The CWB Association Welding Podcast
The CWB Association Welding Podcast
Episode 229 with Nick Cotto and Max Ceron
The CWB Association brings you a weekly podcast that connects to welding professionals around the world to share their passion and give you the right tips to stay on top of what’s happening in the welding industry.
Today's guest is Nick Cotto, a Welding Professional whose journey from a struggling student to a respected Quality Control Inspector challenges conventional wisdom about career paths and learning. What makes Nick's story compelling is his transformation from someone who "wasn't good in high school" and "didn't have that attention span" to a professional who now devours code books and technical manuals with enthusiasm. The catalyst? Finding something he genuinely enjoyed and respected. Where classroom learning once felt impossible, Nick found that the practical, hands-on nature of welding education perfectly matched his learning style.
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All right, I can check. Check, I'm good. So I'm Max Duran. Max Duran, cwb Association Welding Podcast. Pod pod podcast. Today we have a really cool guest welding podcast. The show is about to begin. 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 get 10 off any pair of welding gloves. Can you believe that? Use code cwb10 at checkout when placing your next order. Visit canada welding supplyca 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'm trying to find the best stories I can find across this beautiful nation of ours. Today I am sitting just a block away from headquarters here in Milton, ontario, from CWB. But I am talking to Nick here who's calling in from Ontario. I think you're in Ontario as well here, yeah, you are.
Speaker 2:Yes, I am.
Speaker 1:And welcome to the show. Nick Nick Cotto, how are you doing?
Speaker 2:I'm good man. How are?
Speaker 1:you. I'm good. I've been on the road for about a week now, so I'm looking forward to getting home, but that's the way life is right.
Speaker 2:That's right, absolutely.
Speaker 1:So where are you calling us from right now?
Speaker 2:Nick, so I'm calling you from Athens, Ontario. We're a little small farm town community, about 1,500 people, but 3,000 in the whole township. But in the village itself about 1,500 people. We're like a single main street, one flash, a night agricultural community, lots of farming going on out here and, yeah, it's been my home now for 25 years or better, 25 years.
Speaker 1:Wow. So Athens, you said like as in Athens, greece.
Speaker 2:Exactly yes.
Speaker 1:Athens, greece. Now how?
Speaker 2:far are you away from like the GTA? So from Toronto proper I'm probably about three hours. We're about an hour south of Ottawa, so kind of right near the St Lawrence Seaway.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, cool, Cool, and like I was reading up on your bio there, that you were initially born in the United States.
Speaker 2:Yes, I was, so I was. So my dad was actually in the US Army and he was stationed at Fort Drum in Watertown and then, obviously being 19, they used to cross the border here to drink. That's where he met my mom, and then he got replaced into Fort Stewart, georgia, and then that's where I came along. So we lived there until about 98.
Speaker 1:and then we came home and what, what? Convinced your family to move up to Canada instead of your mom relocating to the U?
Speaker 2:S well, my, my mom always had a close connection with her family and my dad's family wasn't as close and connected, so it just made more sense for them to come up here for the support system.
Speaker 1:So yeah, and is your mom's family from Athens?
Speaker 2:yes, yeah, my grandma lives right across town. My grandfather's unfortunately passed now, but yeah, he was across town and yeah, and a great aunt and uncle here in town too. So we're a small, tight family, but we've all, we've always been here, so well that's nice.
Speaker 1:You know the small town communities. I'm in Saskatchewan. There's a a lot of small town, rural kind of attitude. There's pluses and minuses to it. Obviously Sometimes you love your community but there's not a lot of opportunities. Sometimes you have to get space out. Let's see if let's talk a little bit about that family connection. You come back up to Canada. You're just a little kid, you're probably like two years old three years old yep, you're three years old and you get into athens.
Speaker 1:What are the things that you liked doing growing up like? What were the things in athens that were your favorite?
Speaker 2:well, I was huge into sports. Um, we always had a good support system here for sports, whether it was just, you know, recreational or competitive always played hockey, soccer, baseball. It was just the close camaraderie of the town was definitely something that appealed, I think, to my family. That's kind of why they stuck around here. And then, uh, yeah, you know, schooled right down the road, um, yeah, I always say, like there's not much in Athens, but if you're from Athens it's's got everything you need. So that's kind of, I think, why they they stuck around here. And yeah, I grew up playing sports hockey. Like I said, we had a local team here in town that did some traveling. And then, same with soccer. We had a soccer team here in town and then eventually I ended up playing some rep soccer. So I did some traveling for that too.
Speaker 1:And yeah, it's just just, it's always given me what I needed for sure. Now, what about the industry out there? What's the big industry? You mentioned agriculture. Um, like, what are the big draws for work around you?
Speaker 2:so along the St Lawrence Seaway there's quite a few chemical plants. So uh, in Vista, which used to be DuPont, uh, evonik, uhion and Cardinal, there's quite a few plants like that, so a lot of the older generation I find they all did plant work. So we have multiple 3M plants just in Brockville, which is, you know, 20 minutes down the road. Quite a bit of industry. I wouldn't say there's a lot of commercial stuff, like there's enough commercial stuff, but it's quite a bit of industry around here Now, while it's taken a dive a little bit, there was a booming period for a while where pretty well, everybody's grandparent you knew worked in a plant somewhere and was that the same with your family, like your mom and dad?
Speaker 2:exactly yeah, my grandfather spent 42 plus years at dupont and maitland, so okay, yeah, so my mom's actually my mom's a nurse and then my dad. He was doing construction for a bit and now he's doing more custodial work.
Speaker 1:Okay, so as a kid growing up, you know it sounds like you had a lot of great things around you, lots of great, you know, opportunities. But what drew you towards the trades? You know, because not everyone falls into the trades, like you know. First try.
Speaker 2:No, no, that's right's right, right. So what happened? So my grandfather was always kind of hands-on. He had a little shop behind his house, always did some woodworking and I'd spend, you know, some time out there with them. But truthfully, I was never big into the trade, especially as a kid. Growing up I was never a super hands-on, working kind of kid.
Speaker 2:I always imagined myself becoming a cop and that's actually what I went to school for. To start, I did a half a year police foundations and while I always say I was not responsible, I always struggled with the learning aspect, especially in school. So when I found myself getting that freedom to go down because I went to Stony Creek campus for welding but originally I went to the Hamilton campus, mohawk College, for police foundations and I found myself, you know, struggling in class. I wasn't able to do the homework well and it was kind of a fluke accident with it. I went and spoke to the student advisor.
Speaker 2:It was right around Christmas time and I was super upset, you know, I didn't feel like I was doing well in it and she said well, we don't have many options for you to transfer, but we do have a fabrications technique program that has carpentry, plumbing and welding, and you could pick one of those three majors in it. So, honestly, I had done a little bit of woodwork with my grandfather and I hadn't done much plumbing. I didn't really want to touch, you know, toilets and stuff all that much. So I thought, you know what let's, let's try welding. And it just kind of caught me off guard of what it was and ended up running with it. So it wasn't actually my original plan to become a tradesman, that's for sure.
Speaker 1:So what? What was it about the police studies that you didn't like? You know, what was it that didn't jive with you? Because, I mean, were you good in school and high school? Did you like school?
Speaker 2:You know what, I wasn't that good in high school. I just I didn't have that attention span. I always wanted to be that funny kid in class. And I found myself, you know what, let's go out and we'll run the streets with lights and sirens and we'll catch bad guys and you know that'll be fun, right. And then I found myself when I got into the program. Actually I had a provincial fences officer teaching a victimology class and they made it very clear early on that you know, a young white man, you're gonna have a tough time getting a job in the street. So I was like, oh, you know, that's kind of daunting. And then, on top of all the paperwork that I was being, you know, kind of brought to my attention that I'd be doing, I was like, ah, you know what, maybe this isn't for me. So that's what kind of you know steered me away from that idea. That and the fact that you know I was kind of struggling in school, yeah.
Speaker 1:So it's interesting that you bring that up because you know the the concept of what people think is going to be easy often is not right. So you know, even people that get into welding that think like, well, I'll go into welding because I hate school, are often shocked at how much schooling there is in welding, right when they're like they see the textbooks on day one and they're like wait a second, I thought this was a welding class. Why is there all the textbooks? That's right. How did that foundations class turn out? Like you know, you got to try out a few things. Yeah, did you feel like that was a step in the right direction?
Speaker 2:I did, you know, and, like you said, when I got to the class I was kind of shocked by the amount of like book work that actually is involved in it and how much you need to apply yourself to become, you know, a decent tradesman.
Speaker 2:But I really fell in love with the hands-on portion. This course that I had taken actually allowed you to have four plus hours in class in a hands-on environment doing welding. We were just doing stick welding, but just in a booth, but still it was great and I found myself falling in love with it at that point, even though I was struggling still struggling with the concept of learning to work with my hands. I still had, you know, I had good dexterity and hand-eye coordination from all the sports I'd played growing up. But I found myself, you know, struggling for sure with, you know, laying nice welds and learning that that portion of it. I showed up the first day of class and thought it was just, you know, fire that came out the end of a torch. Like you were always brazing, I had no idea it was electrical, uh circuits involved.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I was very, very eye-opening to me now that early experience, you know you're, you're getting into it. Were you kind of looking at it in a positive light? Were you thinking like, okay, I'm trying, this is my second go at college. Now my first go was kind of bunk. I didn't dig it. Is it make it or break it now? Or were you like I'm just going to try this and see if I find something better?
Speaker 2:you know, it was kind of a combination of the two. Um, I was very pushed and luckily so, by my parents and my grandmother at the time, to, you know, pursue school and take something. So at that point, when I, you know, kind of dropped out of police foundations and got into the trades, I was like darn like I need to do this. You know, not just for me, but for them too, right, who were kind of, you know, looking down on me and saying, hey, like let's get an education here. So for me personally, I I pushed myself further, maybe beyond. Then then I would have if I was just doing something else, um, and I actually found myself, you know, from day one I, like I said I was falling in love with it.
Speaker 2:But I, it was a big learning curve for sure, because, like I said, I wasn't super. I wouldn't say I'm not responsible because I had a job while I was in school. I was working at east side marios, and I would always show up every single day on time, ready to work and I'd work hard. But I also found myself during the lectures and stuff, I wasn't able to focus, I wasn't maybe mature enough, I guess, to say to be away from school and or be away at school and trying to learn. So it is kind of a weird balance between the two.
Speaker 1:Youth is an interesting thing. I've read studies about how well people do in school when they're older and we may be focusing school at the wrong time in our lives. You know that perhaps we should not expect people to make career choices at 16. That might be kind of a stupid thing, because at 16 perhaps you should just be playing and you know developing social skills and learning to organize, learning to clean, learning to cook. You know like these basic life skills, Because I run into a lot of 20 year olds that are in college that look lost. You know they look lost and they don't know how to do their taxes. They don't know how to cook, they don't know how to do laundry and they're failing school that to cook. They don't know how to do laundry and they're failing school. That's really depressing you know like that doesn't feel good right?
Speaker 2:No, it doesn't, and I agree with that too. Like I definitely think it's too early on, because as you get later on in life you get those more pressures on you and it's harder to go back and you have to choose.
Speaker 1:You know what you want to do for the rest of your life. Well, and it's always a race. I'm always telling young people like guys, just relax, you got time. You know, like I've. I've rebuilt my career from the ashes like three times now, and every time I thought it was the end of the world, and every time it turned out okay, yeah, and I'm doing all right. I'm doing all right.
Speaker 1:So that's right, it's like you're not in that much of a hurry. But I think what happens is you start to compare yourself and they always say, like compare it. Comparison is the? Is the death of originality, right, like you don't. Comparison is the? Is the death of originality, right, like you don't want to compare yourself to a buddy who's got the $500,000 house at 23 years old and has a doctorate already, cause you don't know. You don't know he might be in debt up to his ears. You don't know how, what's going on and behind the curtains and you know what. Even if it is all good good for him, that doesn't mean you should be there. You know good for him. That doesn't mean you should be there. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Everyone's got their own path that they got to figure out.
Speaker 1:Right, that's right, absolutely now, for once, you got into welding. You know, you started falling in love with that little blue light or green light, if you had a lincoln helmet and and you're and you're looking at this light every day and you're starting to fall in love with it. You're starting to get the schooling, because that's one of the things I love about the trades is that the schooling that you learn, you get to see it in action. Right, it's not like university where the schooling is about all this hypothetical that you may or may not ever use, but when the trade school that thing they taught about you on the chalkboard and in the textbook, literally the next day you're doing it right, absolutely yeah, how did you like that form of education, especially comparing it to your police studies?
Speaker 2:you know what I actually really enjoyed it. Like I said, the hands-on stuff I fell in love with. I fell in love with walking around the shop and, you know, talking with the guys and see what they were doing, and I was pretty fortunate at that time. I'm not sure how it works now, but mohawk college had a program in place where anytime you needed a rod, anytime you need a chip and hammer anything, they gave it to you. There was no like here's your rod, bring me back the burnt one. Like they had a very open policy as much rod as you wanted to burn, you could burn it. So I really started to fall in love with it at that point.
Speaker 2:And I was also fortunate enough to when uh, when I think it was like second month into the schooling Walter's group I'm not sure if you know them, they're a large structural steel firm they came in and did a co-op hiring out of our class. We had about 30 kids and five of us actually got the job to go there and learn under a journeyman fitter and I was fortunately one of them. So that's kind of when it really sparked like hey, maybe you know I've got something, maybe I've got interview skills. But they also seen what I could do in the shop. So that was kind of maybe a spark in my brain like, hey, maybe this is something we can really make happen someday.
Speaker 1:Well, getting chosen always feels good, right it does. You never want to be last on the soccer team, but that's right, yeah. Yeah, but you know, as as a fabricator, that's a whole other journey. So you know you're going through this program of welding. You pick up a co-op in a fab shop. Did you kind of understand the difference between fabrication and welding as a career at that point, or was it all just this is all just the world of welding.
Speaker 2:It was all just the world of metalworking and welding and that was kind of the time in Ontario. It might've happened a little bit before, but to me I was kind of seeing the split between the two. So the guy kept telling us you know, I'm a journeyman fitter, I'm not a welder, you know he only does a little short tacks. And in my brain, you know, so young at the time and trying to absorb as much as I could, it all just kind of blended together. But my time there, my time there, was, you know, amazing. I got to learn how to do some, you know coping on beams. I got to learn how to run air arc, carbon gouging, do some torch cutting, that kind of stuff. It was a very large shop so again it was very daunting walking in there and being like holy cow like this is. This is the real deal, this is the real deal, so it really.
Speaker 1:You know shops like Walters. They're great places to learn because they bring in raw material right. They build their own beams, they cut their own flanges, they form their own stuff and that's a really great place to learn, even just to see all the equipment being used right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is, and they had a little section for all the co-op kids. They called it the co-op dungeon. It was actually up on a mezzanine oddly enough it's called a dungeon and it kind of looked over top of the floor. So I often found myself on our little short lunch breaks. I would just lean over the rail and just look at what the guys were doing on the floor. I found it very. You know, they had some at that time. They were actually working on the Rogers Center where the Edmonton Oilers play, and they had some I-beams in there, I remember, stacked on their side where an eight-foot ladder looked small compared to them, and I was like you know what that's pretty cool.
Speaker 1:Well, it's good. I'll think about you next time I'm at an Edmonton game, because I love the Rogers Center. It's a beautiful city.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've never been, but I've heard it's very nice. Yeah, I know it's cool.
Speaker 1:Hopefully the Oilers can win tonight, but that's a whole other story, yeah.
Speaker 1:Now, at this point, you know you're going through the co-op. Are you all in? Are you like this is my career, I found it. Or are you still like, hmm, let's see where that goes, I still don't have a full-time job. Hmm, let's see where that goes. I still don't have a full-time job because there's a lot of hurdles to still jump through, like there's still tickets and certifications and apprenticeships and all this other stuff. You know, like, how did you feel about where you were?
Speaker 2:I felt pretty comfortable, I knew this was what I was going to do. But again, you know, leaving that shop I didn't know what my career was going to look like and I was fortunate enough to be hired on, you could say, at the very end of the co-op. But I felt a lot of homesickness Again. Coming from that small town with a close community, I didn't feel home in Hamilton whatsoever. So I ended up opting to not take the job, which I've often had regrets about growing up in my career. But now I've turned out okay. But I came back home and I did some searching around here and it took a long time to find the job. You know I must have spent a week driving all up and down st lawrence, you know, looking for work and I randomly applied at this small little metal shop called dowling metal. I mean before I even made it home, actually, the, the lady leon, had called me and she said hey, like if you want a job, we got a job for you and I took it.
Speaker 1:So right away, I love hearing those stories because every now and then I get some, you know, I guess, disheartened young welder you know that is struggling to find work and I struggle with that because I've never struggled finding work and the vast majority of welders I know haven't.
Speaker 1:But I get that some people do just, whether it's bad interview skills or just shyness or or, you know, it could be a number of reasons. But the idea of being able to get in your car with your toolbox in the back and your boots in the passenger seat and just drive up and down shops and apply, I still think it's one of the best ways to do it Absolutely. And I understand there's Indeed and LinkedIn and all these great things. That's neat, but I think that's more for us old people that are getting into like the desk jobs and the management jobs I feel like, at the end of the day, the welders themselves. You just got to roll up, you know, just roll up and repeatedly, like if there's a shop that you like to roll up, you know just roll up and and and repeatedly like if you, if there's a shop that you like to, that you want to work at, like it's in your sight, yeah, be annoying, like yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2:So I I found myself, like I said, I was traveling everywhere, I was going to all these different shops and it wasn't until about halfway through that process I realized, hey, like I'm not even wearing work boots and safety glasses and I'm walking into these shops, so I'm like I need to get some PPE on for them to take me seriously. So I went to a bunch of local shops here around me and actually one of them I ended up working at later on in my career, but you know this was 2015. So I wasn't really big. I don't know if Indeed was around then, but I think it was very boots on the ground looking for work.
Speaker 2:Workopolis maybe yeah, yeah, exactly my mom was very adamant about you know, get out there with your resume and go apply, and you know, sure shoot, it worked.
Speaker 1:So how was that first job you know out of school?
Speaker 2:It was again.
Speaker 2:It was different.
Speaker 2:It was a much smaller shop than what I was used to from Walters I was an apprentice on the floor and than what I was used to from Walters I was an apprentice on the floor and I had some very good journeymen to work under, found myself, you know, on the bandsaw, cutting tickets for rails and doing small little fabrication stuff. I'll always remember my first day I showed up. I was working with a journeyman named Richard and the first thing he says to me you know, some days I'll be in a bad mood. It just is what it is and the first thing I thought was oh boy, what did I get myself into?
Speaker 2:And then I was up on a ladder grinding a bunch of his welds and in a in i-beams that he was putting in for uh, for landings and stuff in this uh building, and I was like, oh man, like I don't know if this is for me, maybe, but I stuck with it and I definitely fell more in love there with the shop side of things than the the site side of things. I was a pretty good shop guy. So, yeah, I just I kept running with it.
