hey what's up guys today i'm up in
wyoming visiting some family but i
decided i'd stop and see tyler sasse
this is tyler sasse
with western welding academy today we're
just going to take a tour of the school
i was up here last year if you didn't
see that video we'll link it in the
description go check out that video
a lot's changed here at western welding
academy and i'm excited to
check out what all has changed tyler's
gonna take us along and show us a few
changes
yes sir
if you're watching this video when it
goes up tyler is actually having a
welding competition
that we wanted to let you know about
yeah so we are having a welding
competition here
western welding academy in gillette
wyoming this uh event is going to take
place on september 12th
and it's uh it's for all people that
weld pipe or want to weld pipe if you're
in high school we have a high school
division or we have an open division
for for a guy at 20 plus years old you
need rsvp at our website
westernwellingacademy.com and we'll see
you there september 12th
our students do is uh generally they
come in here and then talk to lucy
who's at the lunch right now
and they handle their financial aid
portion of their
you know tuition with stephanie
stephanie does a really good
job of handling our tuition and some of
that other stuff for us
yeah yeah very very important yeah
absolutely and then this is my office
i just uh got back from a long road trip
so
she's a little messy we probably don't
want to go in there i'll bring you out
here and meet the team
all right this is our instructor break
room here so we've got a little kitchen
and these guys that's where they eat
their lunch
and uh you know kind of keep an eye on
the place while they're at lunch
nice i like it i like it all right let's
go check it out
take you a tour
so our students come in and they
sign in we run this place just like a
job site so
all of our sign in sign out that all
takes place at the ipad they
they've got a specialized code that they
got to put in actually takes a picture
of them
just like a time clock um that
when they sign in that tracks their time
on whichever phase that they're working
on in their
in their curriculum yeah absolutely
we've set our curriculum up just like a
job site got
man hour and it has a daily feedback
metric really sets them up for success
they know whether they're header behind
every day
and i've got this place come a long way
yeah
some of our bigger pipe and also we're
16-inch and
12-inch set up here eight-inch okay so
this is
set up to mostly learn how to run a
bevel machine
they don't do not welding here necessary
no welding necessarily i mean we do show
them how to run
you know the sawyer clamps and we do
some cutting off some of these joints of
pipe here
we cut a lot of our bigger coupons we've
got this big
uh bevel machine here and then we also
have a motorized crawler
as you can see we've got a big shipment
of rod come in
we're on a first shift and a second
shift now and we'll run
through about 150 pounds of rod a day
it's good though
that's where the experience is you know
what i mean in the hood time
that's right this is our consumables
um rack here
so all of our test coupons
and our testing rods this is for testing
rod only
yep not to be cross contaminated with any other rod.
[music]
so this is a pipe rack simulator for
um this is one of our pipe rack
simulators so you take a set of coupons
you tack them up you put them in here
and you got to make this well with these
restrictions you notice the height
i mean that's a pain in the butt right
there made to be
of course absolutely and then so they
make the 5g there's a six
inch and an eight inch and then down
here they can use a uh
an eight inch horizontal on them with all those restrictions.
right in the corner i mean you make that
weld you're going to get a bunch here you're
going to be slick at welding pipe in the
nasty area
you know real world training this is
some of our fabrication stuff that our
students have done
with uh you know learning how to you
know put fittings in and lay out and do
isometric drawings and pull measurements
and
you know calculate these pups things i
know we've got everything from
a butt weld to a socket weld the
threaded pieces you know and it's
all tied in their goofy offsets i
absolutely
love all this i absolutely love it it's
just like all this stuff you you and i
both know we
we had to learn how to do all these
takeoffs and stuff
most likely out in the field i don't
know how you learned but like i'd learn
a lot as i went
you know phone calls looking in the book
you know but and so it's nice to have
all this hands-on experience
at school you know a lot of pain really
is what you're describing a pain you
know you're hired to be a welder to go
out there and
feel that you know that's the biggest
difference is us giving
i mean not only they learn how to weld
here in the booth but then they also get
this real good
uh hands-on experience with some of the
most talented pipefitters
i've ever seen you know we show them how
to draw isometric drawings you know
pull the measurements
lay it out use a laser plumb bob so many
so many welders are real good welders
but they don't feel confident in
fabricating and that's what's going to
keep you in a job you know what i mean
like i was told that a long time ago
working in a tank farm by an old man he
said
he said you learned how to fabricate you
said you're gonna be the last one on the
job and that's
this right here is where it's at that's
nice you can see it's uh
nate's heartbreaking nice yeah
and you get a really really slick weld
we cut that thing apart we put it and we
test it to the
you know aws standards and and uh we
bend it on that radius which is you know
in accordance with section nine a b
thirty one one power piping code so
there's been a few hearts have been
broken that's part of it though
the ol iron horse that's right we've
got our
coupon cutter he's a master coupon
cutter here his name is tristan
does a slam-up job good deal yeah he cuts all
the welds out
and re-bevels the coupons um every he
works on everything from
from eight inch to two inch carbon steel
stainless steel
um this little window is a student you
know you got your coupons you come up
you set it down you tell them what you
need and he gets you what you need off
the shelf
you can see i mean it gives us
it gives a perfect machine bevel so when
we're teaching the fundamentals of the
pipe welding yeah we want them to do it
on
on perfection so the only thing that is
holding them back is their own ability
or lack there of we do do like a
flame cut
a hand ground bevel and that's
pretty powerful because that's like real
world field experience yeah but we want
to put the fundamentals in them first
especially when you're practicing for
that tig welding i mean it don't take
nothing to
clean that thing up a little bit in your
welding allows you to have
way more hood time when you can walk
through that window and get you a set of
coupons and go to work
 
how you doing partner i'd like to
introduce you to austin ross
i don't know if you've met austin ross
man nice to meet you sir
where are you from kentucky yeah awesome
oh
you're going in here yeah yeah how long
have you been
this will be my first week here the first week jt been here
from kentucky
we're super proud to have him. You're embarking on a good journey
he's gonna be a welder he's gonna make
it that's right there you go
yeah good deal
nice to meet you, nice to meet you too buddy
where are you from florida. Right on...  from florida and how long you
been here
almost three weeks all right you liking
it? Oh, ya a lot.
and in three weeks he's welding pipe
so you can see he's
he's uh he had some natural ability
coming in here he probably practiced on
the weekend you know what i mean
right either that or he's just a really
fast learner either which we like
you know yeah absolutely stephen is
going to make it he's got what he's
saying
as far as we can tell yeah so yeah so
yeah
definitely a lot of help getting up to
here though I have to say.
good good good deal as long as you're
enjoying it make sure you're enjoying it, yes sir
this is old glory so glory here we say
pledge of allegiance to every uh
every shift at our safe meetings um
one of the things that
is kind of interesting is uh 85 percent
of our students come from all over the
states other than wyoming
and it's just it's just powerful to see
that
the like relentless pursuit these kids have the passion to get into the pipe welding industry.. oh ya
see the drive that these kids have. It's powerful. It's inspiring is what it is.
but that's what it takes though that's
where it starts it's in the heart you
know to me like you got to want it.
this is our moving pipe rack simulator
you know
majority of your pipe rack wells are in
the 5g position
and so we built this one
and the beauty of this one is on wheels
so we can roll it around we can roll it
in the welding booth
in the curriculum as part of their
curriculum they gotta weld in a pipe
rack
under restriction you know and so all
these have got their four inches
separation between types but we got two
inch four inch
eight inch and six inch and we've got
restrictions this one's a little bit
lower
so that it has the student crawls up
underneath
and you know they get this bottom side
and then they gotta reach up over or
crawl on top and weld the top side
yeah you know so they tig weld in this
thing and they stick well
you can see there's a couple examples
kyle's got himself some coupons kyle
where are you from
new york all right from new york okay
how long you been here
all right you liking it yeah a good deal
yeah kyle's got a great attitude shows up
every day he burns that rod i mean he's
uh really putting the effort
so that's the difference is that
attitude that's good attitude goes a
long way
yep yeah good deal we'll keep it up
buddy i'm
doing great
all right alex is almost ready to
graduate and go to work
where are you from carson city nevada
carmen
i don't know how old are you alex? 19.  he's
doing really good
he's doing really good um this is our
inspection table as they bring their
welds up for inspection.
