September 2, 2024 • 47 mins
What does it take to transition from a military intelligence analyst to a leading figure in the welding industry? Stephanie Hoffman, a US Army veteran, shares her remarkable journey in our latest episode. From overcoming gender barriers to managing a welding application and training lab at Miller Electric, Stephanie's story is one of resilience, determination, and breaking stereotypes. You’ll hear about her early struggles, including how she was initially rejected by a vocational program due to her gender and faced attempts to sabotage her welding tests. Today, she’s a trailblazer inspiring the next generation, drawing from her extensive experience and early exposure to welding from her father’s construction company.
Stephanie opens up about the transformative life lessons she gained from her military service—skills that include developing thick skin, confidence, public speaking abilities, and an analytical mindset. She candidly discusses the emotional challenges of dealing with imposter syndrome and maintaining a work-life balance, especially when family is involved. This heartfelt conversation also touches on her decision to pivot from hands-on welding to focus on business strategy and development, emphasizing the importance of valuing personal relationships over career success.
Navigating the public eye as a woman in a male-dominated industry is no small feat, and Stephanie shares the pressures and unexpected challenges that come with it. From becoming the first female welding content expert on Netflix to handling negative reviews and public scrutiny, her experiences offer a raw and authentic look into the emotional toll of visibility. We also delve into the unique contributions veterans bring to the corporate world, highl
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
I don't think you're going to get too far, especially
in industries like we're in,without having those
foundational skills and comingfrom the bottom and working your
way up.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
This is the Construction Veteran Podcast.
Construction Veteran PodcastConnecting and celebrating
veterans in construction.
Now here's your host, scottFriend.
Welcome back to theConstruction Veteran Podcast.
I'm Scott Friend.
I am stoked to bring you guyssomebody who's very well known
(00:36):
in the welding community,stephanie Hoffman.
We go through her story aboutbecoming a soldier and going on
to become very successful in thewelding industry.
Let's dig into it.
Hey, stephanie, how are you?
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Good, how are you?
Speaker 2 (00:50):
I'm fantastic.
I appreciate you doing this.
So Stephanie and I haven't hadthe privilege of meeting in
person yet, but I took a chanceafter watching a show on Netflix
, which we'll talk about here ina little bit, and reached out
to some folks and found outStephanie is a fellow vet and so
I thought it'd be really coolto get her on the show.
(01:10):
She's got a really interestingbackground we'll get into.
But, stephanie, before we kickit off, tell me a little bit
about where you're from and whatbranch you served in.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
So I'm from a little town called Forkett River, new
Jersey.
It's right on the Jersey Shore,like the central part of Jersey
, on the shore there.
And I was in the US Army, I wasan intelligence analyst.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Very cool, and how long did you serve?
Speaker 1 (01:35):
I did four years and then four years in the inactive
reserve and I got recalled once.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Oh, no, uh-oh.
So you got recalled like thiswas during an active war yeah,
time time frame was this.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Um, yeah, I got recalled.
It was kind of a nightmare.
Uh, my daughter was, I think,two and a half three months old
and we had to get.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Yeah, it was, it was a nightmare oh, I bet, yeah, so
that would have been, was thatduring Iraq.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
I was it was for Afghanistan.
Okay, man, what a bummer.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
I think that that hopefully that program I think
has gone by the wayside.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
I think so, yeah, I know I had to.
It was a big stink cause Ididn't have anybody for my
daughter, you know, to take careof her because I wasn't married
to her dad and stuff.
And then we had split and hereally didn't have a job or
anything going for him in lifeand my dad was almost dying at
that point and my mom, shecouldn't, you know, handle it.
(02:36):
She was working and everythingelse and yeah, it was a, it was
a disaster and it was all goingon right around Christmas time
and it's awful man.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
When it rains, it pours Golly.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Yeah, so we got through that and I ended up.
I didn't have to end up goingto that, but it was.
It was a lot, it was terrifying.
You know, I'm a single mom.
My daughter is like two and ahalf months old and they're like
, oh yeah, you gotta comeno-transcript.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
One Marine that was with us, he, I think he said he
was like washing dishes in hiskitchen and some Marine walked
up in uniform and basically toldhim he'd been recalled.
What's funny is most of thepeople I met were, I mean, not
that they weren't critical, butthey were kind of serving in
roles that they could havefarmed out to a civilian.
Yeah, um, one guy was retiredfrom his military service and
(03:57):
his civilian career and he gotrecalled.
I don't know if there's truthto that, but that's what he told
us.
I don't know if there's truthto that, but that's what he told
us.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
But yeah, that's that's nuts.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Yeah, you are, man.
Let me go down the rap sheet.
So you're a mother, wife,golfer, welder extraordinaire,
and now we find out a little bitabout your veteran background.
So how do we, man, I don't evenknow where to start with you,
stephanie.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
So what, what?
What are you doing right now inthe industry?
Uh, so now I work for millerelectric.
Yeah, so now I'm the I'm themanaging kind of director of a
new application, weldingapplication and training lab
here in the northeast, so Icover the entire northeast.
Oh cool, so do you get to?
Speaker 2 (04:41):
play with all the new fun toys like the AI, welding
and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
So I, I do, I get to do it as much as I want.
Um, my role is yeah, my role iskind of more for like on the
the business developmentstrategy, um and sales support
side.
Now, um, it's not so much thethe hands-on welding stuff that
I stuff that I've been used toin my career.
I actually tried to get out ofwelding altogether not too long
ago and that didn't happen.
I got bored pretty fast andthen ended up with Miller.
But you know, I wanted to shiftgears a little bit because I
(05:19):
was finishing up my MBA inengineering management, so I
wanted something that was goingto be a little bit more aligned
with like business strategy anddevelopment and stuff like that.
And this kind of came up and itwas kind of a perfect fit
because when everybody found outthat I had sold my businesses
and left the American WeldingSociety as well, everybody and
(05:41):
their mother was offering medifferent opportunities.
But a lot of them they soundedgreat in the beginning and then
they all started to fall back toa lot of like content stuff and
you know, hosting this andgoing to these things, I was
like I don't want to be doingthis stuff anymore.
You know, I have more to offerthe industry than just, you know
, recording videos and stuff andsupporting content wise for
(06:02):
companies.
So you know, I told everybodyno and and held out and I
thought it was probably justgoing to be just a lot of golf
in my future.
Um, and then this came up andI've been super happy with it.
So I've been there for sixmonths now.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Good yeah, cause for a while there.
So you're I believe.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
Uh, your time with the Americanwelding society.
You played a big role travelingaround and like introducing
people to the industry.
Is that right yeah?
Speaker 1 (06:29):
So I was.
I guess my official title wasthe program manager of workforce
development, but really what Iwas was kind of a national
spokesperson for them I did atfirst it was an 18 week a year
tour.
At first it was an 18 week ayear tour and then it was a lot
between my fabrication stuffthat you know, running that
(06:49):
business and then eventuallyopened up a welding school, and
then doing the tour on top of it.
They were nice enough to peelit back to 14 weeks, but you
know the tour was 14 weeks.
But then there was other eventsyou know that I'd be asked to
support and go to.
So it was a lot of timetraveling and, um so yeah, so I
was a lot of time traveling andum so yeah, so I was just kind
of promoting careers in welding,engineering, manufacturing, um,
(07:09):
anything like that.
I did that for six, five, sixyears.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Did it during that time?
Did you see like a big uh, notpush maybe, but did you see the
industry maybe start turningtowards getting more people in,
getting younger kids interestedin the industry at all?
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Yeah, there's been.
So I always laugh whenever Italk about this.
You know, when I started I'vebeen in the industry over two
decades now and when I startedyou know it was kind of like a
place where all like the burnoutkids, kids with no future.
You know, you ended up at thevocational school and I was the
first female to graduate myvo-tech program and it was a big
(07:46):
, big deal for me to go intothat program.
They actually didn't even wantme in there because they were
like, oh you know, we don't havea bathroom for her to get
changed in and like really,really kind of silly excuses.
And so I ended up getting intothat program, excelled there.
And you know, when I firststarted getting into the
industry, everybody would justbasically laugh at me when I
(08:06):
would go into these, into theseinterviews and stuff.
And it was, you know, theywould purposely do stuff to see
me struggle or fail in aninterview for a weld test and
stuff.
And you know I was super new,naive, didn't know, wasn't super
confident on equipment andmachines and, like you know,
background settings and thingslike that.
So I just expected them to likekind of have it ready for me to
go and that wasn't the case.
(08:27):
And now, you know, fast forward,you know, 10, 15, now, almost
20 years later, and it's beenthis renaissance of, you know,
promoting the trades, not justfor young girls to get involved,
but just anybody in general.
Because now they have thisincredible skills gap, you know,
between all these peopleretiring and now the people that
were kind of you know, mid tolower level employees are
(08:51):
getting promoted at anaccelerated rate into those
supervisory leadership roleswithin this industry and there's
nobody to kind of backfill thisposition.
So you know, some of thesepeople are wearing multiple hats
.
Backfill this position.
So you know, some of thesepeople are wearing multiple hats
.
So just similar to, like WorldWar II, any of the big you know
wars and stuff, where you know,hey, all of a sudden, these, the
geniuses, they go, oh well, Ihave a great idea, let's.
(09:13):
We got to tap into the women.
Now, you know, like all of asudden during World War II,
women are welders and doing thisand they're capable, right, and
then for decades we weren'tcapable and now all of a sudden
there's this mega demand againfor skilled labor.
So now they have to do the samething they did back then.
So I always kind of laugh.
So there's definitely been ahuge push and I've been a part
(09:35):
of a lot of initiatives whereit's like, okay, how can we get
the younger generation, how dowe fill that skills gap?
And sometimes I get a littleannoyed because it's always like
about being a girl and I hatethat.
I hate that so much.
It's not about being a girl,it's just about having passion
and pride in your work andhaving work ethic Right, and how
do?
How do we make that appealingto young kids nowadays?
(09:55):
Um, so, working with a lot oforganizations to kind of change
the narrative a little bit, youknow.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Yeah, no, I I agree with you as far as like the
rapid uh growth, as far as likeyounger folks in the industry.
Um, I've been in the industryfor a while now too, and I, I
can.
I see all these apprenticescome out and within like three
years, these, these folks arerunning jobs and it's just wild.
Uh now, whether they're capableor not I'm not sure, cause
that's not a you know three,four years to get all that
(10:24):
knowledge in to run large work.
But it's funny you talk aboutthem trying to screw up your
test because kind of jokes onthem.
You basically had to forceyourself to learn all this stuff
.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
So you're probably much better skilled than those
guys were when they becameforemen.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
The best is when I've had there was this guy.
I'll never forget him.
