Episode 216 with Jim Galloway and Max Ceron

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
All right, I can check.
Check, I'm good.
So I'm Max Duran.
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Happy welding.
Hello and welcome to anotheredition of the CWB Association
podcast.
My name is Max Suran and, asalways, I am out there trying to

(01:08):
find the best voices andstories for you, our faithful
listeners.
Today I have a fantastic manwho has a storied career here
across Canada and into thespectral universe.
His name is Jim Galloway.
He is a faculty at ConestogaCollege and just on the cusp of
entering into retirement.
Jim, how are you doing?

(01:30):
Great Max Thanks for having meon.
How'd you like thatintroduction?

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Oh, wonderful.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
On the cusp.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
I don't know what that actually means, but I'm on
the precipice, exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
Well, hopefully it's not a drop, it's a climb.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Well, it's a change, that's right.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
So, jim, for the people that don't know you,
you've been an instructor for along time.
I met you.
You've been an instructor thewhole time.
I've known you.
But there's probably a storywhich many, many people don't
know, which is you know, wheredid Jim come from?
So, why don't we start right atthe start with the story for

(02:14):
everyone?
And let me ask the question,Jim, where do you call roots?
What's home?
Where was baby Jim from?

Speaker 2 (02:22):
I grew up in Brantford, which is, of course,
the famous town where WayneGretzky came from.
He's a little bit older than me, yeah just a little.
So yeah, I grew up in Brantford, southwestern Ontario sort of
industrial city and I grew upthere and sort of middle-class

(02:43):
lifestyle.
My dad worked in the roadsdepartment at the county and my
mom was a homemaker and threebrothers and a sister and
basically a normal, normalupbringing at the Brantford,
brantford City suburbs.

Speaker 1 (03:01):
So it was a normal, normal, normal life Canadian kid
life right Canadian kid life.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yeah, that was pretty normal normal kid life.
Canadian kid life rightCanadian kid life.
Yeah, that was pretty prettystandard, you know.
So you grew up, you went toschool, and then you didn't know
what happened next.

Speaker 1 (03:13):
So well, you know, in those eras, you know you're
coming up in the 70s, right, I'mtrying to get the timelines
right here, without saying agenumbers, but you know so much of
the push I would say from the50s to now has been that your
children must go to university.
Your children must enter sometype of you know, professional

(03:36):
education getting you know,don't get dirty, don't get you
know, don't get your hands intothese, these trades or stuff
like that.
Now for yourself, what was theupbringing like around that
image?
You know, what was theexpectation of you growing up?
To go, you know, get aneducation.
And what did the family thinkyou were going to do?

Speaker 2 (03:55):
Well, I have to say that, um, in my the my circle of
friends, the people that I hungaround with, not many, my
circle of friends, the peoplethat I hung around with not many
, very few, went to university.
It wasn't a thing In a lot ofsocieties, a lot of groups,
neighborhoods, whatever.
Yeah, university was somethingthat some people did, but not

(04:19):
nearly to the numbers thatpeople do in this day and age.
For the most of the people thatI knew it was, you went to high
school and you went off and gota job.
If you were fortunate you mightgo into a trade, but you know
there was this otherorganization known as a
technical college or communitycollege and that was another

(04:39):
option.
But even there not many of myfriends, a few of them maybe,
went to college.
But really the people I, myfriends, a few of them maybe
went to college, but really thepeople I hung with as a teenager
, very few went to university.
It wasn't as big a thing as youhear about now where it's like
every other kid goes touniversity.

Speaker 1 (04:58):
It just wasn't done.
It's like you have to now.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
Well, yeah, and that's one of the things that
I've always been a proponent,and I'm not sure what happened
across the country, but in thelate 60s in Ontario, the
province established thein-between institution, which
were the colleges work ofcolleges in Ontario.

(05:27):
That filled the gap betweenskilled trades, or even they did
teach skilled trades, but italso filled the gap between just
going off to the workplacestraight out of high school,
between work and university,that vocational space yeah.
So it was actually a fairly newthing, I guess, from the
standpoint of time, because itreally had only been around for
about 10 years before Iencountered, uh, that option,

(05:49):
but uh, certainly the uh youknow in high school and whatnot,
uh, our, our school had a uh, agood, strong focus on it was a
collegiate and vocational schoolso you had both options.
You could go more towards the uhbusiness and uh potentially
academic side, or you can gomore towards the trades and uh.

(06:10):
Certainly my uh in terms of mysiblings and my friends um the
the prospect of going straightto university wasn't it was
almost unattainable.
Yeah, yeah yeah, notunobtainable, it's just it.
It just didn't occur to a lot ofpeople yeah okay in those days
in the 70s and a lot of peoplecould get a very decent

(06:33):
middle-class lifestyle bygraduating from high school and
getting a job in a going on tothe workforce or whatever, and a
lot of people.
That's what they're.
You know, there was sort ofthis and I looked at it in the
past uh, you, there was this biggroup of people who graduated
from high school and immediatelythey got married and had kids.
There's a whole bunch of themthat I knew.

(06:53):
And that was seemed, and theygot a job and they worked in a
factory or whatever, and boughta house and it was actually very
, very, very okay.
And, but there was a few of usthat you know.
It just wasn't.
I didn't see that.

Speaker 1 (07:07):
Uh, that pathway yeah so what was it that you thought
you wanted to do?
You know?
If I didn't really have a, Iwould have walked into your
grade nine class and said hey,jim, what do you want to do?

Speaker 2 (07:19):
well, one of the cool things that at the high school
as it was when I went there umyou, if you chose a technical or
trades vocation pathway, theygave you an exploratory two
years where you could take umand they had it fairly well set
up with different shops and, uh,trades, if you will, but um,

(07:44):
for example, you basically tookshort courses in each of them,
you know you went around, youknow yeah, you went to the wood
shop, you went to the auto shop,you went to the machine shop.
They even had a uh, a printprinting shop like printing
presses, and I took that courseand it was, it was really cool,
like they had these printingpresses and stuff and and uh

(08:05):
layout text and it was.
It was pretty interesting, butone of them for me was welding,
and so I I hadn't really thoughtof welding as as an option at
all, but it was just one of thethings we we cycled through yeah
and uh, and that was the onethat kind of struck me.