they'll inspect these welds and look at
them and pull measurements off of them
and critique them you know yeah
yeah that way they know what's it's like to get their welds critiqued how
strict can you get
yeah depends on the instructor's son
this is shift change some of these guys are 
early you know i mean you can see
these guys here early
they're 20 minutes early they
want it
these guys putting in the effort
i don't know i think there's 16 or 17
students on
um this is the second shift so first
shift will be
wrapping up cleaning their booths and
rolling out of there
kobe's from springtown texas okay
graduated today that's exciting that's
real exciting take some pictures with
him
yeah ready yep colby has a job lined up
embarking on his uh new journey yeah
yeah.
see him off.  all that's real exciting you're
gonna you're gonna love be getting that
real world experience you know what i
mean that's freaking awesome
yeah take some pictures with him yeah
and then we can send him off like his
dad's
they got his apartment loaded up like
they're ready to go so
yeah if we can get that done and let him
go you bet that'd be good
chomping at the bit yeah absolutely he is
ready to make fire for a living i want
to introduce you
samantha caldwell from gillette wyoming
she's a welder i wanna show you her
first weld on pipe
this weld is not perfect she never
touched a welding rod a day in her life
this is her first weld she ever made on
pipe it was a 2g
6010 root pass 7018 fill and cap
and uh i mean don't get me wrong this
thing ain't perfect but but for the
first time
come on bright future
stay with me bright future hey that's
awesome
she's really leading leading uh
our women welder kind of mentality or
aspect you know because women are great
at this trade as well
absolutely yeah yeah so i think uh sam
was one of our first she was the second
uh female student we've had and uh she's
she's setting a pretty high bar for the
rest of it let me just say that back
whenever i was in welding school i
remember
hearing a lot about like women are
actually could be better because their
handwriting's better
yeah yeah like it's i mean you gotta see
your tig work
yeah that tig torch yeah i mean it's
they don't yeah it's just they got a
natural natural versus us guys we gotta
fight it i guess i don't know yeah
that's awesome yeah there you go
crocheting helps to
congratulations colby thank you yes
congratulations
man i know you kind of briefly
formally introduced you to austin ross
this is michael henderson
where are you from south carolina south
carolina how long you been here
i've been here for a total of five and a half months
right on right on part of that was a
month and a half of chronic right
yeah yeah i landed here i drove here
twenty six hour drive and 45 minutes
and uh the first day i did 14
first day i did 14 hours and 35 minutes
dang it boy i finally got here i got here at 12?...  was it 12:40?
come come rolling in michael talking
to him for weeks
i'm ready to weld. let me in there
knocking down the door
yeah yeah and then like two days later
boom the state shuts us down on friday
night what did you do with your down
time
because was it just a couple weeks y'all
were down? six.  no kidding
ga dang anyway what'd you what'd you do
with your time did you
i mean for the time we had pipe welding class online
oh okay i did that and you know what i
was going to be here for
yeah yeah yeah took advantage of the
time doing it learning something though
that's what that's where it's at
yeah and what delayed my departure coming
here. I actually got robbed
i come from gang territory pretty much
so
i got robbed one night and uh it kind of
delayed me coming here so i had to take
a job at bmw
make a little bit of money just to get
up here wow
yeah but it was my fault too because i
wasn't minding my surroundings and I should have been.
yeah it happened but um i think that
just
made me stronger in the process it
didn't stop me from coming right
absolutely. so I was determined.
yeah absolutely many obstacles stood in
michael's way but he just kept pressing
on with that
grit. ain't nothing gonna stop me yeah. that says alot about your character. ya it really does.
and those are the people those are the
people that we want to help
yeah absolutely right like yeah that
want to help themselves
yeah they want to want it . my safety meeting is done.
