Episode 174 with Jordan Stephenson and Max Ceron

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Canada Welding Supply , your trusted welding supplier . Happy welding in ontario in kitchener right now , uh coming to live doesn't work all right , so we have jordan stevenson here .

You know how do you like living in kitchener now uh , kitchener has been awesome actually .

Uh , any place near the grand river with all the trails and everything like that is , uh , is awesome for walks or bikes or anything you want to do in that area .

Uh , born and raised over there , went to high school in that area and continued to work for a little bit until after graduation and then kind of got that mindset of trying to figure out what you want to do . I think everyone ran into that . At the end they're like do we do university ?

You know that's always pushed a lot , you know , but kind of wasn't quite sure what to figure out . So I took some time and eventually ended up at Conestoga College for the welding and robotics program . That's how I ended up in this area .

Now , that's always a bit of a slough off to the truth of you probably had some type of dream in high school that you were like I think I want to do that and maybe be a hip-hop star . I don't know whatever it is , but what you know , what was it that you kind of thought you were gonna gun for coming out of school ?

That was , you know , this is , you know , when you have a professor that's actually really engaged and very good with uh , you know exactly , that was one of the biggest things . So , uh , yeah , I had someone like that in high school .

I was like , yeah , this seems really good , uh , but one university , very expensive , two , um , it's a big commitment as well , uh , so at the end you're like , okay , let's , let's take a little bit of time , let's take uh , I think I took a year , uh , to try to figure some stuff out .

Um , the other issue as well is that I was I was in a relationship at the time , uh , and that's that's quite a bit away from uh thunder bay to uh waterloo university , which my then girlfriend , now wife , uh at the time uh was uh taking uh the architecture program at waterloo . So , um , took some time .

And then someone mentioned , uh , hey , you know , uh , you know I was working at tim's , I was serving the coffee and they're like , which is a vital , vital service in this country , you know doing , doing all that fun stuff . Give everyone their double , doubles , triple , triples , some quad quote . You see .

You see some stuff there that's gross yeah I don't even drink milk I don't even drink milk , so like even no 25 coffee . Why is my coffee cold ? You're like I don't know , miss , I can't .

I don't know what it is I think about like the hairy sack it comes out of and I'm not really down with that . But I do love my cheese and yogurt and all the other wonderful sour creams and cottage cheese . I love milk byproducts . I'm not slamming the milk industry , Okay , so big milk don't come down on me , but um , but I'm not a lack . No-transcript .

It's not nearly as sweet as that .

You'll fill up the sugar and then depending on the size yeah , exactly , and so when , when you've got to , uh , you know you got someone with an extra large and you put the you know sugar for that one , that's a different size . But yeah , I know we we would have people who would go for , like the quad quads and stuff like that .

And again I I brought up the point about the cold coffee . That would happen all the time where people got that excessive amount of filler in there like creamer milk and they're like why is it cold ? it's like , well , we keep the milk cold .

That was that hyped you on accounting Like , I mean , I don't even know what that looks like to have an instructor get you pumped about accounting , cause it doesn't seem to be like something that you get real pumped on right Like what's what's the Leonardo Di dicaprio movie ?

catch me , if you can yeah , where he's like in secret life of everything , yeah that now that one .

Be like you too can be like Leonardo DiCaprio if you work hard enough , although not quite the same , but you know that again , just , I get very engaged with the students . All that good stuff too . I honestly like if the welding stuff had not worked out , that may have been a route I would have circled back into .

But 30 years down the road I swear that that philosophical training that I got , that mental fortitude that you get studying philosophy , has been so useful to everything I've ever done right , like it and it's it's been really great and like . I mean , things come around , things that you're like , oh , I took the course in that 10 years ago .

Cares , now , you'd be amazed at how often all of a sudden , you're in a situation where like , wow , I totally need that skill right now . Yeah .

Because I had mentioned , like hey , I wasn't quite sure about this whole accounting thing , but to do so , he stopped by and you know he started , you know doing his sales pitch , or like why welding school , all that stuff showing pictures and things he made ? You know , working with hands is always something pretty , pretty awesome .

And again , I can't stress like again , in high school there was a big push for that university , so that had not even been a consideration . So it's like oh , there's a whole path you can take here in the trades , you know , like woodworking , welding , you know any other thing that you want to do , like that plumbing ?

We made like little houses and like other things like that and I was like you know what Could see this working . And so , again , the Conestoga College program was very nice for that , because they offer many different jumping off points .

So if you would take the first year everyone shares the first year you want to go into welding robotics , you're , you're taking manual welding your first year . Uh , you want to do your ? Uh , fitting same thing . You know , everywhere everyone shares that one year program where you learn .

Uh , you know your gmaw your macaw your , yeah , yeah , yeah all the pause , exactly , yeah .

So uh , going into that took the first year met , met some amazing people Again , just you know , very down to earth people , very fun people , you know people of all ages taking that program too was was very nice and so just that whole experience that's quite the jump right .

That does have a whole science and world of other pathways and generally you just see the , you know the welder , the person that's making the arcs fly in that gig that you know how did you get from the one to the other as a possibility ? Did you have it in you as a young person to you work with your hands ?

You know , were you a master lego builder as a kid ? And oh , like , I mean , did these skills , were these perhaps , skills you've always maybe had and repressed because you were focused on , you know , academia or university and you kind of already maybe had that like that you'd ever , you know , got to expose ?

And so you know you might look at something like an english degree and you know it's like , hey , this , this is very interesting to me , but what kind of jobs come out of that ? You know you might look at , uh , you know , history degree , like any of those kind of degrees .