Speaker 1:I was just talking to a girl. She's in Saskatchewan right now welding and she's from Ontario and how much she loves site work and we had the same conversation. I'm not a big site guy. I did it for a while. I learned lots. I wouldn't mind maintenance gigs at like mines and stuff that that's not really site work the same. But I'm a shop guy too, like I. I fell in love with shop and it's probably why I got my fitter ticket after because fitters live in shops, right, yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2:So I, yeah, like I said, I definitely fell in love with the fitting side of things, but I didn't find my skills take off there because I didn't touch the welder much. I was doing a lot of, you know, the grunt work. I guess you could say, and that's what you do when you're an apprentice, right, yeah? So I found myself, you know, doing a lot of that side of the work. You know, I'm doing some painting, I'm doing some painting. The guy was not a good painter, still not a good painter, still not a good painter. No, that's one of those unnecessary evils in the welding trade. For sure I was a better primer than painter. But yeah, just, the guy that I worked with made it a fun job. I still keep in contact with some of them, same with my old journeymen keep in contact with them.
Speaker 1:Have they apprenticed you? They logged your hours and apprenticed you.
Speaker 2:They did, yes, although I never actually continued with the apprenticeship program because the next job I went to after they were big on not sending you. They were more focused on the fab work you did there. So, unfortunately, after my level one I got my level one in school and then did my level one hours. I just I. That's where it all kind of ended in terms of my apprenticeship program.
Speaker 1:Okay. So, yeah, and so where did you go from there? You know how long were you at that shop for, and then where'd you?
Speaker 2:go. So I was there for about two years and actually a funny story the company foreclosed. You know the business owner's model kind of didn't blend with the small it was in Kingston, so you know it's still a smaller community and they kind of had the idea, hey, like we'll bid cheap and then we'll nail them all in the extras and that's how we'll make her money, and that kind of bit them in the butt a little bit. So company foreclosed and I found myself back in, you know, square one. I got to go around and find a job with a resume and luckily just down the road you know between us and Brockville Luckily just down the road between us and Brockville, about 10 minutes away a company called James Ross was hiring. I went in and I got an interview. Luckily I had no idea at the time the production manager was my old babysitter's husband. I think that got me some brownie points. Small town life there, that's right.
Speaker 2:I ended up getting a job there at James Ross Limited. We were doing paper mill and pulp mill machinery. It was pretty well all stainless, always in a shop fabricating. We were doing heavy flux core, 045 flux core. We're doing some TIG welding and that's kind of where I found my trajectory and my career and my welding skills really take off. It was working for them.
Speaker 1:Well, as soon as you get into a shop that does any stainless work or exotic metals, the caliber of welding is going to be higher, the caliber of the machines is going to be better. You know, like, absolutely, things like that, you start to notice, um, I guess more of the finesse stuff.
Speaker 2:Right, absolutely, and not everyone's down for that, but if you are, you'll go a long way with it yeah, and I definitely struggled at first there, because you know they had a large machine shop on site too. So a lot of the stuff I would make you know long products all stainless. Obviously Everybody knows stainless warps a lot. And then I had to hit a machine after, so I had to go ahead and preheat all my stuff back straight. And still, young kid learning how to run torches, learning how to, you know, ensure straightness on things. It was a struggle for a bit, yeah, and I think that's, like I said, what really pushed me further. I also got the opportunity to run some you know laser tables and I did some press breaking for a little bit with the press break guy Nice. So I got to kind of learn some of the other sides of the trade that maybe not all welders get to work with. So it was kind of interesting.
Speaker 1:So it was kind of interesting. I actually got a request to do for a YouTube video, a heat straightening video, because a lot of people struggle with heat straightening. And I did some Googling around and, man, there's a lot of bad information on heat straightening online, like there is. I watch these videos. I'm like that's terrible. Don't ever do that, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:We had a well, he just retired recently retired recently, I heard. But we had a foreman there. His name is joe, he's a big polish man, and I said he was the straightening genius like when he said he'd come over and he would point exactly where to put my heat marks on this thing. And I would do it and sure shoot, it would come right back straight. We'd have string lines down everything with little keys, checking the, checking the tolerances, and had to be within remember, like some things, 30 feet long, had to be within a 16. Because they had to machine the tops of these paper mill boxes for ceramics to go on. So everything had to be very, very neat.
Speaker 2:And yeah, he was just, he was an incredible man. He taught me so much. He was one of those guys that he'd tell you once and he had to tell you twice. You better just go look it up or ask someone else, cause he was going to be upset. But uh, I ended up, you know, kind of breaking that accent barrier and learning from him. And yeah, I, I always cherish the moments that he was spending with me and definitely helping me.
Speaker 1:That's funny. I remember my heat straightening mentor, larry, same thing. We were doing these giant potash buckets and they get a pile of weld but the the blade edge is ar 400 and it would just warp. There's no way to get around it. You can brace it all you want, but it's got an inch and a half weld fill. It's all around. It's gonna warp that. And he would just we'd put it up on blocks and he'd be the same thing. He'd run the string. He'd be like here, here, here, here, and yep, do here. And yeah, do it. You walk away, let it cool, come back in the morning, bang. It's like how do you see that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, it's definitely a science, that's for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So how long were you there at that shop for?
Speaker 2:I was at James Ross for four years, literally like on the day, Like I started there on the 13th of September and I think it was 2017 and I left 13th of September in 2021. So it was and I always cherish the time I spent there Like I got to learn quite a bit. I had a quality control guy there and never really understood what he did other than come over and pick me apart, and so we'll get into that later, but my transition into that role, but yeah, but yeah. He definitely taught me a lot too, for sure it was a good place to work.
Speaker 1:Why did you leave?
Speaker 2:What happened. So I got actually tired of staring at the same four walls every day. As simple as it was. I had a buddy, a really close buddy, who worked there at the same time and he had just got a special constable job in Brockville at that time. So he was leaving and I was like, oh man, like I'm going to be stuck here staring at these four walls by myself for the rest of my career. And the place I went to after called Fedorki's Performance Limited.