I literally left there and Iwas like maybe I'm just going to
go be a hairdresser orsomething.
And I left there and I calledmy instructor at the time and I
was like why did you send mehere?
Like was this supposed to be ajoke?
Like I don't understand why youdid this to me and I didn't
(11:00):
want to be like the boss'sdaughter kind of thing, working
for my dad and his company.
And you know, years later, thesame dude is calling me, begging
me to come work, and just like,do side work for him or have my
company, you know, do supporthim, or can you send me any of
your students, you know.
And I would just like laugh andjust like, yeah, yeah, I'll be
(11:22):
there at seven, see you there.
And never show up.
Screw him over every chance,like wow, because it's like you
know a few.
But yeah, that was probably.
That was one of my uh, mygreatest accomplishments was
selling that guy, that's awesome.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Yeah, so without going into too much detail of
like the story of how you gotinto it because I think jason
did a really good job over atour junkies um, good buddy of
yours about how you kind ofstarted in this, but can you
give us a quick snapshot of kindof how you even got interested
in welding?
Speaker 1 (11:57):
yeah, oh, my dad ran a paving heavy construction
company and just going to jobsites with him, always enamored
with welders he wasn't a welderhimself but being a daddy's girl
and wanting his attention, uh,I just saw that.
And then one day he let me kindof work in the shop and they
gave me a couple like stickelectrodes or hard facing rods I
don't even know what it was andI just started burning rods and
(12:18):
next thing I know, I found outthat I could do it as like an
elective.
It was still when, when youknow, metal shop was in.
I feel like I'm dating myselfnow.
I'm saying metal shop was inhigh school.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Oh, I had it too.
I think they're bringing itback which is good I see V
schools coming back.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Yeah.
So then, and then I went off tothe vocational school and, uh,
yeah, and I just kind of did itever since.
And it was funny when I when Ijoined the military I originally
wanted to go into the Air Forcebut I had some tattoos at the
time and it was taking foreverfor them to get back to me for
the waivers for my tattoos.
So I joined with the Army as anintel analyst and I picked that
(12:55):
job just because it had thehighest sign-on bonus.
But my ASVAB scores were sohigh that I only got like I was
like it was, it was Intelanalyst, linguist, cryptologist,
and this is when, likecryptologists and linguists, you
were still able to do that as alike somebody coming in.
Now I think you can't even likeenlist as one of those MOSs and
(13:20):
then also UAV operator.
In hindsight I wish I wouldhave picked UAV operator.
But but my brother, he retiredafter 21 years.
He was a mass sergeant in theArmy.
He was like oh, I'll be anintel analyst, it'll transfer
really well into privatecontract work.
So I was like all right, cool,it's got a big bonus, I'll do
that.
I got in and they're like here'sa laptop, I'm like out of
(13:52):
station in Korea.
As soon as I get over there, Istart getting becoming friends
with like some of theinterrogators and then some of
the the mechanics and stuffthere, and then they're all like
, oh, can you weld this?
Can you show us how to set thismachine up?
Can you do this?
So it found me even over thereand yeah.
So I've always kind of justkept going back.
No matter what I tried doing, Ialways found myself back in
(14:15):
welding.
And then as soon as I got outof the military, it was
literally that was I triedapplying for Intel jobs and
nothing was biting.
It was probably because myresume was total garbage.
And yeah, here I am still awelder all these years later.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Yeah, so they didn't even offer you like an engineer
spot or anything like that.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
No, at that time it was so needs of the Army after
9-11.
So, like the fact that you gotto remember too and people are
in like high war times, a lot ofthe people that are enlisting
are coming from lower incomebackgrounds.
Right, that's typically thelarge pool of people joining the
military and they're just notscoring those types of scores
(14:58):
often on on the ASVAB.
So I got a plethora of just thenerdiest jobs out there and I
remember like I was like youknow, you're starting to meet
all the people that you're goingto be working with and stuff,
and they're all.
They're all like oh yeah, weplay World of Warcraft and we
play this video game and thatvideo game, and like I don't, I
don't know anything, I'm not,I'm not one of those people?
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Oh, no, nothing in common.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
I didn't really have a lot in common.
That's why I kept.
I just like ended up, like youknow, I met one person who was
like, oh, this person is intobuilding Jeeps or this.
And then I just, you know, I Ifound myself, uh, you know, back
to uh, to the welding andfabrication and stuff like that,
even though that's not what Iwas supposed to be doing.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Yeah, well, I'm glad you did Um, so you got out and
you had a little bit.
How long were you weldingbefore you enlisted?
Speaker 1 (15:51):
By that time Gosh six years.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
At that point, okay, so you had a pretty robust
background then.
Yeah, so did that make iteasier.
When you got out, it soundedlike you already knew you wanted
to go back to that trade.
Yeah, you said you applied to afew jobs, but did you kind of
always have in the back of yourmind like I want to go back to
welding, I want to go back tofabrication?
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Um, no, I don't think I did.
I I didn't know what I wanted todo back then because, you know,
when I left my actual thoughtswhere I was going to stay in the
military for a career and Iended up having my daughter and
just you know, long-term careplans and stuff just weren't in
(16:34):
the cards for me, like I didn'tfeel like I had somebody if I
had to like do deployments or ifI, you know, in the unlikely
chance as an intel analyst, thatsomething catastrophic happened
to me, that you know she wouldbe in good hands, unless
something catastrophic happenedto me that you know she would be
in good hands, not that like mymom wasn't capable, but you
know she's older and she wasstill working and I just
couldn't put that on her or myyounger sister.
(16:56):
Both of my brothers were in themilitary and deploying all the
time and you know I justcouldn't do that and I couldn't
trust her father, unfortunately,and yeah.
So it kind of changed myoutlook on what my career was
going to look like, I guess.
And then when I got out I justwent right back to where the
money was and that was welding.
You know I had to do something,yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
So yeah, I think there's a lot of people in that
situation, maybe not with kids,but I mean, I know when I got
out I wasn't 100, sure I.
I kind of fell into this justbecause I I met some people and
it worked out really well andobviously I stuck with it.
But I think there's more peoplekind of in that situation that
I don't know what I'm going todo, I can't find work, I'm just
going to take kind of whatevercomes.
(17:35):
And then there's a lot ofsuccess stories like yours.
Well, obviously it led tosomething huge, which is great.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
But oh gosh, three months, two months, oh wow, it
wasn't long at all.
Like as soon as I got out and Iwas back home, just people
started calling asking if Iwanted to go work here or work
(18:03):
there, and that's actually whereI first one of the other.
That's kind of how I've gottento education.
At first, too, is because myold welding instructor called me
and was like hey, do you wantto be the TIG instructor, like
the you know specialty alloysand stuff like that instructor
here at this program?
And I was like yeah, and it was, you know easy hours, you know
(18:24):
Monday through Friday and doneby 1.30.
So I did that for a littlewhile and I caught the educator
bug there and then went backinto like industry and you know,
after I kind of got my my, myfooting there and, um, I ended
up getting my degree ineducation and then became a
welding instructor a coupleyears later.
So but, uh, you know, I was apipe welder most of my career.
(18:44):
Um, yeah, so I did a lot of umlike pressure vessels, hydraulic
repair, um anodized aluminumpipe in the yachting industry.
So for a big part of my earlycareer, um, I was in more boat
and yachting magazines and Iwasn't anything welding related.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
That's awesome, yeah, so here's a question why
welding?
So you were.
You said your dad had a pavingcompany, right, yeah, of all the
trades, what was it aboutwelding?
That really stuck out for youoh gosh, um.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Honestly, I think it was the challenge.
I was always kind of like atomboy too and I'm like heavily
competitive.
And the second people startedkind of saying, oh, you can't do
that, you don't want to do that, don't do that.
That's when I was like I thinkI want to do that, I want to
keep trying, I want to keepdoing this.
And you know, getting into theprogram and seeing how good I
was at it, like so fast, like Iwas getting certified, I got a
(19:39):
couple of 6G certifications onspecific materials faster than
my welding instructor got them,like he was failing them and I
was getting them first rip, youknow, and that's a really hard
test to pass.
And you know, I'm like a juniorand senior in high school
getting those certifications andI think it was just, you know,
everybody kept saying that Iguess too, like just the thought
(20:01):
of being a welder, people justkind of always thought it was
like a dead end or, like youknow, it's just like some type
of skid, you know, and I justkind of like stuck with it and
just kept opening up newopportunities and new
opportunities and meeting people.
Now I have a pretty largenetwork of people and even when
I tried to get out of itrecently, I still found myself
back in it.
I just love it.
I don't know what it is about it.
(20:22):
It's not a one-way street, Ithink.
Like a lot of times vocationalprograms are kind of paved to be
you're going to go out there,you're going to learn a trade
and you're going to work forsomebody.
That's not the way it has to be.
You can work for somebody,build some skills up, then you
can work for yourself and thenyou can offer your services to
those people that you areworking for and then you can go
(20:42):
and turn it into like you know.
So like, if you look at mycareer, I went from you know
being the bottom of the barrelto you know, moving up in
different industries.
So I went from you know pipewelding to education, to
consulting, to owning twodifferent businesses, marketing,
you know.
And then all of a sudden, nowyou're working, you're getting
marketing skills.
You're getting you knowstrategy and strategic
(21:04):
development type skills thatyou're building out, financial
skills.
Now, all these, this whole likeyou know, catalog of skill sets
that you're kind of collectingand that's worth something to
some companies.
And I started to figure thatout quite quickly.
And yeah, and I mean so, it'snot the one lane highway here
and in any of these trade skillsindustries.
(21:25):
It's just, you know, having theknowledge and the foresight to
be like, hey, I can take theseskills, these are worth
something to somebody.
I don't always have to be, youknow, the guy digging the ditch,
you know.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Yeah, yeah, and I'm real big on trying to expose
people to yeah, you might bedigging that ditch for a little
bit, but there's not just inlike management or consulting,
but there's all these differentaspects of the industry too.
You might end up getting intoquality control or scheduling or
safety or you know.
there's so many different pathsthat you can take.
And that's what I really loveabout our industry is that, like
(22:01):
business development, likeyou're doing, there's all these
different roles that you can gointo.
But I think I'm not alone insaying this is that the people
that have kind of walked thewalk already get a lot more
respect, a lot more work,because they, hey, I've done
that, I've been there, so I canspeak intelligently to that.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Yeah, and you definitely need that.
I don't think you're going toget too far, especially in
industries like we're in,without having those
foundational skills and and and,coming from the bottom and
working your way up.
You know, sometimes it justcomes with a different layer of
respect.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Yeah, and I I try to encourage folks like man, maybe
you get out and you try weldingand you know six months to a
year into it Okay, I'm not a fanof welding.
Okay, well, there's a myriad ofa myriad of other trades that
you can get into that are stillcan be very profitable,
especially, like you said, startyour own business.
Really, that's where a lot ofthe money does come from.
Yeah, if you want to get youknow, do really well financially
(22:58):
, but at the same time, youdon't have to do that because
there's, as you know, there'speople within three, four, five
years of their career that aremaking very good money and
supporting their families.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Yeah, and I always tell people, like when I used to
be an instructor, I would tellpeople, you know, you don't have
to be good at everything inthis industry.
Like just recently I went outto Miller headquarters and I
started getting some advancedMIG process training.
So like on our AccuPulse,versapulse, hdmig, rmd, all
these you know, outside of shortcircuit welding, which a lot of
(23:30):
like home hobby MIG welderslike that's, that's the process
you're using, right, and I don'tconsider myself a very good MIG
welder.
Like I can do it, I can make itlook good.
I don't like doing it.
But then when I got into theseadvanced like heavy
manufacturing processes I'm likewow, like there's a specific
talent to this.
Like the speed all that is sodifferent than what I'm used to
(23:53):
with.
Like I would consider it aslower process of welding with
the short circuit, right, andyou know you don't have to just
be that Like you could go.
If you're really good at TIGwelding, you just TIG weld.
Or if you're really bad at alltypes of welding, you can get
into welding sales if you reallylove the industry, there's
sales, right, there's you know.
(24:13):
Uh, you know, like you weresaying, you know there's QA, qc.
You can go be an inspector, youknow do quality type stuff,
like there's lots of other.
You can be a welding engineer,right.
There's lots of differentavenues within the industry that
kind of all support each other.
So you know, if you have aninterest in something, you can
still find different ways thatyour skillsets might apply
better.
You know.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Yeah, Well said, and that's just one trade.
Yeah, To liken it to theservice, you know you've got
like the boots on ground.
You can think about the armyLike everybody's basically
supporting the infantry, If youwant to look at it that way,
like the front line right andthere's a lot of those support
roles.
But it takes that big machineto really keep the infantry
(24:53):
moving and rolls.
But it takes that big machineto really keep the infantry
moving and it takes this bigmachine to keep the welders
burning rod.
Yeah, exactly, they need allthose support folks.
So there's so many things thatyou could do within the industry
.
So I would just try to tellpeople man, see what you like,
see what you're interested in,try for a little bit.
It doesn't work out.
There's just so many otheroptions out there.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
So other options out there?
Yeah, for sure.
So this is kind of a loadedquestion.
I don't think there's any wronganswer, but are there any
things that you you picked upfrom your time in the service
that you think might've helpedyou along your journey?
Speaker 1 (25:23):
Oh yeah, um uh thick skin Um okay, that's fair, you
know, just dealing withdifferent types of people.
That definitely helped.
I think it it built myconfidence to be on my own,
which I didn't have before themilitary, because I never left
my house Not left my house, butI never left my hometown.
Really, you know so like beingout there and you know being
(25:46):
stationed in like South Korea,for instance, you know like
you're on your own out there,you're trying to talk to your
family it's like 13 hour timedifference, right You're.
You're not even on the samepage as them at the time
throughout the day, right, um,so that that kind of built me up
Um.
But then the thick skin partcomes from when I was in um, in
the military as an analyst, Idealt a lot with like human
(26:07):
trafficking and to be, you know,18, 19 years old, dealing with
those types of um, that type ofreality.
I think that kind of builds up acertain layer of skin that most
people don't have.
And, like I said, theconfidence to talk to people as
an analyst.
And then I'm, you know, I'mshowing up and I become the G2
Sergeant Majors Assistant.
(26:27):
I'm dealing with like generalsand crazy stuff like help build
my confidence, public speakingskills, definitely as an analyst
, and then when it comes to,like, my business approach, it
trained me to be a veryanalytical person.
I look at things differentlythan maybe other people don't.
I see opportunity, places whereother people might not see it.
So I think I definitely gaineda lot more skills than I.
(26:49):
I guess I didn't even realizehow much I kind of gained from
it.
A lot of times, you know, Iguess I didn't even realize how
much I kind of gained from it.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
A lot of times.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
You know, I kind of like live with this like I
didn't do much in the military,you know, and I don't really
talk about my service time everLike, if you ever listen to
anything that I've ever done,it's something that's like a
side comment, maybe mentioned,maybe I don't even bring it up.
It's not that I'm not proud ofit, it's just I don't feel like
I like I look at what my husbanddid in the Marines or what my
brother's done, you know, likemy brother has like bronze stars
(27:18):
and stuff and and and, like Ijust don't feel like a I guess
maybe a little imposter syndromethere.
You know, like I'm notdeserving of any type of
recognition for what I've done.
Um, you know, and you, you justit's just a weird, a weird spot
to be in, I guess you know.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
Yeah, no, I, I a hundred percent can identify
with that too, Cause I felt thesame for a long time.
I think it took me I don't know, maybe a decade, maybe a little
less, to kind of start to feelcomfortable in my own skin and
like who I was, and not justidentifying with my service.
But what what's helped mepersonally is I had to think I'm
(27:58):
a very, very, very smallpercentage of the entire
population of the U?
S that's ever served.
If you look at, like the, the,the grand scheme of things too,
and then you go and talk tothose folks with the bronze
stars or you know, even a medalof honor or something crazy like
that, somebody that's that'sreally been there on the front
line, and even them they're likehey, thanks for your service.
I just did the interview beforethis.
Um, the guy was retired after27 years and thanked me for my
(28:20):
service.
I'm like man, like I appreciatethat.
Thank you.
You know you stuck it out.
I did seven years active butjust knowing you had this small
piece of the pie that you serve.
So I totally, totally identifywith that and I appreciate you
saying that.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
So, um, I don't think you would change much on your
journey, but I know you had, uh,you know, twists and turns.
You decided to go kind ofdifferent routes, uh throughout
education and owning yourbusiness.
If you had somebody kind of onthe same path, uh maybe in the
trades, thinking about startingtheir business or getting into
education, do you think you haveany piece of advice to somebody
(28:55):
of hey, don't do what I did,kind of thing, or something that
you could change?
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Oh man, I don't know.
Um, I guess for me, like, Iguess, if you're asking like
kind of what my regret was, washey, I try to say it a little
nicer than regret, but yeah.
I mean anything you could havedone better.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
I guess is like the focus wasn't there.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
It was about making money because the money was
going to support her.
Like the money wasn't what sheneeded, she needed me.
(29:38):
And now I sold my company youknow the fab shop and the school
, thinking like, oh, and I leftAWS doing the tour stuff and I'm
like here I am, come hang outwith me now.
Let's do all this bonding time.
And she's like I have a lifenow.
Like you know, I love you but Ican't hang out with you every
day.
So that's, you know, part ofthe reason I got a little bored
(29:59):
quickly and you know just, Iguess really you know just
counting your blessings when itcomes to the people that are in
your life and enjoying that timewith them and giving them the
time and the attention theydeserve to.
You know, I guess a better work, life balance.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
No, and full transparency, like within the
last year, is when it thatfinally started to hit me, cause
I was so hell bent on climbingthe ladder and my oldest
daughter, 10.
And so I'm thinking you know,worst case, or maybe best case,
however you want to look at itI've probably got eight more
years with her in the house Ifshe decides not to move out when
(30:38):
she's 18 or you.
You know what I'm saying, butit's that's not that much time,
like these 10 years.
She just turned 10.
Uh, the time we're recording,uh, we're recording this.
She turned 10 last week and I'mlike where did this decade go?
I mean, it was so fast.
And so now I'm like you knowI'm I'm pretty happy where I'm
(30:59):
at financially, you know whereI'm at in the industry, and if I
don't get that promotion, it'snot that big of a deal.
I'm just really happy.
I get to spend time with mywife and kids and that's what's
most important.
So I appreciate hearing thatfrom somebody else too.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Yeah, it's, it's tough, you know, and then for me
it was always.
I felt like there was a lot ofeyes on me at a lot of times and
it was like, if I don't do thenext thing, like this pressure
of like having to always likeone up myself and letting that
kind of get in the way of whatwas really important, you know,
and that should have been me metaking a couple of days off here
and there.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
you know Well, social media makes it a lot worse too.
I mean, you know, we're findingout now.
Obviously, a lot of thesethings that we see are not what
they seem and you're like man,that guy I worked with uh, they
got this promotion and they'redoing awesome.
Well, lo and behold, you knowtheir family likes falling apart
, maybe behind the scenes, yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
I mean, I live that, you know.
You know me and my husband.
Our marriage was was going toshit fast because I was never
home.
I, my priorities were workfirst, family second, third,
like the pressures of of beingsomething and being, you know,
being this person everybody wassupposed to look up to.
And when I sold the school andI was like, hey, you know, when
(32:27):
you sell this, do you want mysocial media to like I'll
include that deal?
And I was, I tell everybody nowlike that was the greatest.
I would have took nothing forthe business.
Just, you know, just take that.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
You know, because it's been so nice.
You sold it Like you sold thesocial media with the schools.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
Yeah, so Jason, jason runs my old, my old pages and
channels and stuff, and, um,yeah, it's been awesome Cause
now I have like a privateaccount and uh, I can post what
I want, cause I mean you'd postsomething, and all you hear is
just you hear the negative, youdon't hear the positive and then
the positive it's so fake.
It's like, you know, this posedpicture of what I want
(33:09):
everybody to see and content Iwant people to see, and it
wasn't real.
Life wasn't reality, you knowso I'm I'm.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
I'm not as popular as I wish I was, but I'm getting
to the point where I'm startingto get some of the negative
reviews.
So I'm like, okay, I'm doingsomething right.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Yeah, I'm getting noticed yeah, so you know, the
the netflix show even was we're100 and 190something countries
it was in, and you're like, oh,you're going to, yeah,
190-something countries, andlike translate into like 20-plus
languages, like 25, 27languages or something like that
, that's wild.
Yeah, and you're like, oh wow,this is going to be so great.
(33:47):
You know this is going to beawesome.
You know, the first woman to beon a platform as, like, a
welding content expert, you know, on a platform, a global
platform, I'm thinking everybodyand their mother is going to
love to see this.
And no, a lot of othercountries do not appreciate a
woman in industry, that's forsure.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
And Instagram and all that stuff.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
They do this great thing where they translate
things.
So when you open it up, it youknow it says all these horribly
mean things.
And then you know thesearticles are getting written and
my daughter sees it, herfriends see it, my mom sees it,
you know.
And then like there was a time,like on the show, you know when
the show came out and you knowRay, ivan, all them, they're all
my friends and you know they'relike making posts defending me
(34:33):
because people are like going ontheir stuff commenting nasty
things about how I'm.
