WELDING

Scotty is the welding instructor here at Tongue Point Job Cops.  He has been here for six plus years.  He is also a part time adjunct instructor at Clatsop Community College MERTS center as well.  He's been welding since about ten years of age.  His neighbor was the weighmaster at the local dump and knowing I liked to tinker, he drug home old bicycles, lawnmowers and such, (choppers were very cool in the seventies and he liked making them.)  Scotty's dad said he couldn’t afford the doctor bills when the bikes fell apart so he taught him how to weld with a torch and coat hanger. Soon he found himself cutting raking and extending forks on his friends bikes too until his mom received several irate phone calls from other parents.  Through the years, he would keep welding as bikes gave way to old trucks, hotrods, etc.

In High school he was in the T&I Welding class and a member of the VICA club  and was a teacher's assistant in first period weld shop.  In 1993 he graduated from the Davis applied Technology Center with high marks in the Welder-Fitter program.  At the time he was structural welding at Syro Steel co.  After a layoff, he went to work with Tesco Williamson as a fabricator.  

In the summer of 94, he moved my wife and six kids to the Oregon coast.  Fast forward, he was invited to Tongue Point Job Corps for lunch and to take a look at the welding program.  While in the cafeteria he was mean mugged by a table of students in overalls covered in mill scale.  As they stared me down as if to say WTH are you looking at old man, he thought to himself, THESE ARE MY PEOPLE!.  After six years, he is still here, teaching the next generation.

Some of my teaching experience and education he received from Seaside Police Dept, where he was a reserve Officer, Clatsop Juvenile Dept working a Young Bay Detention, Scoutmaster of BSA troop 839. Being the oldest of seven siblings and the father of six, he has taken several adolescent development classes and love helping change lives.  He says, "It’s nice to be able to teach something I love and continue to be taught as well. The welding industry will be needing new blood soon, as the average age of the journeyman welder is fifty something. They‘ve gotta retire sometime!  There are so many ways they can go in the welding trade. Pipefitters, Ironworkers, Manufacturing, and yes, Fabricators!"

Work Force Council Assessment Form

The assessment form that you fill out will greatly aid us in keeping our training programs relevant for your industries. Please take a few more minutes of your time at the end of today's meeting to complete this form. 

Hover over the image to the left and then click the upper left corner in the box with the arrow in it, the form will open in a new tab. When you are done with the form just click the submit button.