Speaker 2:I actually knew the owner from a gym here in Athens because he's an Athens guy and he had tried to recruit me, you know, a while back, and at that time I wasn't ready to leave James Ross. When the time came I had. I texted him and said, hey, like do you still have a job opening? And he said come on over for an interview. So I popped over and you know, ironically this is directly next door to James Ross. So I went. I remember it was it's kind of a funny story I had an interview after work, so I left and I went, parked down the road a little bit, waited a few minutes and then drove the back way in and snuck into the building because they didn't want my current boss at that time to see me going for the interview, but I went in and Terry and I hit it off and yeah that's where I started my journey with Fedorkis and what they did there, what was their gimmick?
Speaker 2:So they were an industrial mechanical contractors. So, like I, we, we have a lot of industrial places, especially chemical plants, along the St Lawrence Seaway, here, and they were in every single plant, I think, in this area and uh, so I spent a lot of time, you know, going into different sites doing site work. But again, I had a lot of fabrication skills from where I came from. So I kind of slipped myself into a mostly shop role, which was really nice Because again, I definitely enjoyed the shop side of things more than the site side of things. That was good in the shop.
Speaker 1:But you still got to go out and travel and look around a bit at least that's right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like I said, I got to fit my own pipe, I got to weld my own pipe and then I went to site and got to install my own pipe.
Speaker 1:So that in in itself is very, very beneficial to my experience, for sure now, at this point in your career, you're like six, seven years into your welding career. You had abandoned apprenticeship, so you definitely have the hours for a journey person, but you didn't. You didn't pursue it. That's like you must have been picking up credentials along the way. There's no way to do this stuff without it, you know yes were you picking up pipe tickets? Were you doing uh pressure like b31s? Were you doing cwb structural? You know?
Speaker 2:yep. So I had quite a slew of cwb tickets at the time when I came to fedorkis and then I acquired more. There, you know, I got my all position tig, stainless, carbon steel. Um, you know, I did flux core stainless there. I kind of brought that into their shop when they were because they hadn't really touched it all that much on product and obviously I had a lot of experience from james ross. So I kind of brought that in and got them going on that. And then they did a lot of piping stuff.
Speaker 2:You know asked me b31 one, b31 three. So I got my 6g tssa ticket for two inch up and then I ended up having a one inch and up ticket for both stainless and carbon steel. And yeah, so I ended up acquiring quite a few tickets. When I was there I kind of became the welding guy. Everybody seemed to come to me for stuff and being so young at the time, it was both cool and, like I said before, daunting, because you know I'm still young, my old journeymen they were all in their 40s and 50s and it's like ooh. But I think that was kind of the product of being a welder in an industrial mechanical shop.
Speaker 1:You probably heard it in other podcasts, but I started off in a maintenance machine shop as a welder right. So that experience that you get in those type of shops is huge, because you kind of pick up everything, you become the welder that has to kind of learn how to fix everything and weld everything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So we were doing, you know we do motor removals and put them back in, and I didn't do too many like shaft stuff with guys because again we had some licensed millwrights on site but I would go and assist them a lot and I would do plumbing and I did lots of brazing and it was it really opened up my skills and I would say, you know, james Ross definitely started the trajectory of my welding career and you're becoming skilled at it, but Fedorki's definitely topped it off.
Speaker 1:It's definitely what brought me to the next level and made me really fall in love with the trade itself, whole metal trade, not just welding yeah, and were you worried at any point in your career at this point, that all these certificates, all these great you know tickets that you're picking up all the work that you were doing because you're non-union and you're non-apprenticed, Were you worried about your career kind of long-term?
Speaker 2:You know what? I thought about it a few times, but the more I got into it, the more I was talking around. No, it actually didn't deter me from anything. In fact I knew I'd be that guy no matter where I went. I would outwork anybody if I could. I would definitely try my hardest. I had lots of skill, so I knew that that would carry me where I needed to go. And I've often thought about you know, it's time to go back and challenge the Red Seal. But now that I'm kind of into a whole different role entirely, I don't know if I would, but it's definitely still across my mind and I always recommend to my apprentices you know, do it.
Speaker 1:You know, take the apprenticeship get the red seal, like don't take the route. I did, for sure, yeah, and I went back and challenged my red seal too, like I did it way later. Same idea, um, but I didn't think about it until it was like I wanted to get into management, like I realized like I needed to start having some documents that are just not specific to welding procedures.
Speaker 2:You know what I?
Speaker 1:mean.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, yeah, I get you, and I kind of felt the same way. That's why I, while I was at Fedora Fees, I actually went and did my welding supervisor and then I became the welding supervisor for the shop and then I ended up taking my welding inspector and then yeah, so that's kind of again where I fell more in love with the education side of things, because I learned, hey, if I learn on my own pace and I'm studying something I really enjoy, which at the time I did enjoy welding, I could do anything with education yeah, well, let's take a break now and when we get back, let's talk about what's going on with your you know, your current roles and what you're doing in the world of welding, and also a little bit more about, like, the programs with the inspector course and the supervisor courses, because a lot of people always have questions about those courses and we could probably go over that for them.
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Speaker 1:And we are back here on the cwb association podcast. My name is max seron and I'm here with nick cotto coming to us from Athens, Ontario, All right. So before the break we kind of got up to you know welder, fitter, you know kind of jack of all trades, pressure, welder, everything. And then you start getting into, like the supervisor inspector courses. So that's right. That's usually kind of a big change in the type of work you're doing, right? So usually a lot of people start with the supervisor course. What, what brought you into that supervisor program? Why you know um and and what did you?
Speaker 2:think of it.
Speaker 2:So the reason why I got into that was because at the time, uh, the person who was the welding shop supervisor see, fedorki's had two different shops.
Speaker 2:They had a structural shop and then they had their main fabrication shop and the person who was running the structural shop actually had just left or was on her way of leaving. So Terry approached me and said, hey, like would you be interested in, you know, becoming the welding shop supervisor over there? And I didn't really know it was a course at the time. I kind of he alluded to it a little bit, but I didn't really know it was a course at the time. I kind of he alluded to it a little bit, but I wasn't really sure what it was. So we kind of sat down and went over it and yeah, so he ended up promoting me and said hey, this is part of the thing you know, you're gonna get your steel supervisor and you're gonna kind of move into more of the structural side of things, which in itself was completely different than I had done. I hadn't done a ton of structural steel, except for the little bit I did at my very first job yeah so it was.
Speaker 2:It was definitely different. You know I'd be on a mig welder more than the tig welder or even doing flux core.