nice to meet you.nice to meet you. yeah so typically we
have a
safety meeting for both shifts their outside
um and one of the things that we
one of the things that we we uh we're
always looking for
is growth-minded people that that
naturally have
um an optimistic viewpoint right and
we call it grit and um if you have grit
just like what you just heard with
michael about
getting robbed and all these obstacles
that stood in his way and then running
out of money and having to work a
part-time job a temporary job
to build up enough money to get here
that's grit you know that's what we're
looking for absolutely yeah
but grit can be taught as well 
and so one of the you know there's many
different ways that we we analyze and
look for grit but we also try
to teach it while they're here
in our safety meetings one of the things
that we do is
uh we ask them to bring a positive
thought or a positive
something positive right you know
something as simple as i'm just happy to
be alive today or
um i got this i'm gonna make this or you
know some sort of
brings some kind of positivity to the to
the safety meeting and it helps
everybody right if we all remain in that
optimistic growth-minded you can be
anybody you want to be as long as you're
willing to keep showing up and learn
something new every day
you know that's what's it's powerful it
really is you have no idea how much i
love that
yeah i absolutely love that it's
powerful i mean it really is
for real though like the morale that
creates yeah
the morale is everything yeah and work
well you've been we work jobs where you
you you enjoyed your trade i'm sure but
you've worked jobs where you felt
this big or like god i don't like this
job because of x y z you know
the morale is everything yeah that's you
know you're a product of your
surroundings
and if your surroundings of the initial
foundation of your career was this real
solid optimistic team environment
golly that's powerful for what that will
do for you the rest of your career and
everybody that you
meet and touch from there on you know
you throw a rock in a
in a pawn in the ripple effect right
we've talked about the ripple effect and
how powerful it is
just that just that foundational
optimism that
it is possible to have that that's where
i came from it's possible to have that
you know yeah well i'm a high school
dropout right oh you really i didn't
know that
yeah yeah what grade or whatever i got a
ninth grade education
no way are you serious you're not just
you're not just saying that that's yours
yeah i did not know that
yeah yeah i have a ninth grade education
and uh so and not that i'm like
some epitome of success or anything but
really through that
optimistic growth-minded grit keep
showing up keep providing you know
relentlessly providing values that
that's actually one of our our core
values here is is to
continually relentlessly provide value
and keep showing up keep doing it the
sky's the limit if you're willing to
learn something new every day and
and uh and so yeah keep adding value
yeah that's huge too yeah
yeah all right i appreciate the tour
tyler this place is looking good nice
and fluent
i love it i love where it's going that's
the crazy times right now what how has
the uh
coronavirus affected what's going on
here at your school
yeah that's a good question we actually
hear that a lot you know and
um you know these are
these are strange strange times we're
living in but
but you know in every cloud there's a
silver lining
i will say that you know
coronavirus has affected so many
different industries but the essential
worker
he keeps showing up every day he keeps
providing value as far as how it's
affected us here at western welding
academy
honestly it's been great in the sense of
our
our student intake uh process you know
85 percent of our students come from all
other states other than wyoming
and it just takes a like a higher level
of commitment
to this trade that you're committing
yourself to and we want to help those
people that have the true
grit and chronovirus has just helped us
do that because you know every applicant
that we look at
i look at it like as a superintendent
would i hire that person you know
so i wouldn't hire them i probably
wouldn't take them you know
exactly yeah um so so it's kind of
helped you guys
we weed them out naturally yeah kind of
naturally
coronavirus is the natural selection oh
wow from our student intake process that
there's so much motivation to stay on
the couch
keep playing the video games whatever it
is that you're doing in this uh you know
self-quarantined era that we live in
yeah um the guy that's like he picks up
the phone and says i wanna weld pipe yeah
i don't care what's going on i want
in there you know what i mean that guy i
want him to weld pipe or that lady or
that yeah that woman that's who you want
that's what i want yeah not not worried
about what's going on
they got the great termination yeah and
they want that career yep
so appreciate it tyler all right at the
end of every one of my videos i like to
add a piece of advice
if you had any kind of advice that you
would tell somebody what kind of advice
would you give them
if you believe you can do it you're
right
if you believe that you can't do it
you're also right
all right you know how i end every one
of my videos yeah learn something every
day
we'll see you all next friday hey what's
up guys so i'm off work this week and
i'm up here in wyoming visiting family
and i
oh how are we supposed to do this help
us man no that's not that's not right
 standing around drinking oh i got mine oh yeah
you got it so you gotta clip it like
this
testing testing one two three yeah this
is the hot mic project right here
I'm sure the youtube police will correct me
see ya
okay anyway learn something every day
we'll see you all next friday