So , um , again , one was that I had a you know someone who was , who interested me into accounting . I was like I can see making money at the end of this was one of those things as well , but it also is a huge commitment .

Like you're at that point , I wouldn't been moving over to thunder bay , would have had to deal with all the expensive university , all that stuff . Um , and so having an option here again , that was the big thing for me at the time was , you know , keeping the options open . There was you can take this conestoga welding program .

It is a single year and you can jump off and you get your , you get your certificate , you know how to weld . Uh , you know , it's one of those things that you have . Uh , and this is this is what it was sold to by the , the gentleman who was kind of introducing me to welding .

He's like hey , even if you just get into the welding , you learn how to make like you'll make you know , excellent , like 22 bucks an hour or whatever for the rest of life . You always have something to fall back on . Uh , as an option there too , uh , and uh , there was the option as well going into this .

Uh , the robotics side of things , which , uh , now that you mentioned it , there too , uh , as a , as a young lad , always thought , uh , robotics and automation was always , was always pretty cool . Um , it's kind of hard to you know from . You know , uh , from a university side of things , you know there's a lot of higher and stuff you get into .

But from the welding side of things , it's like , oh , like this is a very direct like you learn how to manually weld and then you learn how to make a robot move around and do those welds for you in that case , and it was very , very cool . It's , yeah , again , a lot of , a lot of open options there as well .

Conestoga also offered a inspection program as well . So even if I got into and I was like you know what these robot things way over my head inspection okay , we can go down that route . Well then you're back to your spreadsheets , exactly yeah , head inspection okay , we can go down that route .

Well then , you're back to your spreadsheets , exactly yeah , which actually in my current job we do . We do quite a lot of that . So , uh , there , there's some parallels

there too . It's funny . I ended up back in the paperwork side of things eventually , but uh , um , and what about your family ?

I'm working hard at CWB to try to convince not , you know , not 16-year- , not 16 year olds or 18 year olds , but actually their parents at a much earlier age , because I feel like kids have already been pushed off of the trades by the time they're even 12 , to think that that's not good for them and that they have to go to some type of higher learning to

to be somebody . Um , you know I'm doing parentheses if you're listening on a podcast , but or in quotes there .

She actually ended up doing she did English degree at Queens and then also went into media as well and so she's doing some of that stuff now . But yeah , everyone , like you're saying there is very university focused . But again , my dad was very supportive . He's like , hey , you know , would sit down and be like what do you want to do ?

Yeah , just happy to see if you get a job . And you know , going from uh , I worked a lot of odd jobs . You know . I did uh when I was younger . I did daycare , I did soccer refereeing , I did um . You know , uh , what else was in there to retail , did some home depot , some home depot in there ?

Uh , did some of the uh like we're talking about there , the tims , all those kind of odd jobs and it's one of those things you know . As you know , my dad would just been happy like , hey , as long as you have a career trajectory , you know , you see yourself going somewhere , uh , I'll be happy with that . So , uh , again this , this , again .

The welding kind of blindsided him too . He's like I don't know how you ended up at this and I was like I just I just talked to people you know some people were trying to hype it up and so maybe I'm just very influential that way .

Someone mentions the county's , like that does sound cool , you know , if you're just , if you're just very excited and very passionate about your , your job or your hobby or whatever , like it does , it does have a big influence on people . It does catch .

I didn't show up and revolutionize the welding field . The welding fields revolutionized me . You know , like I stepped into this world and was like wow , wow , wow .

You know , like all these things I can learn and do and be , and , and literally all I am is a conduit of that to others you know , what I mean and and I guess people like you are receptive and I think a lot of people are receptive to especially if you're looking for or you're open to suggestions right , if you're out there and you're like I need something ,

what is that something ? And then you hear some story about somebody doing like this is awesome , I did this thing and I got paid really good money and now I'm going to cuba for a month . Hey , what ? Hey , I want those things too .

So , uh , when , when I was at uh conestad college doing all my programming , eventually I was or my program , excuse me , uh , and eventually it was there for three years uh ended up joining the CDBBA , so the Canadian Welding Bureau Association , kitchener sorry student chapter that they have , and so that was a lot of programs that were put on there , and as well

as during the summer they would have open houses , and so the Conestoga would go over there and you'd have high school students or you know any kind of you know people who are , you know , grade 11 , you know that kind of stuff , or grade 12 sometimes , or even younger , coming in and it's like , hey , here's , there's a whole world here that maybe you haven't had

any exposure to , because a lot of high schools can't really afford that kind of equipment or they don't have a professor who's specialized in that or knows you know how that whole industry works . That's true for everything right , like for electrical , for plumbing , any of that .

So , just opening that option to them , being like , hey , here's something you know , if you want to learn this , if this seems kind of cool to you , it's a skill you can learn , you know you can pick it up fairly quickly . You know , mastering it , of course .

Obviously , learning your blueprints , learning to fit , pick that up and be like this is kind of cool . I'm like yes , especially especially when you get them to go home with their thing as well be , like oh yeah , go ahead and build this together like a flower or something . It's mother's day . Put something together for you , uh , for her , or whatever .

Uh , you know that that can be pretty special , um , and so , uh , yeah , seeing that as well , even even in my current uh job too , we have a lot of uh either co-op students , um , so again , high school students who are trying to kind of they're trying to get an extra credit , or whatever .