Speaker 2:So yep and uh, yeah, so I went down, I took one of the courses that sean perinich was uh, running. It was out of oshawa at the oshawa college and it was a week-long course and it was just, you know, stick your nose in a code book and read code after code after code, and I really fell in love with the rules behind welding at that point because you know the basic stuff of you know like what weld defects are, what weld discontinuities are, and I really at that point it kind of opened my eyes and hey, like there's a set standard here that we have to follow by and there's a reason why we have to do that.
Speaker 1:So you know it's so interesting. Well, number one, sean's an awesome dude. He's still with the company, so I'm around, um. But you know if, if I reset this interview to the first five minutes and you're telling me about how you didn't like school? You didn't like high school, you didn't like textbooks, you didn't like policing studies because it was too much textbook, and here you are, you know, eight years later, and you're loving the books. What happened? Loving?
Speaker 2:it. Like I said, it's just when I found something that I actually enjoyed and something that I respected. I think it was a no brainer. It was easy for me to learn. I would sit there for hours on end and read the textbooks. I still read textbooks. It drives my fiance nuts. I'll sit here and just read and again, it's something that I wish I had while I was in high school, because I'm sure I would be in a completely different position. Not that I would want to be, because I love where I am now, but it's definitely something that I I really come to love and enjoy and respect. I respect education and you know the time you put into something's what you're probably going to get out of it well, I know that the like.
Speaker 1:I haven't looked at the supervisor course for a long time now. Um, but some of the basic concepts within the modules within it like, uh, basic metallurgy. So a lot of people don't really get into metallurgy until they'd have to take the inspector or the supervisor course and I think a lot of welders kind of dismiss metallurgy as like why do I need to know that? But then as soon as you start going down that rabbit hole, you like how did I ever exist without knowing this?
Speaker 2:it's unbelievable. And even in in welding supervisor course we didn't touch a lot on metallurgy, it was just kind of you know the little codes that are detailed about it. We did a little bit of the you know the course book stuff, but I at that point had still already began my you know studies on my own about getting into metallurgy and I was doing a lot of stainless so I was trying to learn about austinetic stainless steels and how things work. And and then it was you know the inspector course where we really deep dove into it. Holy cow, like this is interesting, so I don't know how I survived.
Speaker 2:Um, I thought they were really good and if you've, if you got to be willing to sit in a spot for a one whole week and read code after code after code, if you're going to do the supervisor course but I definitely recommend it, even as anybody in the welding trade, I recommend going and taking that course, even if you're not becoming a welding supervisor, learning why you're doing what you do and how to do it correctly. Because everybody, you know, once they get into the trade, they know how to lay a little bead, they know how to do you know certain things, but learning why you do that and what are the rules around it really opened my eyes to a whole different side of the welding game I didn't know before yeah, and you know that's.
Speaker 1:that's something that I I preach and I think it's very valuable. But learning more like the backend of your trade is like owning a car and knowing more than just putting in the gas. That's right. Like you can get by just pulling a MIG trigger and that's fine. Honestly, if that's your career and you're happy with that, kudos to you. But picking up a module or a code book and, even if it doesn't make sense off the top of working your way through it or or getting gutsy and taking a class, is huge. I remember when I took my level one inspector course, I never had a desire to be an inspector. I still don't ever have a desire to be an inspector and a lot of people think that because I've been in the trade so long that everyone becomes an inspector, it's like no, that's not true. Yeah, but I loved taking my level one inspection course. I learned so much. It was great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that was the same for me. So I recently took it it was in January and it was Derek Scobie who taught the course and that was at Milton Headquarters, where you are, and I, yeah, milton headquarters, where you are, and I, yeah again, it was such a great course. I'd learned about things that I didn't even know existed. Like I came from shops where we did pressure piping but we never touched really as me section eight all that much. So I learned on this course how to do ITPs and actually use the welding gauges and stuff, and to me it was a really eye-opening course. And I actually took the course with the floor supervisor at the time who still is for James Ross, so we kind of coordinated this course together. So I know someone down there and, yeah, we went down and we did this course and I fell in love with it. I wish I could have done more at my previous employer for that kind of role, because once I took that course I wanted to be a welding inspector.
Speaker 3:I did.
Speaker 1:So so now you know what's on track. You know you finished that course in January. Are you still working for the same company? Has your role broadened or changed?
Speaker 2:No, so I actually work for a different company now. I left them and I actually took on a full quality control inspector role as a welding inspector and I'm also the cwb welding supervisor for a company called the fromboys group. Okay, they're a big, big union company out of long sioux. Um, we do all as me section eight tanks. We do api 650 tanks, we do uh tubular exchange manufacturer association tanks. We do all like condensers and stuff. We do all sorts of pressure items, lots of as me, lots as me, uh process piping and pressure piping and yeah.
Speaker 1:So I kind of moved into roll out your old tanks and everything or, like you guys, do it right from raw everything's from raw.
Speaker 2:we're an epc company, so engineering, procurement and construction we're turnkey solution for you for not just around this area. But they actually have a site in Florida. They send tanks all over North America. They've sent tanks up to Baffin Island. They've sent them down to Texas, louisiana, they've sent them all over. It is fun. I'm eight weeks into this role now and I'm really starting to like it. I liked it at the start. I am fresh. I am very fresh. It was different going from being on tools to now sitting at a computer more than half of my day inputting things, doing weld mapping, making turnover packages.
Speaker 1:But I still get to get on the floor and move pipe around, do inspection stuff and I really enjoy it, enjoy it well, in my experience, and I think most people that listen to the podcast agree, the best inspectors are former welders and not to diss people that get into inspection from a purely academic role, you know kudos if you can do it, but the communication with the welders is so much easier if you've welded right, it is and you're not.
Speaker 2:You're not just saying, oh, this is wrong, you can actually help with how to correct it, you know that's right and I I think that's what's actually allowed me to gain the respect of so many welders, because, first of all, they're union and I've never been in a union shop before, so that coming into it was a little off-putting. I'm like Ooh, like I don't know what they're going to think of me. But I was very upfront. You know, I'm not a guy who just read books his whole life I I've been on the tools. I understand what you're doing and already eight weeks in, they come to me and they have issues, looking for advice. And I'm very upfront, I don't know everything, but I will find the answer for you, whether we have to look it up online or look in a book, but the stuff I do know. I'm very open with them about it and try to teach them. And yeah, it's been a heck of a ride so far, that's for sure.
Speaker 1:And how far is this job from your home now?
Speaker 2:This is an hour flat.