You know she's such a bitch andshe's this or she doesn't know
what she's talking about.
And I did feel like a fish outof water on that show.
So I'll give people that youknow like I'm not a metal artist
really by any means, I'm a pipewelder by trade, you know, and
(34:53):
I felt super intimidatedstanding next to David and then
you know the power of editingbut people don't want to see
that, you know, and they don'twant to hear it and it was just
really crappy.
I always laugh because you knowyou watch the show or you watch
some of my older stuff I did forAWS and I always joke and I'll
be like, oh, that was two facesago or that was three faces ago
because it ruined my self-esteem.
(35:14):
And next thing, you know, I'm,like you know, putting ago
because it ruined my self-esteem.
And next thing, you know, I'm,like you know, putting this crap
in my face, doing this to myface, you know, it just
everything and anything, justbecause it just crushes you like
, and it's, it's all crap, it'sjust stuff that, like you know,
you take it home with you, youknow, and then my husband's
dealing with that, becauseclearly you just don't deal with
(35:34):
that by yourself, that's forsure.
Yeah, I didn't become a welder,thinking that that was going to
be my life, you know I don'tthink I'm sure like the national
spokesperson of the world'slargest welding organization on
a netflix show, like I was justhappy just welding some pipe
here and there, and so Idefinitely wasn't anticipating
that and I don't think like somepeople, like I don't't want to.
(35:58):
I guess I'm not going to saypeople's names, but there are
some people in my industry whoall they want to be is famous
and all they want to do iscreate content and create an
illusion of what they wantpeople to think their life is,
and that's something that Inever wanted to do and that's
why I took the role with Miller,because now I don't have to
create content for anybody, likea lot of other companies that
(36:19):
were reaching out to me.
That's what they wanted me todo and I'm so happy that I can
just be utilized for my actualskill set and what I bring to
the table.
On a on a more business, youknow side of the fence, so happy
about that.
A lot less pressure, good foryou.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Yeah, build up a lot less pressure for you.
Yeah, you know it's, it'sreally refreshing hearing that.
I mean, obviously I enjoyed theshow and for people that don't
know, it's metal shop masters, Ienjoyed it.
Um, I was hooked on it, Ireally loved it and, like I, I
shared with you before the show,like I started watching it and
it got me back on my welder, um,I thought it was really good
and I'm sure you know, like yousaid, the magic of editing.
(36:55):
There's a lot of stuff thatpeople don't see.
But it's refreshing to hearsomebody that's walked in your
shoes to to say that kind ofstuff and kind of bring it to
light.
And I try to do my best on thisshow.
Like I, I told people, you knowI, I I'm sober now but I was an
alcoholic or I guesstechnically I'm supposed to say
I still am, but I am sober.
You know, I dealt with mentalhealth issues and went through a
(37:15):
lot of junk and my familylife's not a hundred percent
perfect.
I mean, I have an amazing wifeand kids, but like we're not
perfect, we don't have it allput together and so I'm never
going to pretend like I do now.
Do I take 20 photos to try toget the best shot of the job
site.
Yes, I'll admit that, because Iwant it to look cool.
I want people to like the jobsite, but, um, but no, I
(37:36):
appreciate you sharing all that,but um, maybe people that
support just aren't as vocal asthe negative Cause I I've I've
seen I don't remember where itwas, at it was I think I Googled
the show and I was readingthrough these reviews.
I'm like these people are justjerks, man.
I mean I don't know, they havenothing better to do with their
lives.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
Yeah, it's hard.
It's hard to read that kind ofstuff, especially when you went
into it with this like reallypositive, oh, this is going to
be so great, I can't wait.
Yeah, you know, and then, andthen you're filming it and it's
such a great experience duringthe filming of it, and then it
comes out and you're like, uh,this isn and I'm sure there's a
lot of folks similar to meeither got back into it or you
(38:15):
obviously spurred somebody'sinterest in getting into welding
or any kind of trade.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
So I'm sure it did some definitely some good out
there yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
I mean I hear I've heard lots of positive stuff.
But you know like I, you knowthey, they say right, it's like
you hear one one negativecomment takes a hundred
positives for it to like for itto balance out, but I am very
happy to not be a fixture onpeople's social media anymore.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
Yeah, I bet Well good .
So I'm going to kind of take Idon't want to say a dark turn,
but I want to talk about mentalhealth real quick in the
industry and we chatted a littlebit about it, so the industry
will burn you out real quick,especially in the trades.
I think more than anybody tradesand trade management like it's
(39:07):
really difficult, very longhours.
Then you get in a salary andyou're not getting paid for all
that OT and it's tough.
So mental health is a hugething in the service.
It's also a huge thing in ourindustry.
So if you've got, you've got aunique perspective.
If you have somebody in thetrade that is just trudging
along like I don't want to go towork, this sucks, I'm done with
(39:29):
all this and feels like theydon't have a way out, Cause I've
been there too, what would youtry to say to that individual to
encourage them to just keepgoing or find something else?
Speaker 1 (39:38):
Yeah, I think that's just it.
It's, you know, what are yougoing to do to get yourself out
of this situation?
You know, looking at it fromagain kind of a strategy
perspective, you know, hey, whatcan I?
Can I make it six more weekshere, if I can?
What can I learn in that sixweek period?
That's going to set me up for abetter position, a better role,
is it?
I got to take a six-week nightclass.
I got to take online LinkedIncourses.
(39:59):
I got to get a resume builderperson.
You know, on my side, what do Igot to do?
What do I got to do in thattime period to better myself?
And just kind of thinking at itlike that, like taking a little
bit more of a like segment yourproblem out a little bit, um,
and kind of trying to strategize, um, how to get yourself out of
(40:20):
there.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
You know, yeah, yeah, that's tough, especially when,
like I'll give you my example,cause I got, I got the kids and
my wife she doesn't work, soeverybody's depending on me and
I've I've had those spots evenrecently, where I'm just like I
don't know what to do anymore.
You know, I'm kind of hit awall, but I think what I found
and what I love about theindustry is that, very similar
to the service, I have all thesepeople around me that are kind
(40:44):
of dealing with the same crap.
So it's like, hey, this suckstogether.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
And so I can kind of lean on them a little bit and
it's, it's become a lot moreacceptable, because it used to
be this you know, shut up, keepyour head down and just keep
going.
And I've seen a change in theservice and it's definitely
starting to change in theindustry within the last few
years.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
Yeah, you got people, though, who you say you know
I'll just using welding, right.
So every time I pick up myphone, I have somebody
pretending, or somebody you know, telling me how great the
welding industry is, yet my jobsucks, you know.
It's like well, that stuffgetting constantly jammed down
(41:25):
your throat of everything's sogreat and so perfect over there,
why isn't it perfect for me,you know?
so, again, I think it kind oftakes a look at that problem and
kind of think, well, how can Imake it better?
Here's a timeline in the nextsix weeks, what can I do to make
it better?
You know, how can I get myselfgoing in a direction that's more
positive, Is it?
I got to put my phone down.
I got to get off the internet.
(41:46):
Do I got to take a, like youknow, go a little ghost for a
little bit more of a positivemindset to kind of move yourself
forward?
Speaker 2 (42:01):
Yeah, I'll tell you, I got off Facebook a few years
back and that certainly helped.
I mean it sucks because I can't, um like stay in touch.
We've lived all over the world.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
And so it it kind of stinks sometimes.
My wife's still on there so shecan stay in touch with our
friends but, it was.
It was so toxic.
And I'm not saying nobodyshould be on it.
I think it's got its positivestoo.
But when I put the phone downfor a while and I'm not on
Instagram, I'm not doing stufffor the even, for the podcast
and like we get into thiscomparison wheel and, oh, this
(42:27):
person's doing so great mentallyI'm just, I feel so much better
.
Like I'm doing me, I'm happy.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
I don't like, I mean for a while there.
I just took it off my phone solike if I was on a computer or
something for a few minutes thenI could go on Facebook and you
know.
But I mean, now I have it allback on my phone and I probably
stare at it a little bit toomuch.
But yeah, I'd say I, you know,I'd say definitely, try and
limit your time staring at otherpeople's fake success or fake
(42:57):
illusion of what they want youto see it's.
You know, grass isn't alwaysgreener on the other side, I can
assure you.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
Yeah, and you know, I think one thing that was sort
of freeing, even though it wasterrifying getting out of the
service.
What was a little freeing forme is I kept telling myself, if
this doesn't work out, you knowI can leave, like I'm not tied
to a four or five year contract,like I can find something
better.
It might just not be a fit forme at the time and I bounced
(43:24):
around a little bit and I'mreally happy where I'm at now.
Um, and I've helped.
You know, maybe it's I've neverleft for money, but that's.
Some people take thatopportunity.
They want more money.
Or I want a better position,longer, you know, runway for my
career, so that's one thing Itry to free people up with is
dude, what you're dealing withright now is going to suck today
.
Yeah, maybe for the next fewweeks, but I like your idea
(43:46):
about the six week kind ofroadmap.
Build your goal sheet, if youwill, of okay to get where I
want to go.
I got to go through these steps.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
Yeah, for sure.
I think I don't know where Ilearned that from.
I think it was actually one ofmy MBA classes.
It was just like you know howto manage people and how to get
people who might not be say for,like you know, this is like a
change initiative.
You can kind of look at it asright and you know you're
looking at a bunch of people whoare not happy not getting buy
(44:16):
in for whatever it is thatyou're trying to do differently
and it's like, okay, how do webreak this down to get people
there?
You know, and that's you cantake that kind of same approach
with with your own challenges.
Right, how?
How can I break this down toget to where I want to be?
Speaker 2 (44:30):
I'm going to wrap up our time here with one last
question.
I've I've taken up quite a bitof your time already and I
really appreciate it.
Stephanie, like I said, I'mvery humbled that you responded
back.
I appreciate it.
You are like the queen of thisCause.
You did it for a long timetrying to get people in the
industry.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
So if we have people that are transitioning out of
the service or anybody out there, really what would you say to
them to try to get them into theindustry, maybe not welding
(45:06):
specific, but anything withinconstruction fabrication,
anything like that?
Um, oh wait, I don't even know.
Speaker 2 (45:09):
I guess it's we just we need bodies um, yeah, that's
true you got a lot of skills tooffer.
Speaker 1 (45:13):
Like I said, you know there's, there's a specific
level of confidence teambuilding, leadership.
Um, that comes with coming outof the service, that is very
valuable to companies.
Um, a lot of people might notsee the direct correlation and
value that they, that they canbring to some of these, these
work environments, but, um,trust me, it's there.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
Yeah, love it Awesome .
Well, I appreciate, stephanie.