Uh , they'll come to uh cambridge , uh profab , and uh , they'll do you know x amount of months with us and uh , we'll go through and give their temporary ticket . We'll do the testing . Kind of , show them , okay , here's how you set up your machine . Here's how you do your welding . You know , here's how the test will work .

This will be the next steps for you in terms of getting your full ticket and all that . That's kind of cool too , if we , if we get them their full ticket before they leave's international , literally like it can be pretty awesome .

I know in my communications in the last couple of years I've really tried to tailor my push to young people that just trades first .

Do both , but just start with the trade Because , like you said , the trades you can get into an under one year program in any trade really , and within a year and some of them are as short as seven weeks you know you can get some certification .

You can go out there and get a job with a pension and benefits at 18 years old , making double minimum wage of what anyone around you is making , or , you know , considerably more money . And now you're financially stable already . Yeah , right .

And now if you want to go to university and you want to work on that master's or you want to get that doctorate , you now have the ability to start going to university without getting yourself in debt . So do both .

If you want , like if you , actually your game plan is to go to university and become a doctor and you're worried about student loans and money and family like I mean , the only the very wealthy are going to be able to go down that path without any like serious investment um you know , or coming to a huge debt at the end .

Not for one day , not for one minute did the trade stop , because you can't you just can't like . I mean , the services need to keep rolling , the water needs to flow , the electricity needs to run like uh , and then the bridges need to .

You know , stay upright , except for , well , baltimore was a , you know , not in baltimore but other bridges , yeah , other bridges need to stay upright . Um oh , no , too soon is that too soon ?

Because there are things you learn in a classroom setting , at a desk in university or a college program , that not only teach you great stuff about what you're learning but also give you a lot of great insight about yourself , your ability to sit and learn your little , your ability to be patient and listen .

You know these are things that you learn in an uncomfortable classroom setting , Cause nobody likes to sit in a classroom desk for eight , six hours . Nobody does . Everyone's like . Oh , you know , my kids don't like to sit on a desk .

No one likes to sit in a desk , but some of us just come to the realization that to do certain things you have to right , like you just have yeah , that's uh .

Especially , we do a lot of custom fab for not just Canada but also going to the States and overseas and all that and everyone has different standards . So a lot we'll do CWB slash . You know CSA , so we'll do AWS .

Uh , we deal a lot with tssa , with our asmi , uh pipe vessels and all that kind of fun stuff too . So lots of paperwork there as well , uh , spreadsheets as well . So , uh , in my current role it's been a lot of uh , tracking , welder certifications , uh procedures , all that fun stuff too . It's like , hey , we're going to weld this thing together .

Do we have an improved procedure for this ? Do we have some special material coming in ? Do we have our titanium procedure ? People qualify for it . You know all that kind of fun stuff there .

You don't really think about until you're like , oh , yeah , it's kind of nice to you know , from the client's perspective as well , to have everything you know from , from the client's perspective as well , to have everything you know , all the ducks in a row and all that as well .

But I would go through them as a young welder and not really understand what I was looking at and the diagrams and the heat charts and you know all these things .

But I was interested so I started like picking away at it over the years and then I kind of started you know , learning and understanding and finally , all of a sudden , I just fell into this world where I got it and I understood , like , like I could visualize atomic structures and you know how things are moving and flow and migrate and and and how they exist

and coexist based off of , you know , positive and negative charges within the atomic structures .

And it just like snapped together one day and I just fell in love with metallurgy , which I ended up being a metallurgy professor at the college for years , and what I , what I loved about it and what I say to all the young welders that are learning , because they're like , oh , metallurgy so boring , why do I care ? Why do I need this ?

And I say I I'm honest with them what you kind of really don't , you don't really need it on a day-to-day basis . It's not a thing that you really need , but the day you need it you're gonna really wish you had it , because for me , metallurgy is the ultimate problem solver .

If you really want to know why you got porosity , if you really want to know why that weld cracked aside from like it was too hot or my plate was too cold , aside from those basic things , metallurgy is the only way you're ever going to get to the bottom of that on your own , without bringing in another professional who's , then you're paying them to use

metallurgy to figure out what went wrong . So you know it's , it's one of those things and I always said it to my students . It's the , it's the ultimate problem solver and you're getting into

it yeah , and you're getting into it . Did you like metallurgy ?

Versus my perlite , versus my martensite . All Like , why does that even matter versus my Perlite , versus my Martin site , all that , all those fun , fun terminologies , austenitic , you know phases and all that good stuff in there . And then again the codes and all that stuff too . You know like you're saying there when you're first learning , like hey , whatever .

And now you get into the work and you're like , oh , okay , okay , so for our place as well , for the pipe side , it's like , hey , they want us to do ferrite testing . What does ferrite ? mean again and so you're going back to your notes and be like okay it needs to be between this uh , you know they want to do chemical testing . Okay , why does ?

That matter . Oh , okay , it's good . Yeah , you restart running into all that good stuff too . We're actually just doing , uh , pmi , um , so positive material identification , um , of course , on that stuff too , and uh , it was coming in there with the elements as well . It's's like , hey , you know what , like what ?

What is really the difference between my 304 and my 316 ? Oh , it's my molybdenum . Ok , I do it . You know you're going out there and you're scanning stuff out there too , and so , yeah , you really have to sometimes , you know just kind of it's .

The first time I got to see a pmi gun was on site at a mine and it was so interesting because , you know , they had a person kind of grinding the top like just like the very light sand of the metal before they're using the PMI gun , and I was like can't you just go right on top ? And they're like well , no , I'll show you .

You know , there's a potash mine . The first , like you know , three microns deep of the steel is all just saturated with uh , with uh , with uh potash . So it'll throw all the picks up . Great , yeah , it saves me all the credit . Yeah , yeah , we'll be not a bad word . You're okay . Okay , that's yeah . But you know that technology .

When I saw it I remember asking , like how much is that tool ? I was like , yeah , I was at the time was like 30 grand . Now I see my fabtech like 20 . Um , that used to be like a . Cut a piece out and send it to some lab in like england . You know when I was , that used to be like a cut a piece out and send it to some lab in like England .

You know when I was 18 years old . Now it's like oh , I have this thing on my holster . It looks like a gun . I just push it against this thing and then it tells me exactly on an LCD screen what the material makeup is . It's like okay , that's pretty cool . Yeah , do you guys have a cool tool like that yet ?

And so recently , yeah , exactly , we've been , uh , we have a lot of 304 and 316 coming through , uh , and the big difference there is the corrosion resistance .

So we're just making sure , hey , if we're , if a client's asking for this , you know , because we're a pipe shop and we have those , both those materials , in the same location someone isn't just grabbing a piece that looks almost identical , like um , or identical , I should say . Actually , if you were just pick up two pieces of 304 and 316 .

And again it might seem like a little different between those two , but again that's how you end up with a you know , a pipe system that one section just starts corroding on . You're like what happened here ?

It's like , oh , okay , um , you know as , but as best as you can with the material control , sometimes just nice to have that , uh , extra insurance there too . Same with the welding wire as well .

Like you know , maybe someone's welding 304 job and then they switch over to 316 and they don't think about switching over their wire from uh , that'd be a bad , bad yeah yeah , exactly . So , uh , just trying to , just trying to catch that that made my stomach sink .

They all say high quality stainless steel . You go to their website and you actually try to like , find , like they have a little thing like our materials , and they'll say , like you know , we use only the highest quality grade stainless steels for our razors . Blah , blah , blah , blah within . A week they're rusting . Within a week they're oxidizing .

They're in a plastic inset . So I actually did a couple experiments here at home where I just , you know , wet them and left them out . Wet them , left them out . No contact with steel , not even my face , because you know , theoretically I could have iron in my beard from working in my garage . That could contaminate the blade Like I get .

How easy it is to contaminate stainless . But they all rust Any brand . So yeah , can you take a razor to work , take it apart . Is it too small of a sample ? Can you sample on something that little ? And .

PMI it to see what kind of stainless it seems to align with , because I want that report to send back to Gillette and being like , not stainless , you're going to give somebody Lockjaw and Tetanus with these cheap quality stainless blade .

So I've had my uh uh certification for a couple years , but we just got three new people certified , so that's why they were in there doing some recent training and so that might be kind of a fun little thing to put before them . Be like hey guys , you know , give these a go .

I got some stainless things in my garage that have been wet and ruined and hammered on for 30 years and they're not oxidizing . Like give me a break , guys . Like how is this safe , you know ?

Actually , this will be fun actually well , for all the listeners that are following along on this podcast , we will have to circle back on this for the results and maybe tag them somehow to the link on the youtube channel and on our and on our podcast network because , uh , this may be something that creates more questions .

Or if you're out there and you have the ability to test something of your own somehow , metallurgically , what is in the structure or what kind of great stainless are razors in your standard over-the-counter , you know disposable razor ? Because why are they rusting ? And to hashtag gillette , hashtag , chick , hashtag razor companies , why ?

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But I do want to ask you about your program at Conestoga . You know I have had many Conestoga grads on the podcast now . It just seems like they are a powerhouse of education and just between all the campuses of Conestoga there's just lots and lots of great people are coming out of the out of the province in general .

Now explain to the people listening what course did you take ? What was it in the pathway you took to kind of end up with the job you have now ?

You can take a uh , three-year welding course . You can take a two year . You know custom fab course . You can take a three year welding and robotics . You can take a three year inspection welding inspection program . But all of those share the same first year . First year is all your manual welding where you're doing you know laying down beads .

You're learning how welding works . You know how . You know how to set up your gas , how to you know set up your wire , all that , all that fun stuff there too , which I think is an awesome way to do it because you know , coming coming from the robot side of things .

If you don't have that foundation , it's very you know when you're going into the welding industry , like that's , that's what you need and I found , especially in my current position as a welding robotic technician , is that any operators or anyone that we're teaching how to program anything like that .

Having that foundation in welding is so important , and so the other nice thing about that program , too , is that you can really branch out if you get to your second year . It's as well .

Certainly , you know , if you're taking welding robotics , it's shared with your second year inspection students as well , so you can actually still branch there , and so when I was taking this program , it was one of those things .

There's there's those jumping off points , um , or those swerving points , uh , that you can take , and , uh , I gotta say that that program really is awesome . I'm very biased , of course , but uh , again , so many people in there , so many uh , uh people with amazing , uh , you know careers as well , as you know they've been in there .

So so Jim Galloway has the program . He's got lots of experience in there too . Laura , steve , joe , all these people whether it's robotics or whether it's inspection , these people have been out there . They've done the job , they walk the walk , they talk the talk .

Now they bring you through it , and so having that real world experience , bringing it back into the classroom , is very awesome as well as very practical . They have a whole lab in the back there , too , where you can just play around things . You're like hey , what does welding without gas do ? What does welding with 100% ?

argon do Not good , by the way , not good , but they'll take you through those , which I found the coolest thing actually was just messing around too . It was just saying like , hey , let's , let's bring up a hundred percent Argon , let's do 75% Argon , 25% CO2 . And you just start messing with that . What's 50 , 50 , what's 25 , 75, .

You know why are the current standards the way that they are and you can actually really see that . And again , just just having that experience and then bring that into a workplace is is very uh , at least I found very beneficial , like you can go in there and someone might ask that too . It's like why , why does it work like this ?

Like , why does you know my , when I turn up my wire feed speed , why does my amperage go up ? It's like , oh , because it's trying to compensate , as you know it needs to burn off more wire and trying to bring it all that you know , trying to consolidate all that .

You know , that knowledge that you , that you learned over there , and you're like , okay , they actually explained in like a very practical way there too . So , um , yeah , I'd say .

So for myself , when I was , you know , finishing up there , I went into Skyjack as a manufacturing engineer and that was more of a supportive role . So I was supporting a line of robotics that they were sending up . It was like a seven robot line where they'd you know , pick up the .

You know , if you ever looked at those uh scissor lifts that they have at a lot of uh construction sites , or if they're putting up building everything that goes up and down , uh , they want to automate that whole line . Um , and so , supporting that , not even just through , I wasn't even doing the programming of that .

It more of like the hey , can you do a cut , an etch to see if you know it's actually like the world's at this robot is doing has been . You know it was actually good , and that's something you learned even though you took the robot program .

It was like , okay , I can cut , I can cut that open , I can make a report that says , hey , you know , here's your penetration , you know here's , you know you have those skills , which is quite good , but you also don't have a whole lot of other skills . Yeah , yeah that , uh , you know you could . You can only really learn in the workplace .

Uh , that , uh , you wouldn't really think about when you're . You know you can only learn so much in school and it's it's about then jumping into it . Uh , so learned , learned quite a bit there . Learned a ton at my current location as well . Uh , with cambridge how long ?

But then and then the pandemic hit and it was like okay , now things are really up in the air .

Um , and so you know the thought process there was like they have a lot of custom fab , can we get the robot to do some of this ?

And so , uh , especially during the pandemic it's like I'm just going to be in the corner here working on a robot was very valuable at the time , so got hired on to work on that and get that line up and running , which was which was difficult , honestly , like we were talking about there . We we learned robotics in school .

But then there's like hey , you know , now , instead of just like a little you know , 10 foot by 10 foot cell , you have this monster of a cell here with this robot that's moving back and forth and multiple fixtures and setups and yeah it's , it can . It can be quite daunting there too .

So , uh , as well as the just the sheer amount of programming that you'd have to do with , that too , uh , as well as offline programming . So instead of like sitting there with your teach pen and moving the robot around , you know , now you're in a virtual cell , so we use octobuzz uh , and so now you've got to learn now .

Now you're bringing your cad skills in , so your auto cad , uh , your solid works , um , you know , all those fun other things that that you , uh , you know may have just been experienced , like you know , uh , touched on yeah yeah , yeah , in a work setting . So , um , yeah , that that was quite nice .

So , uh , once the robot , you know , was starting to get working fairly well , they then , uh , ran into , like , hey , we have some procedures that need to get done . Uh , would you , you know , was starting to get working fairly well . They then ran into , like , hey , we have some procedures that need to get done , would you be ?

You know , you're a welding guy and you're here .

So I forever love that I cut my teeth there because you know I'm like I had this thought I'm going to weld and it's like , actually I don't really weld that much but I'm sure doing a lot of cool stuff , you know .

You can lose a lot of that , so they're uh often looking to like pass that along , um , and so if you , if you get a good mentor , you get somewhere that has a good vibe , yeah , that can be . That can be an awesome uh opportunity . Uh , so for there as well , uh learned how to uh you know , you know being a cwb supervisor as well .

So getting people their uh temporary qualifications , so actually giving them the tests you know , booking those qualification sessions , putting the you know the test pieces together , learning how that whole process works and how you know , like from a welding side of things . You're just in there , you do your testing , your certification Awesome .

And then the back , but like the background of that too and how all that is managed is pretty cool If you're , if you're .

Yeah , now here's kind of a loaded question , but you know , since you're in the field of , you know , robotics and automation it just came up again in my in my you know , usual instagram conversations I have with the people out in the welding world is , uh , you know , like why would I support , you know , me max support automation and robotics and um , if it's

ultimately just going to take work away from welders ? Now I wholeheartedly don't agree with that statement . Statistically and factually , over the last 30 years of my career , I've been reading reports and I've been very plugged into the industry . It's been proven that automation actually increases the amount of workforce in said companies .

That aside , there is a transition of labor that occurs from the welder to perhaps the welding robot operator . Or you know someone who was just in a cell working all day building one part that now is the spot where automation is looking to replace . Now , does that mean that that person lost their job ? Yes , did that person lose their career ?

No , you know , there there's a distinction there and I always make , like the the horse and carton analogy

. You know , like henry ford was brutal on the horse and cart industry , right , like the invention of the first car probably had the horseshoe makers all sweating , being like , well , now what ? Everyone's going to be buying these damn cars . What's going to happen ?

Now it's a niche thing that I sell on etsy to make 400 bucks extra a month . You know , not not feeding my family , right you like ? Since you're in this world , what are your thoughts ? You know , if someone were to come up to you and say you know why would you support this ?

Or where do you see this going since , uh , you know , the robots are taken over .

Or like you might be asked like , hey , can you weld this ? And there's just a lot of like , especially from the fitting side of things , like if you're a fitter , or if you , you know , have many different skills that way , like there's so much that robotics will never replace , or at least not for a very , very long time , that I can see .