Speaker 1:This is definitely the farthest commute I've had to and from work, but you know what that's really lucky for a guy in a small town to find so much work within an hour.
Speaker 2:It's crazy, yeah so, and you know what that hour drive goes by pretty quick, whether you're listening to some music or you throw on this podcast, or I listen to some hockey podcast too, the time goes by pretty quick. I enjoy it in the morning, get to sip my coffee. Sometimes on the way home I'm like, oh boy, I wish I was just home by now. But we also have the benefit that we work four tens, and my whole career I've always worked fridays. Now I get quite a few fridays off, which just makes it even better.
Speaker 1:So man, I was just talking about that last weekend with a buddy of mine. Four tens is is pretty good, like I like 410s, but if you ever get on a 312s shift with the premium, that's amazing that would be great. I love that. You just go and do 12s. You get your big premium, you get 36 hours plus, you know, the extra four to top you up, and then you get four days off.
Speaker 2:Chef's kiss Best ever yeah absolutely, that would be a nice shift.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but not too many places offer that anymore. That's right. Yeah, absolutely so. What's next on your list? You know like you've been moving up quick, but according to my mathematics here you're probably only like what? 28th? Are you even 30? Yet I turned 30 this year, okay, so my math was pretty good there, so you've got a lot under your belt. What do you plan next?
Speaker 2:So this fall I'm going to be taking my API 653. I'm going to become a storage tank inspector and then I'm hoping in the next spring, if I do enough studying, I'll be able to take my go down to NBIC and take my authorized commissioner inspector for pressure vessels and kind of you know steer that on the side of the shop they're looking at getting me into you know quality management for the shop too, just for the tank shop itself. So that's kind of you know steering me to take this kind of course too. And then they're willing to pay for it and they want to send me and so far my boss likes me.
Speaker 1:So that's pretty big it's good you should look into the cwb products for that stuff too, because we we do a lot of quality management training and, with us moving into the us so aggressively, most of the stuff that we do is it uh, it jives with all the other associations, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I definitely will. I'd like to take my at least write the code endorsements for B31-1 and B31-3, for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, now what about welding? What's going to happen with your welding skills? Are they going to sail off into the sunset, or what are you looking at? The blue light.
Speaker 2:No, I would like to start doing some stuff on the side for myself. Keep my skills up, for sure. I definitely I don't like losing skills, so I think that'll be the best route. Like, for example, where I was at fedorki's. We purchased all of our own tools, so I've got thousands and thousands of dollars in tools. So there's there's no sense in me not trying this, since I've already got the tools. I just need to get a little bit better of a welder. I've currently only got a little 140 MIG welder run a little gasless flux core on it, but I would like to get something and, yeah, start doing my own thing, especially if I have three-day weekends now and the company I'm at, they don't care one bit if you do your own thing.
Speaker 1:It's kind of an option. You can get really good discount welders from the cwb membership, so that's right luck there. But yeah now. Would you want to get your level two inspector as well? Like is that anywhere on the horizon?
Speaker 2:yep, so I, my two years, will be up in january 2027 and I am definitely the moment I can go take it. I will be going to take it. That's not a big jump.
Speaker 1:That's a big jump like level one. You know it's a two-week course. It's pretty good. Lots of people challenge it. Yeah, um, as long as you have your weld symbols and your and your and you know how to read the code book quickly or search, that's right, the pdf quickly, you're okay. But level two, you gotta that's. It starts to get tough and not a lot of people go for level three.
Speaker 2:So yeah, so I'm currently working under a level three and he tells me about how hard the course was all the time. So, yeah, I'm definitely very appreciative. I'm learning from a guy who has so much experience, like my boss is. Just, he's got so much code information in his head and he's so smart with welding stuff. So I just I'm very appreciative and it makes me want to go further, like taking my level two and taking my api 653 and doing all these extra things.
Speaker 1:It really pushes me to want to do that now the side of you that wanted to be a police officer you know way back in the beginning, is there. Is there still any of that in you today? Is there? Like it looks like that's a volunteer firefighter's shirt, but I'm not sure it is yeah it is yes so like I mean, yeah, how do you still, I guess, fill that need in you to serve the public along with this career that you have in welding?
Speaker 2:so I I quickly found out it wasn't chasing the bad guys I wanted to do. I wanted to sit in a big vehicle and have lights and sirens going. Five, seven, seven years ago I joined the athens fire department, my hometown, and uh, I've been going strong with that and it kind of actually goes hand in hand with what I was doing with welding, because I've fallen in love with the education side of things. So I'm currently on a course right now. I've taken eight different courses in the past. I'm an instructor for them.
Speaker 2:So for me giving back to the community, especially being in such a small community, has been so important. Like I'm not just even a volunteer firefighter, I'm on multiple different things. I go on in Athens, I run a fishing derby, I'm on the Athens Corn Fest committee, I run a fishing derby, I'm on the Athens Corn Fest committee. So for me it's always been big to give back. And my grandfather, like I said, he's passed away but he spent 42 years on the same fire department. So I immediately, when I was young, like I got to be on the Athens fire department someday if I'm living in Athens, and luckily I was able to accomplish that.
Speaker 1:What year do you think we'll have to make the Cody for mayor shirts for Athens?
Speaker 2:I thought about the last round going for council, but unfortunately they kept it so quiet on their page about the application that I didn't know about it in time. But I definitely thought about doing council too.
Speaker 1:I have too. That's why I joked, cause I see a lot of myself in you and I remember being young and being like, by 35, I'm going to get into politics because I want to make a change. You know, yeah, I was so busy with my career and kids and stuff that I that 35 just kind of sailed by and I forgot about it and then I was like, okay, 45, I'm going to get into politics. That was a couple of years ago now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah I feel like working at cwb for the not-for-profit kind of fills that void for me, because I'm able to give back to communities and work with communities and kids. That's right, rules, right, um. So it kind of fills that need for me and that's one of the things that I think is so great about the welding careers and why I picked up on your firefighter shirt right away, because welders, you know as, or you know the steel industry in general we are in a very privileged positions. You know we, we have great jobs that are fun and exciting, um, they keep us motivated. They also pay us well. So we we generally the best of us have a pretty good sense of community. You know of wanting to kind of give back and and knowing that we're in a good position and you kind of want everyone to be in a good position.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean yeah, I'd agree with that and luckily you know firefighting and welding actually goes so hand in hand. You know I'm trying to get into a steel structure of some sort. I got some good tips on how to break that steel apart, so it's been really transit between the two. You know operating tools and you know heavy equipment and everything. It's been really really nice to be able to kind of transition some skills from my day job to my nighttime hobby.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Now your family. You know your mom and dad, the family in Athens. How are they? How are they supportive of your career and how everything turned out?