Thank you again.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
This has been awesome .
Speaker 2 (45:41):
I've really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
Thank you.
I'm happy you asked me to be onand haven't done a podcast in a
while.
Speaker 2 (45:47):
Yeah, I'm glad I got to shed a little light too on
your, on your service too.
Like you said, you don't reallyget to talk about it too much,
so I'm glad we can do that.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
Yeah, I think you're the first.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
Cool.
Speaker 1 (45:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:57):
Awesome, all right, well, you have a great rest of
your day.
I appreciate it, stephanie.
Speaker 1 (46:01):
Thanks so much.
Speaker 2 (46:03):
All right.
Speaker 1 (46:04):
Thanks.
I don't think you're going to get too far, especially
in industries like we're in,without having those
foundational skills and comingfrom the bottom and working your
way up.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
This is the Construction Veteran Podcast.
Construction Veteran PodcastConnecting and celebrating
veterans in construction.
Now here's your host, scottFriend.
Welcome back to theConstruction Veteran Podcast.
I'm Scott Friend.
I am stoked to bring you guyssomebody who's very well known
(00:36):
in the welding community,stephanie Hoffman.
We go through her story aboutbecoming a soldier and going on
to become very successful in thewelding industry.
Let's dig into it.
Hey, stephanie, how are you?
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Good, how are you?
Speaker 2 (00:50):
I'm fantastic.
I appreciate you doing this.
So Stephanie and I haven't hadthe privilege of meeting in
person yet, but I took a chanceafter watching a show on Netflix
, which we'll talk about here ina little bit, and reached out
to some folks and found outStephanie is a fellow vet and so
I thought it'd be really coolto get her on the show.
(01:10):
She's got a really interestingbackground we'll get into.
But, stephanie, before we kickit off, tell me a little bit
about where you're from and whatbranch you served in.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
So I'm from a little town called Forkett River, new
Jersey.
It's right on the Jersey Shore,like the central part of Jersey
, on the shore there.
And I was in the US Army, I wasan intelligence analyst.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Very cool, and how long did you serve?
Speaker 1 (01:35):
I did four years and then four years in the inactive
reserve and I got recalled once.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Oh, no, uh-oh.
So you got recalled like thiswas during an active war yeah,
time time frame was this.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Um, yeah, I got recalled.
It was kind of a nightmare.
Uh, my daughter was, I think,two and a half three months old
and we had to get.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Yeah, it was, it was a nightmare oh, I bet, yeah, so
that would have been, was thatduring Iraq.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
I was it was for Afghanistan.
Okay, man, what a bummer.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
I think that that hopefully that program I think
has gone by the wayside.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
I think so, yeah, I know I had to.
It was a big stink cause Ididn't have anybody for my
daughter, you know, to take careof her because I wasn't married
to her dad and stuff.
And then we had split and hereally didn't have a job or
anything going for him in lifeand my dad was almost dying at
that point and my mom, shecouldn't, you know, handle it.
(02:36):
She was working and everythingelse and yeah, it was a, it was
a disaster and it was all goingon right around Christmas time
and it's awful man.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
When it rains, it pours Golly.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Yeah, so we got through that and I ended up.
I didn't have to end up goingto that, but it was.
It was a lot, it was terrifying.
You know, I'm a single mom.
My daughter is like two and ahalf months old and they're like
, oh yeah, you gotta comeno-transcript.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
One Marine that was with us, he, I think he said he
was like washing dishes in hiskitchen and some Marine walked
up in uniform and basically toldhim he'd been recalled.
What's funny is most of thepeople I met were, I mean, not
that they weren't critical, butthey were kind of serving in
roles that they could havefarmed out to a civilian.
Yeah, um, one guy was retiredfrom his military service and
(03:57):
his civilian career and he gotrecalled.
I don't know if there's truthto that, but that's what he told
us.
I don't know if there's truthto that, but that's what he told
us.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
But yeah, that's that's nuts.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Yeah, you are, man.
Let me go down the rap sheet.
So you're a mother, wife,golfer, welder extraordinaire,
and now we find out a little bitabout your veteran background.
So how do we, man, I don't evenknow where to start with you,
stephanie.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
So what, what?
What are you doing right now inthe industry?
Uh, so now I work for millerelectric.
Yeah, so now I'm the I'm themanaging kind of director of a
new application, weldingapplication and training lab
here in the northeast, so Icover the entire northeast.
Oh cool, so do you get to?
Speaker 2 (04:41):
play with all the new fun toys like the AI, welding
and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
So I, I do, I get to do it as much as I want.
Um, my role is yeah, my role iskind of more for like on the
the business developmentstrategy, um and sales support
side.
Now, um, it's not so much thethe hands-on welding stuff that
I stuff that I've been used toin my career.
I actually tried to get out ofwelding altogether not too long
ago and that didn't happen.
I got bored pretty fast andthen ended up with Miller.
But you know, I wanted to shiftgears a little bit because I
(05:19):
was finishing up my MBA inengineering management, so I
wanted something that was goingto be a little bit more aligned
with like business strategy anddevelopment and stuff like that.
And this kind of came up and itwas kind of a perfect fit
because when everybody found outthat I had sold my businesses
and left the American WeldingSociety as well, everybody and
(05:41):
their mother was offering medifferent opportunities.
But a lot of them they soundedgreat in the beginning and then
they all started to fall back toa lot of like content stuff and
you know, hosting this andgoing to these things, I was
like I don't want to be doingthis stuff anymore.
You know, I have more to offerthe industry than just, you know
, recording videos and stuff andsupporting content wise for
(06:02):
companies.
So you know, I told everybodyno and and held out and I
thought it was probably justgoing to be just a lot of golf
in my future.
Um, and then this came up andI've been super happy with it.
So I've been there for sixmonths now.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Good yeah, cause for a while there.
So you're I believe.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
Uh, your time with the Americanwelding society.
You played a big role travelingaround and like introducing
people to the industry.
Is that right yeah?
Speaker 1 (06:29):
So I was.
I guess my official title wasthe program manager of workforce
development, but really what Iwas was kind of a national
spokesperson for them I did atfirst it was an 18 week a year
tour.
At first it was an 18 week ayear tour and then it was a lot
between my fabrication stuffthat you know, running that
(06:49):
business and then eventuallyopened up a welding school, and
then doing the tour on top of it.
They were nice enough to peelit back to 14 weeks, but you
know the tour was 14 weeks.
But then there was other eventsyou know that I'd be asked to
support and go to.
So it was a lot of timetraveling and, um so yeah, so I
was a lot of time traveling andum so yeah, so I was just kind
of promoting careers in welding,engineering, manufacturing, um,
(07:09):
anything like that.
I did that for six, five, sixyears.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Did it during that time?
Did you see like a big uh, notpush maybe, but did you see the
industry maybe start turningtowards getting more people in,
getting younger kids interestedin the industry at all?
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Yeah, there's been.
So I always laugh whenever Italk about this.
You know, when I started I'vebeen in the industry over two
decades now and when I startedyou know it was kind of like a
place where all like the burnoutkids, kids with no future.
You know, you ended up at thevocational school and I was the
first female to graduate myvo-tech program and it was a big
(07:46):
, big deal for me to go intothat program.
They actually didn't even wantme in there because they were
like, oh you know, we don't havea bathroom for her to get
changed in and like really,really kind of silly excuses.
And so I ended up getting intothat program, excelled there.
And you know, when I firststarted getting into the
industry, everybody would justbasically laugh at me when I
(08:06):
would go into these, into theseinterviews and stuff.
And it was, you know, theywould purposely do stuff to see
me struggle or fail in aninterview for a weld test and
stuff.
And you know I was super new,naive, didn't know, wasn't super
confident on equipment andmachines and, like you know,
background settings and thingslike that.
So I just expected them to likekind of have it ready for me to
go and that wasn't the case.
(08:27):
And now, you know, fast forward,you know, 10, 15, now, almost
20 years later, and it's beenthis renaissance of, you know,
promoting the trades, not justfor young girls to get involved,
but just anybody in general.
Because now they have thisincredible skills gap, you know,
between all these peopleretiring and now the people that
were kind of you know, mid tolower level employees are
(08:51):
getting promoted at anaccelerated rate into those
supervisory leadership roleswithin this industry and there's
nobody to kind of backfill thisposition.
So you know, some of thesepeople are wearing multiple hats
.
Backfill this position.
So you know, some of thesepeople are wearing multiple hats
.
So just similar to, like WorldWar II, any of the big you know
wars and stuff, where you know,hey, all of a sudden, these, the
geniuses, they go, oh well, Ihave a great idea, let's.
(09:13):
We got to tap into the women.
Now, you know, like all of asudden during World War II,
women are welders and doing thisand they're capable, right, and
then for decades we weren'tcapable and now all of a sudden
there's this mega demand againfor skilled labor.
So now they have to do the samething they did back then.
So I always kind of laugh.
So there's definitely been ahuge push and I've been a part
(09:35):
of a lot of initiatives whereit's like, okay, how can we get
the younger generation, how dowe fill that skills gap?
And sometimes I get a littleannoyed because it's always like
about being a girl and I hatethat.
I hate that so much.
It's not about being a girl,it's just about having passion
and pride in your work andhaving work ethic Right, and how
do?
How do we make that appealingto young kids nowadays?
(09:55):
Um, so, working with a lot oforganizations to kind of change
the narrative a little bit, youknow.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Yeah, no, I I agree with you as far as like the
rapid uh growth, as far as likeyounger folks in the industry.
Um, I've been in the industryfor a while now too, and I, I
can.
I see all these apprenticescome out and within like three
years, these, these folks arerunning jobs and it's just wild.
Uh now, whether they're capableor not I'm not sure, cause
that's not a you know three,four years to get all that
(10:24):
knowledge in to run large work.
But it's funny you talk aboutthem trying to screw up your
test because kind of jokes onthem.
You basically had to forceyourself to learn all this stuff
.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
So you're probably much better skilled than those
guys were when they becameforemen.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
The best is when I've had there was this guy.
I'll never forget him.
I literally left there and Iwas like maybe I'm just going to
go be a hairdresser orsomething.
And I left there and I calledmy instructor at the time and I
was like why did you send mehere?
Like was this supposed to be ajoke?
Like I don't understand why youdid this to me and I didn't
(11:00):
want to be like the boss'sdaughter kind of thing, working
for my dad and his company.
And you know, years later, thesame dude is calling me, begging
me to come work, and just like,do side work for him or have my
company, you know, do supporthim, or can you send me any of
your students, you know.
And I would just like laugh andjust like, yeah, yeah, I'll be
(11:22):
there at seven, see you there.
And never show up.
Screw him over every chance,like wow, because it's like you
know a few.
But yeah, that was probably.
That was one of my uh, mygreatest accomplishments was
selling that guy, that's awesome.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Yeah, so without going into too much detail of
like the story of how you gotinto it because I think jason
did a really good job over atour junkies um, good buddy of
yours about how you kind ofstarted in this, but can you
give us a quick snapshot of kindof how you even got interested
in welding?
Speaker 1 (11:57):
yeah, oh, my dad ran a paving heavy construction
company and just going to jobsites with him, always enamored
with welders he wasn't a welderhimself but being a daddy's girl
and wanting his attention, uh,I just saw that.
And then one day he let me kindof work in the shop and they
gave me a couple like stickelectrodes or hard facing rods I
don't even know what it was andI just started burning rods and
(12:18):
next thing I know, I found outthat I could do it as like an
elective.
It was still when, when youknow, metal shop was in.
I feel like I'm dating myselfnow.
I'm saying metal shop was inhigh school.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Oh, I had it too.
I think they're bringing itback which is good I see V
schools coming back.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Yeah.
So then, and then I went off tothe vocational school and, uh,
yeah, and I just kind of did itever since.
And it was funny when I when Ijoined the military I originally
wanted to go into the Air Forcebut I had some tattoos at the
time and it was taking foreverfor them to get back to me for
the waivers for my tattoos.
So I joined with the Army as anintel analyst and I picked that
(12:55):
job just because it had thehighest sign-on bonus.
But my ASVAB scores were sohigh that I only got like I was
like it was, it was Intelanalyst, linguist, cryptologist,
and this is when, likecryptologists and linguists, you
were still able to do that as alike somebody coming in.
Now I think you can't even likeenlist as one of those MOSs and
(13:20):
then also UAV operator.
In hindsight I wish I wouldhave picked UAV operator.
But but my brother, he retiredafter 21 years.
He was a mass sergeant in theArmy.
He was like oh, I'll be anintel analyst, it'll transfer
really well into privatecontract work.
So I was like all right, cool,it's got a big bonus, I'll do
that.
I got in and they're like here'sa laptop, I'm like out of
(13:52):
station in Korea.
As soon as I get over there, Istart getting becoming friends
with like some of theinterrogators and then some of
the the mechanics and stuffthere, and then they're all like
, oh, can you weld this?
Can you show us how to set thismachine up?
Can you do this?
So it found me even over thereand yeah.
So I've always kind of justkept going back.
No matter what I tried doing, Ialways found myself back in
(14:15):
welding.
And then as soon as I got outof the military, it was
literally that was I triedapplying for Intel jobs and
nothing was biting.
It was probably because myresume was total garbage.
And yeah, here I am still awelder all these years later.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Yeah, so they didn't even offer you like an engineer
spot or anything like that.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
No, at that time it was so needs of the Army after
9-11.
So, like the fact that you gotto remember too and people are
in like high war times, a lot ofthe people that are enlisting
are coming from lower incomebackgrounds.
Right, that's typically thelarge pool of people joining the
military and they're just notscoring those types of scores
(14:58):
often on on the ASVAB.
So I got a plethora of just thenerdiest jobs out there and I
remember like I was like youknow, you're starting to meet
all the people that you're goingto be working with and stuff,
and they're all.
They're all like oh yeah, weplay World of Warcraft and we
play this video game and thatvideo game, and like I don't, I
don't know anything, I'm not,I'm not one of those people?
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Oh, no, nothing in common.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
I didn't really have a lot in common.
That's why I kept.
I just like ended up, like youknow, I met one person who was
like, oh, this person is intobuilding Jeeps or this.
And then I just, you know, I Ifound myself, uh, you know, back
to uh, to the welding andfabrication and stuff like that,
even though that's not what Iwas supposed to be doing.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Yeah, well, I'm glad you did Um, so you got out and
you had a little bit.
How long were you weldingbefore you enlisted?
Speaker 1 (15:51):
By that time Gosh six years.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
At that point, okay, so you had a pretty robust
background then.
Yeah, so did that make iteasier.
When you got out, it soundedlike you already knew you wanted
to go back to that trade.
Yeah, you said you applied to afew jobs, but did you kind of
always have in the back of yourmind like I want to go back to
welding, I want to go back tofabrication?
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Um, no, I don't think I did.
I I didn't know what I wanted todo back then because, you know,
when I left my actual thoughtswhere I was going to stay in the
military for a career and Iended up having my daughter and
just you know, long-term careplans and stuff just weren't in
(16:34):
the cards for me, like I didn'tfeel like I had somebody if I
had to like do deployments or ifI, you know, in the unlikely
chance as an intel analyst, thatsomething catastrophic happened
to me, that you know she wouldbe in good hands, unless
something catastrophic happenedto me that you know she would be
in good hands, not that like mymom wasn't capable, but you
know she's older and she wasstill working and I just
couldn't put that on her or myyounger sister.
(16:56):
Both of my brothers were in themilitary and deploying all the
time and you know I justcouldn't do that and I couldn't
trust her father, unfortunately,and yeah.
So it kind of changed myoutlook on what my career was
going to look like, I guess.
And then when I got out I justwent right back to where the
money was and that was welding.
You know I had to do something,yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
So yeah, I think there's a lot of people in that
situation, maybe not with kids,but I mean, I know when I got
out I wasn't 100, sure I.
I kind of fell into this justbecause I I met some people and
it worked out really well andobviously I stuck with it.
But I think there's more peoplekind of in that situation that
I don't know what I'm going todo, I can't find work, I'm just
going to take kind of whatevercomes.
(17:35):
And then there's a lot ofsuccess stories like yours.
Well, obviously it led tosomething huge, which is great.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
But oh gosh, three months, two months, oh wow, it
wasn't long at all.
Like as soon as I got out and Iwas back home, just people
started calling asking if Iwanted to go work here or work
(18:03):
there, and that's actually whereI first one of the other.
That's kind of how I've gottento education.
At first, too, is because myold welding instructor called me
and was like hey, do you wantto be the TIG instructor, like
the you know specialty alloysand stuff like that instructor
here at this program?
And I was like yeah, and it was, you know easy hours, you know
(18:24):
Monday through Friday and doneby 1.30.
So I did that for a littlewhile and I caught the educator
bug there and then went backinto like industry and you know,
after I kind of got my my, myfooting there and, um, I ended
up getting my degree ineducation and then became a
welding instructor a coupleyears later.
So but, uh, you know, I was apipe welder most of my career.
(18:44):
Um, yeah, so I did a lot of umlike pressure vessels, hydraulic
repair, um anodized aluminumpipe in the yachting industry.
So for a big part of my earlycareer, um, I was in more boat
and yachting magazines and Iwasn't anything welding related.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
That's awesome, yeah, so here's a question why
welding?
So you were.
You said your dad had a pavingcompany, right, yeah, of all the
trades, what was it aboutwelding?
That really stuck out for youoh gosh, um.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Honestly, I think it was the challenge.
I was always kind of like atomboy too and I'm like heavily
competitive.
And the second people startedkind of saying, oh, you can't do
that, you don't want to do that, don't do that.
That's when I was like I thinkI want to do that, I want to
keep trying, I want to keepdoing this.
And you know, getting into theprogram and seeing how good I
was at it, like so fast, like Iwas getting certified, I got a
(19:39):
couple of 6G certifications onspecific materials faster than
my welding instructor got them,like he was failing them and I
was getting them first rip, youknow, and that's a really hard
test to pass.
And you know, I'm like a juniorand senior in high school
getting those certifications andI think it was just, you know,
everybody kept saying that Iguess too, like just the thought
(20:01):
of being a welder, people justkind of always thought it was
like a dead end or, like youknow, it's just like some type
of skid, you know, and I justkind of like stuck with it and
just kept opening up newopportunities and new
opportunities and meeting people.
Now I have a pretty largenetwork of people and even when
I tried to get out of itrecently, I still found myself
back in it.
I just love it.
I don't know what it is about it.
(20:22):
It's not a one-way street, Ithink.
Like a lot of times vocationalprograms are kind of paved to be
you're going to go out there,you're going to learn a trade
and you're going to work forsomebody.
That's not the way it has to be.
You can work for somebody,build some skills up, then you
can work for yourself and thenyou can offer your services to
those people that you areworking for and then you can go
(20:42):
and turn it into like you know.
So like, if you look at mycareer, I went from you know
being the bottom of the barrelto you know, moving up in
different industries.
So I went from you know pipewelding to education, to
consulting, to owning twodifferent businesses, marketing,
you know.
And then all of a sudden, nowyou're working, you're getting
marketing skills.
You're getting you knowstrategy and strategic
(21:04):
development type skills thatyou're building out, financial
skills.
Now, all these, this whole likeyou know, catalog of skill sets
that you're kind of collectingand that's worth something to
some companies.
And I started to figure thatout quite quickly.
And yeah, and I mean so, it'snot the one lane highway here
and in any of these trade skillsindustries.
(21:25):
It's just, you know, having theknowledge and the foresight to
be like, hey, I can take theseskills, these are worth
something to somebody.
I don't always have to be, youknow, the guy digging the ditch,
you know.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Yeah, yeah, and I'm real big on trying to expose
people to yeah, you might bedigging that ditch for a little
bit, but there's not just inlike management or consulting,
but there's all these differentaspects of the industry too.
You might end up getting intoquality control or scheduling or
safety or you know.
there's so many different pathsthat you can take.
And that's what I really loveabout our industry is that, like
(22:01):
business development, likeyou're doing, there's all these
different roles that you can gointo.
But I think I'm not alone insaying this is that the people
that have kind of walked thewalk already get a lot more
respect, a lot more work,because they, hey, I've done
that, I've been there, so I canspeak intelligently to that.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Yeah, and you definitely need that.
I don't think you're going toget too far, especially in
industries like we're in,without having those
foundational skills and and and,coming from the bottom and
working your way up.
You know, sometimes it justcomes with a different layer of
respect.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Yeah, and I I try to encourage folks like man, maybe
you get out and you try weldingand you know six months to a
year into it Okay, I'm not a fanof welding.
Okay, well, there's a myriad ofa myriad of other trades that
you can get into that are stillcan be very profitable,
especially, like you said, startyour own business.
Really, that's where a lot ofthe money does come from.
Yeah, if you want to get youknow, do really well financially
(22:58):
, but at the same time, youdon't have to do that because
there's, as you know, there'speople within three, four, five
years of their career that aremaking very good money and
supporting their families.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Yeah, and I always tell people, like when I used to
be an instructor, I would tellpeople, you know, you don't have
to be good at everything inthis industry.
Like just recently I went outto Miller headquarters and I
started getting some advancedMIG process training.
So like on our AccuPulse,versapulse, hdmig, rmd, all
these you know, outside of shortcircuit welding, which a lot of
(23:30):
like home hobby MIG welderslike that's, that's the process
you're using, right, and I don'tconsider myself a very good MIG
welder.
Like I can do it, I can make itlook good.
I don't like doing it.
But then when I got into theseadvanced like heavy
manufacturing processes I'm likewow, like there's a specific
talent to this.
Like the speed all that is sodifferent than what I'm used to
(23:53):
with.
Like I would consider it aslower process of welding with
the short circuit, right, andyou know you don't have to just
be that Like you could go.
If you're really good at TIGwelding, you just TIG weld.
Or if you're really bad at alltypes of welding, you can get
into welding sales if you reallylove the industry, there's
sales, right, there's you know.
(24:13):
Uh, you know, like you weresaying, you know there's QA, qc.
You can go be an inspector, youknow do quality type stuff,
like there's lots of other.
You can be a welding engineer,right.
There's lots of differentavenues within the industry that
kind of all support each other.
So you know, if you have aninterest in something, you can
still find different ways thatyour skillsets might apply
better.
You know.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Yeah, Well said, and that's just one trade.
Yeah, To liken it to theservice, you know you've got
like the boots on ground.
You can think about the armyLike everybody's basically
supporting the infantry, If youwant to look at it that way,
like the front line right andthere's a lot of those support
roles.
But it takes that big machineto really keep the infantry
(24:53):
moving and rolls.
But it takes that big machineto really keep the infantry
moving and it takes this bigmachine to keep the welders
burning rod.
Yeah, exactly, they need allthose support folks.
So there's so many things thatyou could do within the industry
.
So I would just try to tellpeople man, see what you like,
see what you're interested in,try for a little bit.
It doesn't work out.
There's just so many otheroptions out there.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
So other options out there?
Yeah, for sure.
So this is kind of a loadedquestion.
I don't think there's any wronganswer, but are there any
things that you you picked upfrom your time in the service
that you think might've helpedyou along your journey?
Speaker 1 (25:23):
Oh yeah, um uh thick skin Um okay, that's fair, you
know, just dealing withdifferent types of people.
That definitely helped.
I think it it built myconfidence to be on my own,
which I didn't have before themilitary, because I never left
my house Not left my house, butI never left my hometown.
Really, you know so like beingout there and you know being
(25:46):
stationed in like South Korea,for instance, you know like
you're on your own out there,you're trying to talk to your
family it's like 13 hour timedifference, right You're.
You're not even on the samepage as them at the time
throughout the day, right, um,so that that kind of built me up
Um.
But then the thick skin partcomes from when I was in um, in
the military as an analyst, Idealt a lot with like human
(26:07):
trafficking and to be, you know,18, 19 years old, dealing with
those types of um, that type ofreality.
I think that kind of builds up acertain layer of skin that most
people don't have.
And, like I said, theconfidence to talk to people as
an analyst.
And then I'm, you know, I'mshowing up and I become the G2
Sergeant Majors Assistant.
(26:27):
I'm dealing with like generalsand crazy stuff like help build
my confidence, public speakingskills, definitely as an analyst
, and then when it comes to,like, my business approach, it
trained me to be a veryanalytical person.
I look at things differentlythan maybe other people don't.
I see opportunity, places whereother people might not see it.
So I think I definitely gaineda lot more skills than I.
(26:49):
I guess I didn't even realizehow much I kind of gained from
it.
A lot of times, you know, Iguess I didn't even realize how
much I kind of gained from it.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
A lot of times.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
You know, I kind of like live with this like I
didn't do much in the military,you know, and I don't really
talk about my service time everLike, if you ever listen to
anything that I've ever done,it's something that's like a
side comment, maybe mentioned,maybe I don't even bring it up.
It's not that I'm not proud ofit, it's just I don't feel like
I like I look at what my husbanddid in the Marines or what my
brother's done, you know, likemy brother has like bronze stars
(27:18):
and stuff and and and, like Ijust don't feel like a I guess
maybe a little imposter syndromethere.
You know, like I'm notdeserving of any type of
recognition for what I've done.
Um, you know, and you, you justit's just a weird, a weird spot
to be in, I guess you know.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
Yeah, no, I, I a hundred percent can identify
with that too, Cause I felt thesame for a long time.
I think it took me I don't know, maybe a decade, maybe a little
less, to kind of start to feelcomfortable in my own skin and
like who I was, and not justidentifying with my service.
But what what's helped mepersonally is I had to think I'm
(27:58):
a very, very, very smallpercentage of the entire
population of the U?
S that's ever served.
If you look at, like the, the,the grand scheme of things too,
and then you go and talk tothose folks with the bronze
stars or you know, even a medalof honor or something crazy like
that, somebody that's that'sreally been there on the front
line, and even them they're likehey, thanks for your service.
I just did the interview beforethis.
Um, the guy was retired after27 years and thanked me for my
(28:20):
service.
I'm like man, like I appreciatethat.
Thank you.
You know you stuck it out.
I did seven years active butjust knowing you had this small
piece of the pie that you serve.
So I totally, totally identifywith that and I appreciate you
saying that.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
So, um, I don't think you would change much on your
journey, but I know you had, uh,you know, twists and turns.
You decided to go kind ofdifferent routes, uh throughout
education and owning yourbusiness.
If you had somebody kind of onthe same path, uh maybe in the
trades, thinking about startingtheir business or getting into
education, do you think you haveany piece of advice to somebody
(28:55):
of hey, don't do what I did,kind of thing, or something that
you could change?
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Oh man, I don't know.
Um, I guess for me, like, Iguess, if you're asking like
kind of what my regret was, washey, I try to say it a little
nicer than regret, but yeah.
I mean anything you could havedone better.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
I guess is like the focus wasn't there.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
It was about making money because the money was
going to support her.
Like the money wasn't what sheneeded, she needed me.
(29:38):
And now I sold my company youknow the fab shop and the school
, thinking like, oh, and I leftAWS doing the tour stuff and I'm
like here I am, come hang outwith me now.
Let's do all this bonding time.
And she's like I have a lifenow.
Like you know, I love you but Ican't hang out with you every
day.
So that's, you know, part ofthe reason I got a little bored
(29:59):
quickly and you know just, Iguess really you know just
counting your blessings when itcomes to the people that are in
your life and enjoying that timewith them and giving them the
time and the attention theydeserve to.
You know, I guess a better work, life balance.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
No, and full transparency, like within the
last year, is when it thatfinally started to hit me, cause
I was so hell bent on climbingthe ladder and my oldest
daughter, 10.
And so I'm thinking you know,worst case, or maybe best case,
however you want to look at itI've probably got eight more
years with her in the house Ifshe decides not to move out when
(30:38):
she's 18 or you.
You know what I'm saying, butit's that's not that much time,
like these 10 years.
She just turned 10.
Uh, the time we're recording,uh, we're recording this.
She turned 10 last week and I'mlike where did this decade go?
I mean, it was so fast.
And so now I'm like you knowI'm I'm pretty happy where I'm
(30:59):
at financially, you know whereI'm at in the industry, and if I
don't get that promotion, it'snot that big of a deal.
I'm just really happy.
I get to spend time with mywife and kids and that's what's
most important.
So I appreciate hearing thatfrom somebody else too.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Yeah, it's, it's tough, you know, and then for me
it was always.
I felt like there was a lot ofeyes on me at a lot of times and
it was like, if I don't do thenext thing, like this pressure
of like having to always likeone up myself and letting that
kind of get in the way of whatwas really important, you know,
and that should have been me metaking a couple of days off here
and there.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
you know Well, social media makes it a lot worse too.
I mean, you know, we're findingout now.
Obviously, a lot of thesethings that we see are not what
they seem and you're like man,that guy I worked with uh, they
got this promotion and they'redoing awesome.
Well, lo and behold, you knowtheir family likes falling apart
, maybe behind the scenes, yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
I mean, I live that, you know.
You know me and my husband.
Our marriage was was going toshit fast because I was never
home.
I, my priorities were workfirst, family second, third,
like the pressures of of beingsomething and being, you know,
being this person everybody wassupposed to look up to.
And when I sold the school andI was like, hey, you know, when
(32:27):
you sell this, do you want mysocial media to like I'll
include that deal?
And I was, I tell everybody nowlike that was the greatest.
I would have took nothing forthe business.
Just, you know, just take that.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
You know, because it's been so nice.
You sold it Like you sold thesocial media with the schools.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
Yeah, so Jason, jason runs my old, my old pages and
channels and stuff, and, um,yeah, it's been awesome Cause
now I have like a privateaccount and uh, I can post what
I want, cause I mean you'd postsomething, and all you hear is
just you hear the negative, youdon't hear the positive and then
the positive it's so fake.
It's like, you know, this posedpicture of what I want
(33:09):
everybody to see and content Iwant people to see, and it
wasn't real.
Life wasn't reality, you knowso I'm I'm.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
I'm not as popular as I wish I was, but I'm getting
to the point where I'm startingto get some of the negative
reviews.
So I'm like, okay, I'm doingsomething right.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Yeah, I'm getting noticed yeah, so you know, the
the netflix show even was we're100 and 190something countries
it was in, and you're like, oh,you're going to, yeah,
190-something countries, andlike translate into like 20-plus
languages, like 25, 27languages or something like that
, that's wild.
Yeah, and you're like, oh wow,this is going to be so great.
(33:47):
You know this is going to beawesome.
You know, the first woman to beon a platform as, like, a
welding content expert, you know, on a platform, a global
platform, I'm thinking everybodyand their mother is going to
love to see this.
And no, a lot of othercountries do not appreciate a
woman in industry, that's forsure.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
And Instagram and all that stuff.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
They do this great thing where they translate
things.
So when you open it up, it youknow it says all these horribly
mean things.
And then you know thesearticles are getting written and
my daughter sees it, herfriends see it, my mom sees it,
you know.
And then like there was a time,like on the show, you know when
the show came out and you knowRay, ivan, all them, they're all
my friends and you know they'relike making posts defending me
(34:33):
because people are like going ontheir stuff commenting nasty
things about how I'm.
You know she's such a bitch andshe's this or she doesn't know
what she's talking about.
And I did feel like a fish outof water on that show.
So I'll give people that youknow like I'm not a metal artist
really by any means, I'm a pipewelder by trade, you know, and
(34:53):
I felt super intimidatedstanding next to David and then
you know the power of editingbut people don't want to see
that, you know, and they don'twant to hear it and it was just
really crappy.
I always laugh because you knowyou watch the show or you watch
some of my older stuff I did forAWS and I always joke and I'll
be like, oh, that was two facesago or that was three faces ago
because it ruined my self-esteem.