Speaker 1 (08:20):
A lot of it, when I think back, was driven by the
connection to the, the teacherat the time so much of what I
hear on this show in my careerworking with students is that
one mentor, that one person thatkind of guided people into
perhaps not that they werenecessarily unsure or indecisive
, but, you know, opened theireyes to opportunities, to things

(08:42):
that perhaps weren'timmediately obvious to them.
And you know, was this person,this teacher, were they, were
they, I guess, focused onwelding, or they just were able
to match you well no, he is hiswas.

Speaker 2 (08:57):
He was an iron worker actually oh yeah, I'm not sure
how he ended up teaching at thehigh school.
But he had been an iron worker.
He worked on the cn tower andlike, oh wow, big jobs down in
toronto, which was a big thingback in the 70s.
He had left that trade, maybesettled down with his wife or
whatever, and started teachinghigh school.

(09:18):
In terms of welding, he wasvery passionate, very good at it
, but he also made itinteresting, that's right.
And so it wasn't for me, becauseI could see I was interested in
a lot of things but nothingreally struck me.
Oh, I got to go into this orthat, actually electrical things
like electronics and whatnot.

(09:39):
I had a big interest in that,so I could have easily had have
gone in that direction had thisparticular teacher showed me
welding.
Okay, I'll go learn to weld.
It's a good thing to know howto do.
But he actually made it veryinteresting and it was way more
than just burning rods.
He actually had a strong theoryprogram for us, and so when it

(10:04):
basically after exploringmachine shop was another thing I
enjoyed, um, and so when itcame time after grade 10 I guess
it would be so, grade 9, 10 wehad these exploratory uh
sessions, and in grade 10, uh,we had we had to decide if you
were going to major in one ofthose particular fields, and I

(10:26):
don't remember being talked intoit.
I just said, well, welding waspretty cool, you know, and so
that was the one I ended up in.
I was, I guess, reasonably goodat it.
I had a good connection withthe teacher.
A couple of my buddies weregoing to go down the same
pathway, and not with really ajob in mind, but just welding do

(10:47):
.
Yeah, welding seemed to besomething I was actually
reasonably good at and theteacher made it interesting.
So and uh, so yeah, in grade 10and 11 I was able to major in
welding in high school so then?

Speaker 1 (10:58):
so then you know, you graduate high school well, even
before that though, yeah, I wasjust thinking in grade 11
people.

Speaker 2 (11:04):
The students today don't believe me, but in grade
11 he, uh, the teacher had us.
We had to take metallurgy sograde 11 high school, yeah, yeah
I'm studying the iron carbonphase diagram and and we had to
memorize it, yeah, and then, andthen we had to write reports.
Like I remember one of thefunny stories he sort of I guess

(11:27):
he saw me as one of the kids hecould maybe give something more
challenging to.
So he said, okay, gallo, wealready had to write a report
about how to weld a differenttype of metal.
You know one kid got, you know,aluminum, another kid gets
steel.
And oh, galloway, you gettitanium, titanium and zirconium
.
Yeah, good luck, I hadn't evenheard of this stuff.
What are you talking about?
How do I find?

(11:48):
information on this.
So you know you got to pedaldown to the public library and
try to get information.

Speaker 1 (11:54):
Start with the periodic table.

Speaker 2 (11:56):
Yeah, and so but it was cool.
But I'll get to this againlater.
But that came right back to toto haunt me or actually not me,
it was.
It was a good thing because II'd actually heard of this stuff
and how to weld it.
But and then in grade 12 theguy had us, uh, um, then it was
welding processes in grade 12and this, this teacher, he set

(12:19):
up a, uh, a, a model shop,essentially a factory, where
where we built these sort ofgarage type wood stoves for for
people and we had a productionline set up and we went to a
local fab shop and did all thepress break work and and we had
to fit it all and weld it alland and then line them with
bricks and put the glass in andeverything and buy all the

(12:41):
pieces and build these thingsand paint them and and then, and
then they sold the school soldthem for to make a few bucks for
the shop wow, that sounds likean amazing program oh, it was
unbelievable.
And then like.

Speaker 1 (12:53):
The cost of that is almost undoable today, like well
, I guess so, but we also.

Speaker 2 (12:58):
I also did all position um smaw stick tickets
where we didn't actually havethe bureau in, but we had a high
school ticket which is asimulation of the uh, of the
bureau's uh, the w471 test yeah,like I go to high school high
school yeah, I go to highschools now and the entire
welding program for the year hasa 1500 budget for a welding

(13:19):
program for the year.

Speaker 1 (13:20):
I mean, that's not even one kid to weld a box of 70
.

Speaker 2 (13:23):
It's it's, it's, it's horrible, but there was a
mindset change not too longafter I left, where they
basically decimated a lot ofthose shops everywhere, around,
everywhere you know and and it'spitiful, but they turned the uh
.
My understanding was theyturned the welding shop into a

(13:43):
theater arts class, becauseapparently there's a lot of jobs
for actors in Brantford but uhanyway, so yeah, I was very
fortunate to have gone throughthat program with uh with if
y'all mentioned his name and hisname, jim Graham.
I don't know if he's still withus.
I haven't spoken to him in along time, but but he was a

(14:04):
great guy and a lot, of, a lotof students really did well in
his his class.

Speaker 1 (14:09):
So well, when you have a great teacher, you have
great students.

Speaker 2 (14:12):
Um, it's usually a a two-way street, you know so oh,
yeah, yeah, yeah, and so, yeah,some several of us did really
well and uh and uh, and, as itturned out, my my brother, older
brother's friend had gonethrough the same thing as I had
and he he said, well, you knowwhat are you going to do after.
And he, he actually went to, uh,one of the colleges which is,

(14:36):
you know, an hour drive fromwhere I grew up, but that's
conestoga, and he took thiswelding technician program that,
uh, I'd never even heard ofbefore, but, you know, he had
sort of paved the way.
So I got talking to him andthen the opportunity to go to
college came up after highschool.

Speaker 1 (14:51):
So I was going to ask did you get into working as a
welder or in the trades out ofhigh school, or did you go to
college to continue training, orboth a combination?

Speaker 2 (15:02):
Well, the high school teacher had connected us with
uh some jobs and uh one of theuh the things that happened with
me is I ended up uh workingpart-time after school.
I had a couple other part-timejobs, but one of them was to
work in a uh a local machineshop as a uh, as a uh a helper
labor, building tables and stuffand just doing a bit of welding

(15:24):
and fitting and whatnot, juston a sort of as needed basis.

Speaker 1 (15:29):
And then how long before you went and started at
the college between high schooland enrolling Right after high
school, I was 17.
I walked in the door at highschool and the welding
technician was weldingengineering technician.
And so that that program, youknow the and it's for someone
from the west, right, I'm insaskatchewan, that's where I cut
my teeth we've never had thatkind of technician, you know,

(15:52):
allocation for the weldingindustry.
It's, you know, it's been likewelding fab, um, and we never
had what has evolved now to belike a, the wet program in
Ontario, which is, you know, oneof the best in the world.
Alberta now has WET programs.
These, you know, weldingengineering technician programs
In Saskatchewan.
They never existed and theystill don't exist to this day.

(16:13):
And it's amazing for me to hearthat this, you know, these
programs have been around for solong in places like Ontario,
like, I mean, they really seemto be wonderful programs.

Speaker 2 (16:26):
Well, the welding engineering technician program
that I went to the collegeconestoga, was teaching welding
right from the get-go in 67,right, right, but more like the
welder fitter program, exactly,yeah.
And and then they started thetechnician program.
These two guys, uh, started itback in the 70s, convincing, you
know, the college and theindustry.

(16:46):
Industry needed it.
Someone that was sort of betweena skilled tradesperson and an
engineer and it was this weldingengineering technician program
and they started that back in uhin 72 and by the time I I
entered it and graduated therewas grads from our program that
were interviewing us for forjobs in industry.
So it was quite a going concernin its day and, yeah, so I

(17:12):
certainly didn't pave the way.
But that program there's one upin Northern Ontario.
Northern College had a program,but that was basically it in
Ontario for that in-between thewelder and the engineer type
program.
It was the welding engineeringtechnician, which later became a
technologist, which added athird year to it quite a bit
later.

Speaker 1 (17:33):
Well, you know it's interesting because that need
that you know, between theengineer and the welder fitter
is much more obvious in amanufacturing plant, especially
when you're trying to reallyreally trying to dial in times.
You know, and you knowproduction runs and the science
of manufacturing, which is why Ithink provinces like Ontario,

(17:54):
which were very early in thegame, very manufacturing heavy,
developed these programs,whereas in Saskatchewan we've
never really gotten intomanufacturing until the 90s.
It was basically here was likeoil and gas agriculture, mining,
which are, you know, kind ofjust straight up welding skill
type programs, right yeah, itwas interesting in Ontario there

(18:15):
was sort of two big, two bigdirections that people would go.

Speaker 2 (18:19):
One was, uh, to heavy industry and the other one was
to manufacturing.
So there was a lot of you know,automotive production plants,
large ones that would need asort of this person to help set
up the automated weldingtechnology and robots.
Eventually, but certainly theother big career path was in the
power power plant constructionright power generation the

(18:41):
nuclear power industry wastaking off and they had they
needed.
They needed someone who coulddeal with welding at a more
technical level, to deal withthe procedures and code
compliance and inspection andnon-destructive testing.
And that's essentially thecareer path that I ended up was
going down more of theinspection, ndt procedure,

(19:04):
development role as opposed to,you know, just the working in a
factory.
So yeah, so it was.
It was interesting from thatperspective very heavy focus on
welding skills in the firstcouple of years, like the first
year, especially we.
The interesting thing was mostof us came from a program like
like I mentioned, where I couldweld like I, you didn't have to

(19:25):
teach you didn't have to teachme one end of a welding machine
from the other, but uh, but itwas funny.
Actually I remember the firstday of college.
Uh, the, the, the fellow thatwas sort of the program
coordinator at the time uh, hewas, uh, you know, came from
holland after world war ii and,you know, grew up as a starving
kid and stuff.
He was a tough nut and uh.

(19:45):
So I'm sitting there, I'm 17years old, bunch of other young
guys sitting around this room,didn't know anybody, and and he
walks in and just starts yellingat us and threatening us and
telling us if you want to be awelder, get out welders welding
programs down the hall.
You're in the weldingtechnician program, so it's
pretty cool.
But he was big on layout,engineering, drawings, yeah, and

(20:07):
yeah it was really really uhtough program.

Speaker 1 (20:10):
It was good well, you know, in my 35 years in the
industry I've seen a uh, anevolution of programs,
curriculum and it, lots of it'spushed towards fabrication.
Um, you know higher know higherunderstanding of, of, of the, of
that side of the industry.
But when I've watched how the,the WET programs have developed

(20:30):
in Ontario and Alberta and I'veI've watched closely since I was
young, cause they're alwaysvery interesting for me.
I have two red seals, but mytwo red seals don't add up to a
technician program.
Right, like it's a differentthing.
Right and um, I've seen even inthe last few years they've
added you know, like if you wantto take robotics in the last
year or if you want to go downthe inspection route or

(20:51):
procedure, development, there'slike branches, even now within
the, the wet programs.
When you were in the college,you know what was the wet
program, what was it to you whenyou went and did the program,
what were the steps that you hadto learn, what?

Speaker 2 (21:05):
was it to you when you went and did the program?
What were the steps that youhad to learn?
Well, it was all weldingfundamentals, engineering
drawings.
It was all the welding processtheory.
And then that was mainly theyear one.
A lot of time in the shop doing.
But we were doing not justwelding skills development, we
were also doing experiments Likehow do we get from short

(21:25):
circuiting transfer to spraytransfer?
and we'd have these labs thatwe'd have to do in addition to
the welding skills stuff and uh,and so we would have to be
experimenting we you know allthe different processes that
were of standard at the time.
Um, and certainly we werechallenged to try through a
series of labs and whatnot, todevelop procedures and whatnot.

(21:48):
And that was year one.
Year two the focus was onmetallurgy, non-destructive
testing and then electricaltroubleshooting and equipment
side.
So we actually had courses likethat and some really good
instructors.

Speaker 1 (22:05):
It was a really interesting program and it was a
certificate or a diplomaprogram when you took it in
Ontario.

Speaker 2 (22:12):
A certificate is a one-year program, a diploma is a
two-year program and a anadvanced diploma, is a
three-year program.
Okay, so it.
At the time they only had thetwo-year program, so I actually
had to.
After graduating and working, Iended up adding my third year
in metallurgy, part-time later,but at the time I graduated from

(22:33):
the two-year program.

Speaker 1 (22:35):
All right.
So Jim graduates his two-yearprogram feeling pretty confident
with himself and hisunderstanding of welding and the
ability to get out there andconquer the world as a welding
engineering technician.
Where'd you go?
Where'd you go work?
What was your main guidinglight at that time?

Speaker 2 (22:54):
It's interesting because a lot of the at the time
and you wouldn't know this, butin the early 80s, around 1980,
81, a West was booming Alberta.
In the early 80s, around 1980,81, a West was booming Alberta
and my brother's friend, who hadgraduated a year or two before
me, he actually went out toAlberta and he's still there,
like he retired out there, and Iwas thinking that was he was

(23:17):
making good money and he wasdoing inspection in the pipeline
and the oil and gas and Ithought that's what I wanted to
do.
Of course, in 1982 they hadthis thing called a recession
and the oil and or price of oilcollapsed and, oh my gosh, you
couldn't find a job for 11 ormoney, right, it was terrible

(23:37):
times out west and whatnot.
But luckily, the other askother opportunity was in.
In my case it was ontario hydro, which is now ontario power
generation, and I actually endedup working at what is now
called bruce power.
bruce power which is the at thetime was the largest
construction project in northamerica and building the uh at

(23:58):
the time.
They're building bruce b, whichis uh four uh 850 megawatt
reactors at Bruce and theyalready had four built.
They were also finishingPickering B around the same time
at East of Toronto and they'regearing up for Darlington.
So when I showed up at this job, basically they came to college
to recruit us and a handful ofus ended up working up there and

(24:23):
they did some tough interviewsand whatnot and ended up being
recruited straight out of schooland dragged up to work on it
live in a construction camp.
But Bruce Power was kind ofremote at the time.
But yeah, it was very, very itwas.
My eyes were as big as saucerswhen I showed up and you get to
walk around this reactor.
And here I was.
I was still, I guess, 19 yearsold and I'm inspecting weld for

(24:48):
these like 50-year-old boilermakers and stuff.

Speaker 1 (24:51):
Well and it's all new build, like I mean those
projects that you come across itin your career.
You know, when you're young ifyou get a couple of big ones,
you kind of feel like you'regoing to find these jobs for the
rest of your life.
But as you get older yourealize these major construction
projects are not as often asyou think they're going to be.
And if you get to be a part ofone, especially like a new

(25:14):
construction build of a you knowa billion plus dollar projects,
they're really really aninteresting, you know world to
be a part of for a while.

Speaker 2 (25:23):
Yeah, it really an interesting, you know, world to
be a part of for a while.
Yeah, it was.
It was fascinating.
I couldn't, I couldn't getenough of it, you know, and one
of the funny things thathappened to me was because when
I knew they were going to, Iwanted to get this job because,
other jobs are hard to come by,and so I thought well, what do
they do?
They do a lot of pressure codewelding.
I better study the ASME boilerand pressure vessel code code

(25:46):
welding, I better study the asme boiler and pressure vessel
code.
So I was reading as me nine fredto back and inside out
backwards and then, uh, so ofcourse they came to interview me
and there was these were.
One of the guys was a grad fromour program from a few years
before, and he starts askingquestions.
But, as me, section nine, and Ikept answering the questions
until he finally just gave up.
We just kept going up and upand up and so, anyway, so a
bunch of us get the job up thereand we all show up on our first

(26:08):
day.
And so, okay, which one of youis Galloway?
Okay, galloway, you're going tothe test shop because you're
good with asthma.
Section nine what?

Speaker 1 (26:17):
I guess so.

Speaker 2 (26:19):
And all my buddies got to go to the big plant and
do a field inspection and getNDE tickets, basically.
Then I got to, went to the testshop and bent bent coupons for
welder fit like welders yeah.
Pipe coupons yeah yeah.
Basically, I bent their couponsand wrote up their paperwork
for for for about six months.

Speaker 1 (26:38):
So you worked yourself into a corner.

Speaker 2 (26:42):
Yeah, I know.
So I and, but you know mybuddies were working all this
overtime and I didn't get anyovertime and but you know,
basically I puttered around atmy, I got a little dirt bike and
explored the area and it was.
It was good I had a good summer, a good six months or so
through there.

Speaker 1 (26:57):
And then and then what happened, you know, did you
stick around the power industryor where?

Speaker 2 (27:06):
Oh no I.
So the power industry or where?
Oh no I.
So then I I whined until theymoved me out of that and into
the big power plant doing nde.
So I was doing field inspectionand visual inspection and uh,
mag particle, liquid penetrant,and uh, doing piping inspection
of the new build, working withthe, you know, the ua pipe
fitters and uh and the boilermakers and the iron workers,
mainly the scheme fitters in the, in the boiler makers, because
there iron workers, mainly thescheme fitters and the boiler
makers because there's a lot ofpiping.

(27:26):
But crawling around insidepipes and doing visuals and
doing mag particle and, you know, chase it around after boiler
makers and showing them wheretheir repair is going to be.
And it was just fieldinspections, good yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:41):
You know it's wild for young people that are
listening to this right now,because you're talking about
work that you did, you know, 30,40 years ago, um, and it's
still the same terms, you know,you're talking about nde, and
you're still talking about mag,particle liquid penetration.
I mean it's.
It's seems like it was so longago and it seems like we've

(28:01):
advanced so far, but yet at theend of the day it's kind of
still the same game I would bevery familiar with the welding
process and procedures they'redoing on it.

Speaker 2 (28:11):
On the same job today yeah yeah, because a lot of
it's going to be exactly thesame exactly, exactly as
different.
As the people are younger andI'm older, roles have reversed.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:24):
Now, how long were you a part of the OPG family
back then?

Speaker 2 (28:30):
Well, the interesting thing is, then an opportunity
came up internally.
So I was up, bruce, you know,southwestern Ontario, and an
opportunity came up in theinternal postings hey, welding
technician Ontario HydroResearch Division.
Well, that sounds cool.
That sounds cool, yeah, yeah,so, but it's in Toronto.

(28:51):
So I, I applied and, uh, endedup getting a job in their
welding research group as a uh,you know, 20 year old technician
, essentially by that time.
So what year?

Speaker 1 (29:02):
is this.

Speaker 2 (29:04):
Oh, 83.
83.
Okay, yeah, yeah, so I'm now.
I'm working in our weldingresearch lab and, uh, you know
the the people there justthought I was a welder.
They didn't know who like, theyjust needed someone to do their
welds and stuff.

Speaker 1 (29:17):
Who's this kid?

Speaker 2 (29:18):
Yeah, exactly, and uh , and they were doing some
really cool stuff and they hadsome really cool equipment, and
uh, here, like like a guy, likea kid in the toy store, right,
this is great, and uh.
But then they also figured outthat I could write reports and
new metallurgy, and so so thenthey started using me for more,

(29:40):
more serious research projects,not just doing their welds?
Yeah, yeah.
And what?

Speaker 1 (29:44):
kind of stuff would they need to research internally
for the company?
You know like you're coming upin a world where they're like
nuclear.
When the nuclear industry cameout big, there was a lot of
scrambling to come up withprocedures and developments of
how things were going to do.
A lot of it was you know, buildit, and they will come kind of

(30:05):
mentality and figure, figure itout after.
Once things start to calm down,right, then there's a lot of
going back and proceduredevelopment and standardization.

Speaker 2 (30:15):
I'd imagine that that's kind of where this bubble
fits in right well, there was abig push to look at more
automated welding for uh pipepipe welding.
It was a big push to do.
You know, pulse gas metal arcwas a huge thing.
They wanted to go more into andautomated orbital pipe welding

(30:37):
systems.
So I was doing a lot of workwith instrument tube welding
like little tiny tubes, 3-htubes for instrumentation that
were they had some problemswelding those and there's a big
research program to solve thatproblem.
So I worked on that.
But I also got involved infailure analysis.
So a weld would break somewhereor then I would maybe be part

(31:02):
of a team to help investigatethe failure.
Went to a lot of power plantsso they would send me out to to
actually talk to the welders andand uh, they had problems with
the certain types of weldingelectrodes or whatever.
I'd have to go and investigateit.
There was always stuff to do.
It was really fascinating and Igot to go all over the place
and go back to the places likethe bruise saying, hey, what are

(31:23):
you doing back here?
And that you know, and uh.
But also I helped them developnew welding procedures.
So if they wanted to saystainless flux score, we we'd
never done lr flux score.
Heavy stainless was done withuh, with stick welding and so.
But there's this new stainlessflux score, so we need a welding
procedure.
So develop a welding procedureand I go weld it and and then we

(31:44):
get it tested, qualified and,you know, to ASME code, and so I
do a lot of that stuff.
And we're also researching howto encapsulate radioactive fuel
in titanium and inconels andheavy copper, and we had… For
like the waste product, I guessright, well, the high-level

(32:07):
radioactive waste containmentsystems yeah.
So I ended up working on thaton and off all the way up until
I left there.
Yeah, so also robotics.

Speaker 1 (32:16):
So how long were you there?

Speaker 2 (32:17):
for I was there until 96.
Okay, so 13 years, that's along time, yeah yeah, 13 years,
14 years with Terra Hydro, but13 years at the lab.
We also got into they weredoing getting into robotics and
people.
Students are shocked, but I was.
I used my first robot in is 83or 84.

Speaker 1 (32:39):
And it was doing non-destructive.

Speaker 2 (32:40):
It was doing ultrasonic inspection.
And here I am like I I ain'teven seen a robot before.
Next thing, I'm all programmingone to do ultrasonic inspection
.
And did you have the punchcards back then to?

Speaker 1 (32:49):
program it.
I hadn't even seen a robotbefore.
Next thing I know I'mprogramming one to do ultrasonic
inspection.
Did you have the punch cardsback then to program it?

Speaker 2 (32:53):
No, I forget, there was big, gigantic floppy disks.

Speaker 1 (32:57):
Yeah, I remember the big 10-inch, 12 inches or
something.

Speaker 2 (33:00):
Yeah, but yeah, I was doing all that.
It was just mind-blowingno-transcript on chromalis and

(33:41):
uh, tempered bead welding andit's just.
It was so fascinating becauseit's like going to.
it was like going to school for13 years, learning from some
super bright metallurgists andpeople like that, and that was
basically what I did.
It was almost like you didn'thave to pay me to go there, can
I just go play.
But they did pay me and it wasa decent job and I was living in

(34:06):
Toronto and whatnot.
I had an apartment in Torontoand whatnot's it's so
interesting hearing your stories.

Speaker 1 (34:13):
I started welding in 93 and I worked for heavy
industry most of my career, andhearing you talk about the
things that you were developingand working on were the exact
same things I was doing, rightyeah I'm welding 052 flux core
stainless because it's the newthing on the market yeah you
know it's the new thing.
Fine, where are you gonna getthe procedures from?

(34:33):
well, that wasn't me, but itwould come from somewhere right,
and someone would give it to meand I'd have to follow it and
then like the heavy cladding ofthe coppers that got into style
for a while, and then it waslike the dissimilar metals and
then inc.
Huge right.
Everything kind of has a cycleof popularity, kind of in the
metallurgy world, where it'slike this new alloy, everyone
jumps on it, runs with it, andthen 10 years later they're like

(34:56):
actually no, it didn't workthat well, let's try something
else.

Speaker 2 (34:59):
Yeah, yeah, so yeah.
But again, in those days,ontario Hydro was booming in
terms of as a large constructioncompany.
Like we were building powerplants and and you know they,
you know they needed proceduresand support all over the place
and it was.
It was a very, uh, very fun, funtimes but that didn't last

(35:24):
forever, because after they'dsort of built all the power
plants they needed, they sort ofstopped building them and I I I
had a secure job but it wouldhave meant leaving the lab.
They're kind of winding downthe welding lab activities
because there was less and lessnew welding procedures Then
money was getting tighter.

Speaker 1 (35:41):
It's just maintenance after that, right, so yeah.

Speaker 2 (35:43):
And and I could have I had an opportunity to go move
to one of the power plants andsupport, but it would have been
less research and just moreroutine stuff and I wouldn't
have got laid off or anything,because by that time I had some
pretty decent experience andwhatnot.
But my job would have changed.
It wouldn't have been asinteresting perhaps.

Speaker 1 (36:05):
So less welding involved.
So at what point there, wheredid you go?

Speaker 2 (36:10):
Well then I had an opportunity to uh to leave, and
that's why it was, I guess, 96,I, I, uh.
Basically it was we're gonnashut your, your department down
and you're gonna move to thepower plant the other side of
toronto and I just, you know,had a house and stuff, and so,
ah well, I'll just uh, I'll justleave and go do something else.
So yeah, I ended up going to uhwork at a large company in

(36:33):
hamilton that made uh railwaycars well and, and essentially
my job was their r&d coordinator.
They wanted to invest a lot innew technologies and robotics
and automation and, uh, theyneeded somebody who could do
that.
So they offered me the positionand, uh, I I joined them for,
uh, and basically it was that,thrown right into the

(36:54):
manufacturing fire of a heavyduty.
This was a huge shop like thisis the I'd say at the time and
maybe still is.
It was probably the largestwelding shop in canada in terms
of volume of metal put down andnumber of people.

Speaker 1 (37:12):
Yeah, we got a couple big rail, I mean Saskatchewan's
rail center.
We got some big like Procoreand GE.
We have lots of really largerail yards out here and that's
heavy work, that's not easy work.
That's not, and they're one ofthe best paying jobs.
I remember when I was teachingat the college here, the
students would be like, hey, Igot an opportunity to go work at
procore or a g.
it's like, yeah, you're all manawesome, like they're gonna pay

(37:33):
you 30 bucks an hour, right outthe door, for sure yeah talk to
me in six weeks, see how youfeel about it yeah, it's a hard
job production man, and theywere, they were.

Speaker 2 (37:42):
I think it was like 2 000 people and 1200 of them
were welders when I was there.
That's because, yeah, that's800 welding machines.

Speaker 1 (37:49):
Yeah you're, you're rocking and rolling, you're
pulling that power from brucepower pretty hard yeah, yeah and
and truckloads of welding wirecoming through that place.

Speaker 2 (38:00):
Oh, yeah for sure, just non-stop pallets, yeah.
But but also so I go take thisjob.
And you know the guy who wantedme there to help him.
He ran, he started buttingheads with senior management and
one day I showed up and youknow, come, come, the president
wants to see.
I thought my gosh, thepresident wants to see me.

(38:21):
So I go trundling down to thepresident's office and basically
, half jokingly, yeah, we justfired your boss and we're going
to put you in his job and if wedon't like it, we're going to
fire you too.

Speaker 1 (38:32):
Oh, okay, not much for negotiating.

Speaker 2 (38:40):
Well, half joking, but yeah, you know, they didn't
really fire the other guy youhad to know how to take these
people.

Speaker 1 (38:44):
But they meant business man.
Oh yeah, money's money, like atthe end of the day, we're just
tools that they need to makemoney right.

Speaker 2 (38:50):
So well, they had certain philosophy of how they
wanted to do things and andsomething, something you had to
toe the line right.
So yeah, so I ended up, uh,being promoted by default, I
guess, so so now, I'm sort ofrunning the welding technology,
uh business at this company.
So I had a bunch of peopleworking for me.
I had all the weldingmaintenance people who fixed all
the equipment and kept thelines running.

(39:11):
And I had the welding trainingschool and all the welding
procedures and I was basically,and I had a technologist working
for me on the weldingprocedures and the people who
ran the welding services groupwe called it, and then the
welding training school was allunder my my.
So next thing, you know, I gotlike 75 people working for me.

(39:31):
so yeah, what the heck yeah itwas it was it was tough, but I
learned so much there.
Oh my gosh, you really learnedfrom the companies that make are
tough right, so absolutely,absolutely, yeah.
So I I learned a lot aboutmanaging and uh and welding
process and you know youcouldn't.
It was like again.
It was like a candy land forpeople who like a lot of weld
metal.

Speaker 1 (39:51):
Yeah, yeah, so, yeah.
So what was next after the railyard?

Speaker 2 (39:55):
Well then, I got headhunted, I guess, to a job
closer to home, and it was acompany that made plastic
injection molding machinery.

Speaker 1 (40:04):
Okay, yeah.

Speaker 2 (40:05):
It's a big company north of Toronto, it's called
Husky injection moldings and andthey were just starting up a
new automated welding and fabshop and they needed someone to
basically help them.
Again, my job was wasn't inmanagement, it was, uh,
manufacturing engineering was myjob title there, and so, again
it was, but it was all.

(40:25):
It was a greenfield brand newbuilding.
I walked in the doors like ahockey arena with nothing in it.
Right, there was basically nomachinery yet and we had to hire
all the people and get all theprocedures and all the
techniques down and get themachinery Laser cutting and
robots and CNC press breaks andit was really cool.
And but again there I went tothis non-technical,

(40:49):
non-management position, so Icould sort of say technical and
next thing, you know, every timeI came in somebody else got.
You know it was rough there interms of turnover of managers.
let's put it that way, and so Iguess they finally got fired,
everybody else and said, well,put him in charge because he's
still here, so he still shows upevery day, so we'll get him to

(41:10):
be in charge.
So next thing, you know I'mmanufacturing manager so I had a
whole bunch of welder fittersand uh engine the manufacturing
engineering support and uh andmachinists and painters and
everybody working for me in thisthis.
But it was a neat.
It was a really cool shop too,but I worked a a lot of hours
trying to get that place up andrunning.

Speaker 1 (41:31):
Startup companies or fresh developments within a
company are so fun but also sostressful.

Speaker 2 (41:40):
Well, yeah, I was a good-looking dark-haired young
fellow when I went there.

Speaker 1 (41:45):
Look at what happened to you.

Speaker 2 (41:48):
Next thing you know, my you know I've gained a few
pounds and I'm uh, my hairturned gray and I was walking a
little bit slower than I used toall right.

Speaker 1 (41:59):
So what came after the plant then, after that
manufacturing, injection molding?

Speaker 2 (42:02):
well, the whole time I had been volunteering uh uh at
at conestoga's advisorycommittee, so I had been on
their program advisory committee.
So, one of the fellows therebasically said hey well, we've
got some retirements coming up.
How would you like to get?
Home for dinner with yourfamily every evening and be a

(42:25):
college teacher, I said maybenot such a bad idea, but the.
The hitch was you had to take agiant cut and pay yeah, so
that's, but that's always the,that's always the catch that was
a catch, so uh, but you know Ihad a 30.
You know, by that time we had ayoung family and I thought,
wouldn't, it'd be kind of niceto get to know the kids before
they they're out of the house.

Speaker 1 (42:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (42:48):
Yeah, so I.
I took the.
I took the position at thecollege teaching in the wealth
tech program.

Speaker 1 (42:54):
All right.
Well, that seems like theperfect segue to take our break
here.
For the advertisers, you know Iwas before we started the
conversation, the podcast wetalked off camera about.
You know how are we going toencapsulate your life within an
hour, because it's such a wildride.
I think we're doing pretty good.
We're doing pretty good.
Oh, yeah, yeah yeah, all right.

(43:15):
So we'll be right back afterthis break here with Jim
Galloway coming to us fromConestoga or from his home out
there, and don't go anywhere,we'll be right back.
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And we are back here on the CWBAssociation podcast.
My name is Max Serron and I'mhere with Jim Galloway who right
before the break we wentthrough the trajectory of Jim's
life.
We talked about where he worked, how he got there and then has
he worked his way.
He couldn't escape themanagement.

(45:09):
Then he finally got the nod,the tap on the shoulder to be a
teacher, which many of us gotkind of voluntold into that job.
And then you're at Conestoga.
So let's briefly talk aboutyour career at Conestoga as now
an instructor.
What was it you were initiallyhired for?
You know in which program andto do what.

Speaker 2 (45:31):
Well, so, as I had mentioned, I had been uh
volunteering on the uh programadvisory committee, and one of
the uh coordinator, or thecoordinator of the program at
the time it was a fellow that, agood friend of mine who's
recently passed uh, karstenMadsen recently passed uh

(45:52):
karsten madsen and uh anyway, he, uh, he and I uh sort of
partners in crime.
Uh helped develop the.
Add the third year to thewelding engineering technician
program, right so they're gonnapush to have a more technology
based program.
Um, and that would be meaningadding the third year.
So we had the two-year program,welding engineering technician,
and we wanted to develop athird year.

(46:14):
So I was part of a team, asmall team, that helped develop
the content of the three-yearwelding engineering technology
program.
At the time we did not have thetwo programs with robotics and
inspection, it was just sort ofa mix of, and so you know I
helped, uh, help lay out thecourse, uh, courses that would
be needed, and uh, essentially Idid.

(46:37):
Now here it is a year 2000, Iguess, and uh, and then I was,
the program had just sort oflaunched, but they really needed
some, some somebody to take thereins of a lot of the courses
at the more technical level.
And so since I had, when I wasworking in Toronto, I had also

(46:58):
gone to night school and becamea certified engineering
technologist, so I had sort ofadded the third year to my
two-year education by nightschool yeah, yeah, so I I had
taking taken the the metallurgyum certificate program at
ryerson university, which is nowtoronto metropolitan university
.
It was called ryersonpolytechnic at the time anyway,

(47:19):
but they had a really goodmetallurgy program and so I had
studied that at night schoolwhen I was uh in toronto and uh,
I also took, you know,industrial engineering and some
other things.
So I was now an engineeringtechnologist, sort of by the
back door, and so they neededsomeone to help teach certain

(47:40):
courses, and one of the ones Iended up teaching was and I'm
still teaching today wasoperations management and so
sort of the manager side of thebeing an engineering
technologist in the welding andfab world and uh, and also
metallurgy.
I did the third year metallurgycourse and weld design and uh,

(48:01):
several other courses, weldinglabs I helped uh update a lot of
their welding lab activity anduh, and so that's basically my.
My focus was was on the on onthe welding technology side and
uh, and also not too long afterthat, uh and, and you might not
know this, but Ontario didn'talways have a welding red seal

(48:22):
that's right, I did know that,yeah yeah, it only started about
20 years ago pretty Pretty farbehind still, but it's catching
up.
Yeah, it's not what it is inother provinces.

Speaker 1 (48:30):
No no.

Speaker 2 (48:31):
But one of the problems Ontario had was, yeah,
we're going to have a Red Seal,but now we need people with Red
Seals to teach it.
So people like me had to go outand go through the back door of
a trade challenger to become awelding red seal.
So I could weld, you know, butcertainly that I wasn't the
world's greatest welder, that'sby any means.

