Welding queen p1 - Military Transition - Military Times EDGE

For Vanessa Redford, it all started with a ’68 Impala, teenage restlessness and her grandfather’s willingness to cut a square deal.

Growing up in Washington state, Redford had developed a knack with tools. Grandpa said she could work out her high school wanderlust if she could keep the old Chevy running, and she jumped at the chance. “He told me girls weren’t supposed to be mechanics,” she recalled. “But he still gave me the keys.”

The car kept on going, and Redford has been going ever since, running full throttle into her post-military career as a professional welder.

Redford, 31, didn’t have to go this route: She could have stayed behind a desk. The former lance corporal served as a controller in Okinawa, helping to oversee Marine finances throughout the region from 2003 to 2005.

After leaving the service, she started taking business classes at Western Nebraska Community College, but the fit wasn’t right. “I can do desk jobs, but I just wasn’t satisfied with that. It wasn’t exciting. I didn’t feel like I was doing anything,” she said.

She’s doing something now, helping to bring new buildings out of the ground as an apprentice in Local Union 72 in Atlanta.

Get trained

Redford knew it would be no easy trick to transition from her deskbound background into her blue-collar ideal.

“It’s hard to get hired for something that you don’t have experience in,” she said. “I thought about working in a lube shop, but they pay so bad, so I kept ending up working in offices. I can’t say it is easy just doing something because you love it.”

To bridge the gap, Redford enrolled in a training program aimed at former military personnel.

The United Association Veterans in Piping Program, based in Lacey, Wash., gave her 16 weeks of classroom training and hands-on experience installing and servicing piping systems, plumbing fixtures, heating, air conditioning and ventilation systems. The program also included a segment on adapting to civilian life and communicating in the civilian workplace.

The program also helped her shave a year off what would typically be a five-year union apprenticeship.

Don’t let bias hold you back

Redford has plenty of good reasons to seek a welding career. Welders in her area of specialty — commercial and industrial machinery — earn almost $16 an hour, according to the most recent numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Even with a slight decline in demand, the nation will still need 405,600 welders and related trades people by 2018.

At the same time, there is one very good reason she might avoid the job: discrimination.

“One supervisor didn’t want me on a job at all. He said I could go pick up trash, so that’s not a really good start. But I just said, OK, they pay me the same either way, and maybe if he sees me pick up trash really good, then he’ll give me a bigger job.”

That kind of attitude has helped Redford hold her own in the face of skeptics.

“I guess I’m not a typical girl. I’m 6 foot, so that helps a little bit, and I work out all the time. Even so, most guys don’t talk to me at first. But then when they see me work, they are ready to take me into the family. It’s a lot like in the military. Once you show that you are going to do as much work as they are, people relax around you.”

Be Prepared to live lean for a while

Redford has earned her stripes as a welder. Instructors in the VIP Program scrutinized her work with an X-ray machine: Her welding had to be 95 percent perfect to pass.

That talent convinced the Atlanta union to put her to work building the Cobb County Superior Courthouse this winter under primary Contractor Turner Construction. “You know all that big round pipe that you see winding around in a building’s mechanical room that looks like one of those toys you had a kid? As a welder, you have got to put it all together, like a big pipe puzzle.”

Money, too, was a puzzle, as Redford made her way toward her present position. While her training was free, it was also unpaid.

“I was on unemployment [during training], and it was really tough,” she said.

To stay solvent until her paychecks kicked in, she had to learn to knock on the right doors. With some research and support from program organizers, she and her 16 classmates were able to secure gas cards, food vouchers and other support from the local VA.

It was worth living hand-to-mouth for a few months. With the certifications she earned through VIP, she earns twice what a non-certified worker might earn.

Find a job that fits your personality

Redford isn’t just a tinkerer: She’s a traveler. The military helped her to see some of the world and she would like to see more — another reason welding is a snug fit.

“They need welders everywhere, and you have to go where the work is. If you are serious about bringing home the paycheck, you have got to be cool with the idea of moving around,” she said. That’s how she ended up in Atlanta. “I knew that most likely I was going to have to travel if I wanted to go to work right away. I said I would go anywhere and everywhere to do what I wanted to do.”

Hardly a hardship, Redford sees the promise of travel as a perk. “For me, I’ve always liked the idea of seeing new places and meeting new people. You probably don’t join the military if you don’t have that basic desire,” she said.

Travel is great, but for Redford the best part of her new career is how much it feels like turning a wrench on that old Impala.

“I still love working on cars, and I look at this along the same lines,” she said. “If you start it and it runs, you know you’ve accomplished something. Any time you are working with your hands, there is this real satisfaction in making something work.”

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Landing that job

• Training can be had for welding and related fields such as soldering or brazing at community colleges, vocational schools and private schools. The armed forces also offer training schools.

• Some employers will hire inexperienced workers and train them, but most prefer prior training.

• Classes may include blueprint reading, shop mathematics, mechanical drawing, physics, chemistry and metallurgy.

• Some jobs require certifications welding or certifications in specific skills such as inspection or robotic welding. Many schools offer American Welding Society certification courses.

• You’ll need good eyesight and strong math and communication skills. Be nimble: Welders work in awkward spaces, with bending and stopping required.

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics