and so our student chapter set up, the students set up an event at a local brew pub in Cambridge and it was 175 people and over 20 award winners, that's amazing. Of student awards and some significant prizes donated by industry.
Speaker 2:It was a really fun event yeah, real fun. And students are. Some of our technology students did presentations of their third year technical projects at the capstone, projects that they do so it was a it was really really great event.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I'm glad that they had the time to have you out there and honor you too as well.
Speaker 2:Well, again I I honor you too as well. Well, again I I I insisted it wasn't going to be about me so they said a few words and uh, and then I deflected and awesome jim, we'll take care and uh, oh, thanks a lot and thank you for the time and for the people that have been following along.
Speaker 1:Please, you know, get in with the associations. Get in with the chapters. You can see the wonderful people that we have supporting us also. You know, talk about the trades with your families. Talk about it with the associations. Get in with the chapters. You can see the wonderful people that we have supporting us Also. You know, talk about the trades with your families. Talk about it with the kids. Talk about it with your nieces and nephews. These are wonderful careers you get. The breadth of careers is so wide that you can go from any. You can be a doctor, you can be anything in this field, from right from the floor to the top. So, you know, don't don't be worried about finding something you'll like in this niche. There's a niche for you. And uh, and, of course, keep following along with the podcast. We really appreciate it.
Speaker 2:You can be a welding engineering technologist too, yeah.
Speaker 1:At Conestoga program. Yeah, awesome. Well, everyone, take care and stay tuned for the next episode. We hope you enjoy the show.
Speaker 3:You've been listening to the CWB Association Welding Podcast with Max Cerullo. 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 Cerone, this podcast serves to educate and connect the welding community. Please subscribe and thank you for listening.