The perfect example is that our current project are all these boxes , so we have , you know , 70 , no , yeah , they're in total 70 feet and each panel is 35 feet , and they have all these pockets that you need to stitch , weld , and each side has about 11 welds , so you have 11 . Let me just do this real quick . I'm pretty sure it's 11 by 11 .

So , yeah , each pocket has that'd be 44 on each pocket and then each pocket would be six times 88 for each side . Yeah , so if you want to sit there for these panels , uh , and do 264 stitch welds like that , that's I mean that that's on you .

But the more interesting side of it is that once all those are in , they have to put them bars on and then make a box out of it . They have to pick it up and make these again .

These huge panels have to be put together into a box , and so currently on our project , uh , we do , we automate the stitch side of things and then fitters will come in and then actually make those boxes or they'll put all the little extra welds that need to go on there .

And when we started introducing this automation uh to it , we got uh , our operators are the same people who were working on those boxes . So again , you're , you know , if you're someone who's interested in learning more things . We had a gentleman there who was like hey , do you mind if I get involved with this ?

We said , yeah , of course we're looking for people who are interested in both the welding side and the automation side . So he learned how to operate it , he learned how to move it around , restart it , all that good stuff there . And it's just a good opportunity , because then you press play and it's going in the background too yeah it is , it is huge , it's .

It's a tool , it's a uh . You know , you , you really can't just have like a robot guy come in and do that . You really need someone who has gone through the welding side of things as well .

Um , and so , especially for our industry , trying to find people who are interested in both those um is can't , can be tough , but you know , if you're going to learn that kind of stuff , it can be uh , really rewarding . And also take a like I did . I did make production welding . You know I uh .

You know , after my first year I did uh , uh , I did night shift at a uh production plant in my hometown and the whole time I was doing there I was like man , you could , you could really automate this . Like like a little piece comes in , you weld it .

You know , go to the next little piece comes in , you weld it , and it's like if someone's worried about losing that job , I mean , maybe if you like putting headphones in , just going like mindlessly , but I think after a while you'd start to lose your mind .

But the more interesting side of things again , the , the things that require a lot of uh thought and you know , like putting like your blueprint reading skills , your fitting skills , all that kind of stuff . Automation isn't gonna touch that .

Ai has no independent thought , it is completely just a wholesale introduction of everything that has ever existed , reformatted in a , in a , in a different way . But true creativity and true like , uh , ingenuity is not something computers may ever be able to do because , know , they don't , they don't understand chaos .

You know , we , our human brains , have chaos in them and chaos is unique .

It's a unique thing that we can do , that we can pull something that seemingly , seemingly out of nothing , without any reference necessarily , and you know , like , we can dream of unicorns and dragons and things that don't exist and never have , but we can still dream them up , you know , without a context , and that's something that doesn't exist .

So when I read that quote , I thought about that in terms of welding and I thought , yes , now it's the people that are in the mediocrity business that feel endangered , and that's fair , because I don't think that that's necessarily of any less value .

You know the people that do those one-off welds or that are building tables or window bars or all these things that we use in society gates and fences that seem to be like prime automation . You know places .

Yes , those jobs are probably the ones that are at risk of being replaced and , yes , that is scary for the people that do those industries and they're probably the ones that are at risk of being replaced and , yes , that is scary for the people that do those industries and they're probably the ones the most vocal about .

You know , like what's happening with automation , but hopefully , what we can do . You know the CWB champions , people like yourself , all people out there is just let people know that it's just a transition , as all transitions go in the world . You know like it , just as all transitions go in the world .

You know like it's just you're going to just have to transition from what you do Now . You have the skills , have confidence in your skills and you will likely be .

You know it's a six week course on running the pendant for the robot that's going to come in here and now you're going to be a highly skilled , trained worker doing the same job you did before for more pay and less effort , you know , but it just takes that scary transition period . That's it , and it'll be okay .

Like why am I getting blow through on this ? Like you , you need those people who are experienced with welding to go in there and operate that like . It's not like the robot just does everything , or it's not like the robot's taking over , it's that it's helping you there , because then you've got more time to do the more interesting things .

Um , I brought up , I brought up the stitches earlier specifically , because that's all of those stitches that they would have had to do were on their hands and knees , like going through . Like okay , here's a stitch , here's one inch , one inch , one inch .

Yeah , well , my shoulder , my knees and my back were really in bad shape by my mid-30s , and then I kind of decided to get out of the off the floor and into the office so , and now I just got fat .

Like I think , like I mean , I used to be a business owner and you know you'd have to spend , you know , a couple hundred thousand dollars on a piece of equipment to do one thing . Now you can go out and get some amazing equipment for 20 grand , 30 grand that will do so many things that I , I'm , I'm just like it .

To me it's like technology is facilitating the ability for welders to be more , do more with less yeah , I'm excited .

this year . And , like you said , there's so much different technology out there . For a while there we were looking into more automation in our plants and Cobots came up which I thought were very interesting . You know way of doing things where you're actually , instead of being on a pennant moving the robot around , you have to think you're xyz .

You know you're in tool mode , how you're moving the robot around . It's like , oh , you just physically grab it and move it where you want to go press start , press finish and then hit go exactly .

Yeah , it's like man just taking those , those barriers away from you know , because when , when we were trying to find operators for the robot too , we're trying to find find someone for nights . A lot of the time they're like oh I'm , you know , I , you know way too much for me .

Automate Like I'm not smart enough , it's like no man , it's like this is like one , you don't , don't put yourself down that way . And two , it's again they can do this too , and learning new skills , all that good stuff there too . So , yeah , I'll be excited .

He's like think about your remote for your TV , and I was was like all right he's like every time a new , bigger tv comes out , you're there to buy one . Look at , you know , look at black friday . Or you know boxing day sales , and you know every year or every couple years , everyone's going to go out and buy the newer , bigger tv .

How often do you hear someone say I'm not going to buy that TV because the remote changed . Nobody cares . If you're willing to want something , you will accept the need to learn the technology behind it . You will accept that this remote's different than the last one you had . You'll learn the buttons and you'll figure it out because you'll want to use it .

If you approach all the pieces of technology like that in your life , you will learn , you will pick it up and you'll figure it out , because it's just about want , that's all it is . If you put up the barrier in your head being like I don't want to do that , then you won't , you won't , you just won't , Right .

Why volunteer , why be a part of this , why take time out of your days to volunteer for the local CWB association kitchener job .

You're like , hey , maybe in your job you see the same co-workers all the time you work with them . All that good stuff too . It's nice to see other perspectives , though , and to see other people from different parts of the industry and get to talk to them too . That's one of the main parts of the chapter too , as well .

As you know , I felt very blessed having been exposed to a good side of welding . Like you know , people putting on events and all this kind of stuff too .

It's kind of nice to think that you're giving back in some way , or like you're helping to promote the industry that way too , because you know there are a lot of people out there that don't have that exposure to welding , and so trying to put events together or support that , like right now , know , kitchener chapter is trying to find uh high schools that will

take uh donations , or , you know whether it's weld helmets , uh weld metal , um , you know , consumables any of that kind of stuff ?

someone you know if , if your school has someone who is interested but maybe can't get the funds , and so being able to get them that with resources that they need to teach these skills that you know your students might otherwise not be exposed to , um , I'd say that that's probably one of the biggest draws , as well as putting on events as well .

I know jim galloway will do some . You know , presentations . There was a recent one that we did on , uh , what was it ? Additive manufacturing . So that would be , uh , you know , like 3d printing , but with welding , which is actually pretty awesome . Um , you know all all those cool things in the industry , so , uh , yeah , I'd say .

You know , instead of learning about it on , you know , instagram or you know anywhere , you get your like , linkedin , any of your social media stuff .

There , too , it's like , oh , okay , here's , here's where those decisions are actually made , here's where we get to hear about it , and we'll often discuss other chapters as well , like , maybe they might be putting an event on , or we're trying to figure out a collab or something like that .

You know I do get asked , you know , like why would anyone spend time like they're already working , they're already making money , why would they volunteer to be a part of this ?

And it's like , well , there's a certain sense of self-preservation that the welding industry has always had that I feel like maybe other trades don't , that that hurts them and helps us because there's been an understanding .

Well , the association's over 100 years old 103 I think this year and the the whole concept mandate behind it from day one is that if we're not working to make sure there's more welders coming , we put our own jobs at jeopardy . Because the industry needs to propagate itself and the trades have always been kind of undermined by mainstream .

You know thought , you know thought leadership that . You know universities way to go , these clean desk , white collar jobs , is way to go . So with that bias it's kind of always been around .

The welding industry , very early on , decided to be like we need to protect ourselves , we need to somehow invest in our own pathways , our own welders , our own next generation and and I think that that's also important because if you want your own job to be secure and successful for the next 50 years , you do kind of have to care about what's coming down the

pipeline . You do kind of have to care about what's coming up and how many students there are , because if there isn't a lot of students coming out of the program to fill the jobs , then those jobs will get shut down and those jobs will get lost and those companies will go broke and it does filter and trickle down the system .

So I think that you know the welding community is very unique because we have these professional associations around the world .

You know we have AWS , we have CWB , we have IIW , we have these , you know these wonderful programs and you don't see that for electricians or plumbers or carpenters , or you know like it's actually quite impressive that somehow welding has captured that space .

You know , getting the other 50% of the population more involved with the trades is a huge part of that as well . You know part of the chapter here too , there's been Daniella and Jackie . You know these people are very passionate about it and I think that shows that when you get these passionate people in the industry , they start bringing more people in .

As I mentioned , the Women in Welding Day , there's some of that . Hit Conestoga College putting that on . I've noticed even in our workplace there's lot more . It looks like women like getting into the industry that way as well um , you know , a lot more of our percentage of welders are starting to go that way .

Uh , and that's just good to see like , and I I would I love to support that as well . Uh , with that going on , um , you know both , both from the high school things and just just trying to get more people uh knowing about these different events that are going on and different ways of entering , and that this is an option like it's .

I mean it's the amount of work in canada is insane . Right now that I , I and you know I don't even understand how people are complaining about our , our economic structure . Right now we are set for a decade . What we do need is labor . That that's what we need . So you know the message is out there .

If you got young kids , you know , start pushing them towards a trade and like , if you're worried about the danger , well , there's lots of stuff in those trades that's not in the danger spectrum . There is stuff in the danger spectrum and that's fine . There's going to always be a section of the population that loves the risk work and that's cool .

I did the risk work for a while . I didn't do it for very long because it is risky . But you sure make a lot of money doing those jobs and there's nothing wrong with that . But if you don't want that , that's fine . That shouldn't be a turn off of the trade .

If you get into an industry is like you know whether it's electric , electrical , plumbing , all that kind of stuff . There too is like you get in there and a risk assessment , you know , go to a , you know you , you go in there , can talk to the people , see how they're feeling , all that kind of stuff there too .

But it's always an option , like we were talking about before . It's like , hey , you know , you learn the skill and you have it for life and you come back to it . We've had some people who were you know , we'll have it in the record like their welder 972 , and then we have someone coming .

He's like , hi , I'm welder 300 and something , and they were because they were there like 10 years ago or 15 years ago , and they get their whole story about how they went and did like trucking or something , or they did some other industries . So , um , you know , it's always something you could fall back on and it's always a skill that you'll have .

But what's in the future ? You know , let's get to the end of the show here and you know , jordan , what do you see for your future ? You're a young person . You've already made some good moves . You're you're , you know you're in , you're in the world . You got a job and you're working with the chapter . You're doing all the right things .

So where do you see yourself going ? Kind of what's the end game ?

More recently has been a lot more on the you know management side of things .

So like tracking our welder numbers , our number welders , what their certifications are , what our procedures are , uh , what I find interesting is whenever we get because we do a lot of custom fab is we'll get , uh , you know , new material and like , hey , we need to do , like 11 crcb is one of the current things we're getting into .

Yeah , and it's one of those peers like we don't have a procedure for this . What does this look into ? Okay , we need to do some sharpie tests on this , like our client asked for all this extra testing on it and like , oh , that's interesting , so that's more of uh , uh , you know project management , you get some beautiful colors out of that material .

There you go yeah , we were trying . We were . We're running some issues , especially at the start . They wanted a uh , an eighth of an inch uh weld on there and everyone's doing it manually . So of course they're all like 3 , 16ths because it's it's .

You've really got to zoom when you're uh , yeah , I do those small welds with a wire process like that , unless you're doing tig or something . But uh , yeah , so sending that stuff out for uh testing , uh , we have other clients that want uh , chemical testing , all that stuff too .

So that's what I'm going to expose to you at the moment is uh a lot more of the yeah so so that's what I find interesting in the moment . But who knows , in the future it might be , you know , more project management . Like , hey , okay , you've learned all these things . You know , you've been here long enough . Maybe you want to .

You know , maybe I'll end up in a project management . Like , hey , you know , these are your babies , you're taking care of them , like you're responsible for them . Start to finish , making sure all this learning , all these different procedure development stuff , and yeah , we'll see where it goes .

Um , uh , in the in welding industry , you know , you know people might have a thought that it's a lot of , you know , gruff , gruff people or um , you know that kind of perception , but honestly , just a bunch of bunch of great people . Uh , that , uh , I've worked with some pretty pretty great people down to earth people and uh , yeah , it's , it's enjoyable .

You know , perhaps someone in the same position as you , coming out of high school , unsure , kind of looking at university but not sold on it , not sold on it yet . You know what would be some advice to them in terms of perhaps looking over to this side of the fence .

You finish high school and then immediately jumping into another . You know four to five years or plus of additional education . Just just taking some time , uh , you know , really , seeing what kind of options are out there . Uh , if you're super passionate about something , you know all power to be someone if they wanted to jump right into it .

But taking that time to explore and see what other options are out there is definitely awesome . There's quite a lot of . If you're interested in the trades , there's quite a lot of . I found the course in Toronto to be useful , where it was just a single day of going down and trying it .

You know , before diving into this kind of thing , you know maybe you can find something that's similar with , like , you know plumbing or electrical , or there might be those kinds of you know plumbing or electrical , or there there might be those kinds of you know opportunities out there where you can just go try this or woodworking .

I know there's a lot of uh uh , there was a maker space in Aurora where you could go down , and that maker space had a whole woodworking section down there . They had a CNC uh cutter at that . You know . You know if you , if you ask her questions , uh or no , you know people there that might put on , uh , uh , training courses for you .

Like you can actually learn those things and see , hey , is this something you're interested in ? Or you might go out there and be like , no , this is not for me . No , thank you , um , but just keeping your options open is , uh , definitely something . Um , I was happy that I I got to experience back in the day , uh , and would be anytime .

We have someone who's a co-op student in welding some of those things , like I'll tell them like , hey , you know , if you're enjoying this , this is something you'll have . If it's not really your thing , it's always something you'll have to come back to . Um , you kind of fall back on .

I've changed my career like three times and there was plenty of time for all of it and I'm still . I still got . I probably could still change another career and still be fine , like there's no rush and if you do something for a while again you don't have to stay there if you're not happy about do it . You know there's , there's work everywhere .

Just do find your niche and stick it out right .

I don't know how that happened , but at 15 years of age I was not good with customer service .

Sometimes the time commitments don't quite work out . You know people have kids , they have a bunch of other things going on in their life . You know they work tons of hours , um , but even just knowing the events and maybe coming out to one or two or knowing that they're available is is huge . Uh , our are obviously our local chapter .

I'll make a shout out to the Kitchener chapter with Jackie . Previously Daniella was the head of that . Jackie's taken the helm now . Just really , really awesome and passionate people in there , Jackie's awesome and Daniella's awesome .

We're always looking for more people for the podcast . We're always looking for new avenues to connect into network

. We're . You know , the chapter in South America and Chile is kicking butt right now .

So if there's any Latin speakers or Spanish speakers out there , we do have a Spanish speaking chapter now and we're looking to , you know , know , maybe expand into the middle east in the upcoming year , which is a little bit exciting to see what's going out in that part of the world . So it never stops here .

We're always trying to do what's right for for you , our membership and , uh , you know , keep listening to the podcast and stay tuned for the next episode . We hope you enjoy the show .