(35:14):
And next thing, you know, I'm,like you know, putting ago
because it ruined my self-esteem.
And next thing, you know, I'm,like you know, putting this crap
in my face, doing this to myface, you know, it just
everything and anything, justbecause it just crushes you like
, and it's, it's all crap, it'sjust stuff that, like you know,
you take it home with you, youknow, and then my husband's
dealing with that, becauseclearly you just don't deal with
(35:34):
that by yourself, that's forsure.
Yeah, I didn't become a welder,thinking that that was going to
be my life, you know I don'tthink I'm sure like the national
spokesperson of the world'slargest welding organization on
a netflix show, like I was justhappy just welding some pipe
here and there, and so Idefinitely wasn't anticipating
that and I don't think like somepeople, like I don't't want to.
(35:58):
I guess I'm not going to saypeople's names, but there are
some people in my industry whoall they want to be is famous
and all they want to do iscreate content and create an
illusion of what they wantpeople to think their life is,
and that's something that Inever wanted to do and that's
why I took the role with Miller,because now I don't have to
create content for anybody, likea lot of other companies that
(36:19):
were reaching out to me.
That's what they wanted me todo and I'm so happy that I can
just be utilized for my actualskill set and what I bring to
the table.
On a on a more business, youknow side of the fence, so happy
about that.
A lot less pressure, good foryou.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Yeah, build up a lot less pressure for you.
Yeah, you know it's, it'sreally refreshing hearing that.
I mean, obviously I enjoyed theshow and for people that don't
know, it's metal shop masters, Ienjoyed it.
Um, I was hooked on it, Ireally loved it and, like I, I
shared with you before the show,like I started watching it and
it got me back on my welder, um,I thought it was really good
and I'm sure you know, like yousaid, the magic of editing.
(36:55):
There's a lot of stuff thatpeople don't see.
But it's refreshing to hearsomebody that's walked in your
shoes to to say that kind ofstuff and kind of bring it to
light.
And I try to do my best on thisshow.
Like I, I told people, you knowI, I I'm sober now but I was an
alcoholic or I guesstechnically I'm supposed to say
I still am, but I am sober.
You know, I dealt with mentalhealth issues and went through a
(37:15):
lot of junk and my familylife's not a hundred percent
perfect.
I mean, I have an amazing wifeand kids, but like we're not
perfect, we don't have it allput together and so I'm never
going to pretend like I do now.
Do I take 20 photos to try toget the best shot of the job
site.
Yes, I'll admit that, because Iwant it to look cool.
I want people to like the jobsite, but, um, but no, I
(37:36):
appreciate you sharing all that,but um, maybe people that
support just aren't as vocal asthe negative Cause I I've I've
seen I don't remember where itwas, at it was I think I Googled
the show and I was readingthrough these reviews.
I'm like these people are justjerks, man.
I mean I don't know, they havenothing better to do with their
lives.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
Yeah, it's hard.
It's hard to read that kind ofstuff, especially when you went
into it with this like reallypositive, oh, this is going to
be so great, I can't wait.
Yeah, you know, and then, andthen you're filming it and it's
such a great experience duringthe filming of it, and then it
comes out and you're like, uh,this isn and I'm sure there's a
lot of folks similar to meeither got back into it or you
(38:15):
obviously spurred somebody'sinterest in getting into welding
or any kind of trade.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
So I'm sure it did some definitely some good out
there yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
I mean I hear I've heard lots of positive stuff.
But you know like I, you knowthey, they say right, it's like
you hear one one negativecomment takes a hundred
positives for it to like for itto balance out, but I am very
happy to not be a fixture onpeople's social media anymore.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
Yeah, I bet Well good .
So I'm going to kind of take Idon't want to say a dark turn,
but I want to talk about mentalhealth real quick in the
industry and we chatted a littlebit about it, so the industry
will burn you out real quick,especially in the trades.
I think more than anybody tradesand trade management like it's
(39:07):
really difficult, very longhours.
Then you get in a salary andyou're not getting paid for all
that OT and it's tough.
So mental health is a hugething in the service.
It's also a huge thing in ourindustry.
So if you've got, you've got aunique perspective.
If you have somebody in thetrade that is just trudging
along like I don't want to go towork, this sucks, I'm done with
(39:29):
all this and feels like theydon't have a way out, Cause I've
been there too, what would youtry to say to that individual to
encourage them to just keepgoing or find something else?
Speaker 1 (39:38):
Yeah, I think that's just it.
It's, you know, what are yougoing to do to get yourself out
of this situation?
You know, looking at it fromagain kind of a strategy
perspective, you know, hey, whatcan I?
Can I make it six more weekshere, if I can?
What can I learn in that sixweek period?
That's going to set me up for abetter position, a better role,
is it?
I got to take a six-week nightclass.
I got to take online LinkedIncourses.
(39:59):
I got to get a resume builderperson.
You know, on my side, what do Igot to do?
What do I got to do in thattime period to better myself?
And just kind of thinking at itlike that, like taking a little
bit more of a like segment yourproblem out a little bit, um,
and kind of trying to strategize, um, how to get yourself out of
(40:20):
there.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
You know, yeah, yeah, that's tough, especially when,
like I'll give you my example,cause I got, I got the kids and
my wife she doesn't work, soeverybody's depending on me and
I've I've had those spots evenrecently, where I'm just like I
don't know what to do anymore.
You know, I'm kind of hit awall, but I think what I found
and what I love about theindustry is that, very similar
to the service, I have all thesepeople around me that are kind
(40:44):
of dealing with the same crap.
So it's like, hey, this suckstogether.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
And so I can kind of lean on them a little bit and
it's, it's become a lot moreacceptable, because it used to
be this you know, shut up, keepyour head down and just keep
going.
And I've seen a change in theservice and it's definitely
starting to change in theindustry within the last few
years.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
Yeah, you got people, though, who you say you know
I'll just using welding, right.
So every time I pick up myphone, I have somebody
pretending, or somebody you know, telling me how great the
welding industry is, yet my jobsucks, you know.
It's like well, that stuffgetting constantly jammed down
(41:25):
your throat of everything's sogreat and so perfect over there,
why isn't it perfect for me,you know?
so, again, I think it kind oftakes a look at that problem and
kind of think, well, how can Imake it better?
Here's a timeline in the nextsix weeks, what can I do to make
it better?
You know, how can I get myselfgoing in a direction that's more
positive, Is it?
I got to put my phone down.
I got to get off the internet.
(41:46):
Do I got to take a, like youknow, go a little ghost for a
little bit more of a positivemindset to kind of move yourself
forward?
Speaker 2 (42:01):
Yeah, I'll tell you, I got off Facebook a few years
back and that certainly helped.
I mean it sucks because I can't, um like stay in touch.
We've lived all over the world.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
And so it it kind of stinks sometimes.
My wife's still on there so shecan stay in touch with our
friends but, it was.
It was so toxic.
And I'm not saying nobodyshould be on it.
I think it's got its positivestoo.
But when I put the phone downfor a while and I'm not on
Instagram, I'm not doing stufffor the even, for the podcast
and like we get into thiscomparison wheel and, oh, this
(42:27):
person's doing so great mentallyI'm just, I feel so much better
.
Like I'm doing me, I'm happy.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
I don't like, I mean for a while there.
I just took it off my phone solike if I was on a computer or
something for a few minutes thenI could go on Facebook and you
know.
But I mean, now I have it allback on my phone and I probably
stare at it a little bit toomuch.
But yeah, I'd say I, you know,I'd say definitely, try and
limit your time staring at otherpeople's fake success or fake
(42:57):
illusion of what they want youto see it's.
You know, grass isn't alwaysgreener on the other side, I can
assure you.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
Yeah, and you know, I think one thing that was sort
of freeing, even though it wasterrifying getting out of the
service.
What was a little freeing forme is I kept telling myself, if
this doesn't work out, you knowI can leave, like I'm not tied
to a four or five year contract,like I can find something
better.
It might just not be a fit forme at the time and I bounced
(43:24):
around a little bit and I'mreally happy where I'm at now.
Um, and I've helped.
You know, maybe it's I've neverleft for money, but that's.
Some people take thatopportunity.
They want more money.
Or I want a better position,longer, you know, runway for my
career, so that's one thing Itry to free people up with is
dude, what you're dealing withright now is going to suck today
.
Yeah, maybe for the next fewweeks, but I like your idea
(43:46):
about the six week kind ofroadmap.
Build your goal sheet, if youwill, of okay to get where I
want to go.
I got to go through these steps.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
Yeah, for sure.
I think I don't know where Ilearned that from.
I think it was actually one ofmy MBA classes.
It was just like you know howto manage people and how to get
people who might not be say for,like you know, this is like a
change initiative.
You can kind of look at it asright and you know you're
looking at a bunch of people whoare not happy not getting buy
(44:16):
in for whatever it is thatyou're trying to do differently
and it's like, okay, how do webreak this down to get people
there?
You know, and that's you cantake that kind of same approach
with with your own challenges.
Right, how?
How can I break this down toget to where I want to be?
Speaker 2 (44:30):
I'm going to wrap up our time here with one last
question.
I've I've taken up quite a bitof your time already and I
really appreciate it.
Stephanie, like I said, I'mvery humbled that you responded
back.
I appreciate it.
You are like the queen of thisCause.
You did it for a long timetrying to get people in the
industry.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
So if we have people that are transitioning out of
the service or anybody out there, really what would you say to
them to try to get them into theindustry, maybe not welding
(45:06):
specific, but anything withinconstruction fabrication,
anything like that?
Um, oh wait, I don't even know.
Speaker 2 (45:09):
I guess it's we just we need bodies um, yeah, that's
true you got a lot of skills tooffer.
Speaker 1 (45:13):
Like I said, you know there's, there's a specific
level of confidence teambuilding, leadership.
Um, that comes with coming outof the service, that is very
valuable to companies.
Um, a lot of people might notsee the direct correlation and
value that they, that they canbring to some of these, these
work environments, but, um,trust me, it's there.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
Yeah, love it Awesome .
Well, I appreciate, stephanie.
Thank you again.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
This has been awesome .
Speaker 2 (45:41):
I've really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
Thank you.
I'm happy you asked me to be onand haven't done a podcast in a
while.
Speaker 2 (45:47):
Yeah, I'm glad I got to shed a little light too on
your, on your service too.
Like you said, you don't reallyget to talk about it too much,
so I'm glad we can do that.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
Yeah, I think you're the first.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
Cool.
Speaker 1 (45:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:57):
Awesome, all right, well, you have a great rest of
your day.
I appreciate it, stephanie.
Speaker 1 (46:01):
Thanks so much.
Speaker 2 (46:03):
All right.
Speaker 1 (46:04):
Thanks.
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