Speaker 2:They are the most supportive family ever they are. They're so proud of me. My mom, my dad, my grandma always tell me how proud of me they are. My mom's always posted about me on Facebook and what I'm doing and she's one of those people and I'm so appreciative of it and you know it's. It's definitely made the whole ride a little easier knowing I've got so much support behind me same with my fiancee and I've got two young girls now like they're both very supportive of me.
Speaker 1:So well, you're on, you're on the parenting rip now. Yeah, there's no turning back.
Speaker 2:I'm on, that's right. I got. Uh well, my oldest daughter just turned two this past week and then I have one that's eight weeks old now. Oh boy, yeah, it's a busy household, two big dogs. There's no sleeping going on around there Very rarely. Last night we thought for sure we were going to have another sleepless night, but she ended up getting asleep.
Speaker 1:Good, good good.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right. Well, you know, in terms of your career, you know everything's kind of been going pretty good. You know I'd say you're doing pretty good and you got a pretty good head on your shoulders for where your vision is in your community. What could there? What's missing in your community for the steel industry? You know what? What do you think that? Perhaps the CWB, the association, or chapters or members, what would you like to see us do more for communities like Athens?
Speaker 2:Well, in terms of for Athens per se it's such a small community I'm not sure what they could bring in, but just in terms of the whole steel industry in this area, let's say, like Leeds-Granville where I am, it would be cool if we could get more courses down here, more like, because I know right now you could travel to milton and they're starting to branch out and do courses at colleges and stuff, but just making it optional for more people to take, like I know they have online stuff now yeah but I don't know if you'd get the same amount of an online class as you would if you know derrick or sean are sitting there telling you what they know, because these guys are so invaluable.
Speaker 2:So it would be cool if you get more outreach, I guess per se in running courses that's good feedback, because it is something that we talk about.
Speaker 1:It's like the industry says we need all these welders, the industry says we need all these inspectors, we need all these supervisors, and it's like, okay, well, we run programs, but we have two headquarters, one in nisku, one here in milton, and it's like how do we do more? We have partnerships with mohawk, with fanshaw, you know, with conestoga, you know we have all these partnerships, but they kind of run around the school year. So that's one of the things that we also, like here, are trying to figure out is like how do we get out to these communities and how do I know I got at least 12 people to show up and and do this? You know, because that that's kind of the fear. It's like, well, no one's going to show up and I don't. I don't agree with that. I feel like if I said, hey, we're going to have a thing in this part of the country and you promote it properly, I think it fills because I think there's enough interest.
Speaker 2:Yeah, promotion's huge for sure, and I don't know if that could stem from just even the csrs starting to. You know, let people know. Hey, like these options are out there and you know you could do education, you can learn more about what you're doing and promote your career faster or further on it's.
Speaker 1:It's definitely something I've thought about too, for sure well, we might have to bring you into the cwb fold someday there that's right. I've thought about it I've got to keep checking those uh, those uh listings on our website. That's right, yep, absolutely well, awesome buddy. This has been a great, great interview. What's, uh, what's a piece of piece of advice you'd like to give someone that's, you know, young and thinking about getting in the trades, about what to do?
Speaker 2:my piece of advice and it might sound kind of cliche and I'll expand on it more never give up. And what I mean by that is just because right now you're looking at something that might seem daunting or it might seem confusing to you. There's a good chance one day you're going to figure it out and you could really strive in it. You know, when I was getting into this trade I didn't expect to get to where I am now. 10 years in, I'm a welding inspector, welding supervisor, working in a large shop giving advice to guys 50, 60 years old. I've been doing this forever and they respect my advice. So I would say put your head down, run full steam and never let go of your education and never be afraid to do some continuing education and see where it lands you.
Speaker 1:That's great advice and I believe it 100%. I've been a part of that train. There was a string there where I did night classes for almost 10 years in a row, even though I was welding all day, come home, feed the kids, do my chores and then, after the kids go to bed around 8, 9 o'clock, I'd be studying until midnight and everyone thought I was crazy. But I just stuck at it, kept learning new things, kept learning another certification and another endorsement, another piece of paper, and you just keep stacking them and every job.
Speaker 1:It's not just about what you learn, but it's the people you meet when you learn them too. Right, every time you take a class, you run into other people that are just like you. Then you take another class, you run into other people that are just like you. Then you take another class and you run into people just like you and you start building this network of amazing people across the country, like even you. You know talking about Derek, scobie and Sean. Just, you know, you have those names in your head, you know who they are and they're great, intelligent people. Right, that's right. That network is invaluable, right.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And, like you said before, you know, in the welding trade we're so lucky because I feel like we're we're like a diamond in the rough in the terms of like in the in the construction industry, where we're so unique and we're so different and we can all relate to each other in a way of some sort. So, yeah, you know, when you meet someone really cool and interesting, they, they make an imprint on you and that's why I'll never forget those, those guys who actually live in Alberta, you know, multiple provinces away, and I'll never forget them and what they, what they've done for me.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, well, I'll be seeing them in a couple of weeks here when I'm up in Red Deer for World Industry Days, so I'm sure we'll all go for a beer. I'll bring you up. Yeah, awesome, nick. Well, thanks so much and I really appreciate you taking the time today to be on the show yeah, thank you very much for having me on all right for anybody interested in getting into the trades.
Speaker 1:Hey, no time like the present. We need people across this country, the. You know the. We got a new government in power, new leader. There's lots of new funding that's already opening up under the, under a new government. That's the best time to get into the trades. Anytime there's a shift in politics, the new people always want to flood the market with money. Take it, take it right. There's lots of funding opportunities, lots of programs running. Lots of welders are needed across Canada and we need all levels. We need welders, fabricators, inspectors, supervisors of all levels. So please get into the trades now.
Speaker 1:And as far as the podcast, thanks so much for following and making us a success. We are keep downloading, sharing and commenting and please send us in some fan mail. On the Buzzsprout website, we've got a fan mail option and I have been making reels with the questions that have been coming in. They're going to start getting released soon, so send us the questions any way you can. I will answer them All right. So thanks so much and I'll catch you at the next episode. We hope you enjoy the show.
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