Accreditation for the Warsaw Area Career Center’s welding lab by the American Welding Society could mean better pay for high school students in their future jobs. Chris Morr, welding instructor, said the course offers certifications in three processes, including gas, metal arc welding; shielded metal arc welding ; and gas tungsten arc welding. Students who take both years of the course can earn 15 college credits through Ivy Tech as it is a dual-credit program. “Most kids pass all three certifications and get 15 credits,” Morr said. Recently, he said, they just got the lab accredited by the American Welding Society. The accreditation allows for certification to be done at the school. “We’ve been doing certification a long time, but it was through Ivy Tech. Now, with the accreditation, we can do it on site,” Morr said. As for the benefit of the accreditation to students, Morr said, “It gives them a better pay.” He said he was told by one business person that he would pay $4 more per hour for a student who already received their certification. “It’s pretty substantial,” Morr said. To earn accreditation, Morr said they had to be audited by the AWS. They have to maintain industry standards in the facility, and have to have the proper equipment. The program has to maintain a library of all code books and standards. Another criteria is that a AWS certified welding inspector and educator has to be on site. Morr is certified as both. Morr said he started the welding program through the Warsaw Area Career Center from the ground up. He is in his seventh year of teaching the two-period class. The two-year program is for juniors and seniors only. No prerequisites are required, the program went to open enrollment, but it helps if a student is good in math, Morr said. “Really,” he said, “I take kids that are just green.” Students from the program are from Warsaw Community, Whitko, Wawasee, Tippecanoe Valley, Triton, Fairfield and West Noble high schools. This year, there are 48 kids in the program. For next year, Morr said, he has 65 already signed up. In the first year of the program, students just practice welding. In the second year, students continue practicing but also do testing for certification. Warsaw is only one of two high schools in Indiana that has the accreditation. The other is Four County Career Center in Kendallville. “It’s tough to do,” Morr said. “It’s pretty advanced for high school. It costs a lot for us to do this. I wrote a grant for the Dekko Foundation (for equipment).” The grant provided funding for new welders, a bender, belt sanders, drill press, band saws and a shear. Besides AWS, the accreditation also allows for certification for the American Petroleum Institute, American Society for Testing and Material, American Society of Mechanical Engineers and American Society for Nondestructive Testing and others, Morr said. “I think we will see more high schools go to this because the state is going to grade us on the number of certifications,” Morr said. Two of the students in Morr’s afternoon course took it to learn more about welding and how it could help them improve their skills. “To learn how to weld better and get certified and spread my options on the different types of welding,” said Brodie Starner, Tippecanoe Valley High School junior. Starner said the highlights of the first-year course were just learning the different types of welding and seeing how good he was at it. The most difficult part of the course, so far, he said, was “mostly vertical welding up and torch welding.” “Just to learn more about it,” said TVHS junior Corey Eppelmann. “My friends were always doing stuff like that, working on trucks, and stuff like that. I took the course to learn more and for a career.” He said he’s definitely learned a lot from the program, including all different kinds of welding. “I didn’t know you could weld with a torch until Morr showed me,” he said. Eppelmann said he has a job lined up this summer with Warsaw Engineering & Fabricating, so he’s looking forward to a job in fabricating right out of high school. “It’s skill building,” Eppelmann said of the welding program. “It builds character doing this stuff. You learn how to do more.”