(48:52):
Uh, when I was younger I waspretty good at it, but uh.
But again, I was driving a deskmore than than, uh, running a
tig welding machine.
So anyway, so I I did that aswell.
So I was teaching some skilledskills, but mostly I was
teaching the theory and uh labsand metallurgy and management
design things like that.

(49:13):
So that's how I ended up uh inthe at the college teaching a
bunch of different things.
As it turns out now, if I lookat the three-year technology
program, I've probably taught 70or 80 of the courses yeah over,
yeah, over time, yeah over time.
I haven't taught.
The only ones I haven't reallytaught are engineering drawings

(49:33):
and CAD and robotics, but prettymuch everything else, including
skills, I've taught, and alsoapprentices as well.

Speaker 3 (49:42):
They're really scraping the bottom of the
barrel when they want me toteach an apprentice a third year
apprentice how to weld, thoughthey ran out of options.

Speaker 2 (49:56):
Yeah, so I there's a.
There's a couple young, uhreally good, well skilled
welders that they have doingthat now.

Speaker 1 (49:59):
But good, good, now you know you started at the
college right around 2000,somewhere around there, yeah,
yeah and now you're, you're,you're coming up on, you know,
your retirement, 25 years in atthe college, and all that time
basically within this WETprogram, and its development
over the time right, 45 yearsreally.

Speaker 2 (50:18):
I've been involved in the WET program since 1980.

Speaker 1 (50:20):
Yeah, so there's a couple of things that I noted
throughout your journey and, youknow, in these 25 years at the
college, you know, did you stillfind that, that passion to to?
I guess?
have that procedural developmentthat always wanted that r&d,
like you really really seem tobright, like light up when you

(50:42):
talked about your r&d journeywith x company or developing
something with you know ycompany.
When you go to the, a lot ofpeople or a lot of instructors
I've seen kind of dry up.
They seem to like lose a littlebit of their passion because
it's it can be really repetitiveif you're not careful and just
you know you're teaching, youknow class A and class B and
repeat next year.
Right, how did you find a way tokeep that flame inside of you

(51:08):
lit for those passions?

Speaker 2 (51:11):
I've always been extremely fascinated and curious
about the welding field.
It's not like some of the otherfields where it's more of a
science, because there's thishuge mix of art buried in behind
the scenes and technique andmystery and and and a lot of

(51:33):
mythology too, in terms of whypeople do things and and why
things they are are the way theyare.
and a lot of it's not wellresearched and and I I guess I
one of my colleagues he goeslike this all the time when he's
talking to people.
He's goes like when they'retalking to him, he's like what
is that?
Oh, he said that's my BSdetector, so he is my BS

(52:00):
detectors going off.
Yeah, so you get students usingthe wrong terms and and and you
know it's just people as amystery.
A good example.
You know it's a sad example too, but we had a graduate many,
well over 20 years ago now, andI knew the.

(52:20):
I knew the young fellow and hehe went off working not too far
from where I am now and becameelectrocuted welding on his job
site and no one could figure outwhat had happened.
And I was completely confusedabout how this young man, who
had a young fellow, he had ayoung child at home and just

(52:41):
been married and he was one ofour apprentices, he had gone to
the welding technician program.
Then he came back as anapprentice and he was in his
third year and and he gotelectrocuted and I said how, how
did this happen?
It didn't make any sense.
The machine was off and and, uh,it turned out to be stray
welding current.
Yeah, and I thought my goshlike how, how, how, how come?

(53:03):
I've never heard of this beforeand and and that, uh, that for
one thing would really set me ona journey of trying to
understand how can this happenand how come people don't know
what happens and how can we stopit right, and and things like
that.
It just drives me nuts.
When I don't know something,like when it's when I should be

(53:24):
able to know it, or I shouldhave heard of it before and
somebody should have writtenabout it, or somebody you know
how can we not understand thisand so?
that's just one example of oneof these mysteries of the
welding world that you've talkedto a hundred welders and you
say, I quote straight weldingcurrent.
They don't know what you'retalking about.
You know and everybody calls thecurrent return the work, lead

(53:46):
the ground clamp when it isn't aground and things like that and
and it's been an ongoing battlefor me to make people
understand that, look if you, ifyou stop and think you can save
your life, like by not burningout the electrical system, the
powers of a machine, so thatwhen you go touch something you
don't get electrocuted, whichessentially is what happened to

(54:07):
this young fellow.

Speaker 1 (54:08):
And you know it's wild because, like I said, I
came up in the mining industryand I'd be hard-pressed to find
a welder that had not beenelectrocuted underground right,
yeah, but you would have beenelectrocuted on the secondary.

Speaker 2 (54:22):
In other words you'd be getting a shock off the
machine.

Speaker 1 (54:29):
No, we would ground to the eye beams on the machines
on the first floor and weld onthe 10th and run and we would
just arc through the wholebuilding right yeah, again.

Speaker 2 (54:36):
So and I, I've, I'm not going to go waste a whole
lot of time, but if peoplereally understand, want to
understand that uh, dave heisey,who you know, right, and uh,
he's the chair of the CSA W117.2committee.
He's an electrician and he'sgot a really good handle on the
electrical side of the business.
And he and I are sort ofpartners in crime and trying to

(54:58):
understand this and publicizethis whole phenomenon.

Speaker 1 (55:01):
And you've done a presentation that's fantastic
too for us before on the currentbut there's really two
mechanisms where a welder isgoing to get electrocuted.

Speaker 2 (55:09):
One is from the primary, which is stray welding
current and one is from thesecondary, which is your normal
output terminals right, so I'vebeen you know, and that's just
one example in the welding worldwhere people don't understand
they should understand.
You can read it in a book.
Yeah, you can open up themanual of your welding machine
and it tells you what to do, butnobody looks at this stuff and

(55:31):
and then people start developingmyths and bs, basically right
and uh, and it's the same withmetallurgy.
It's the same with a lot ofwelding process theory.
People.
It's not that it hasn't beenwritten about, it's just that
people don't people believe themyth people would yeah and I I'm

(55:52):
, you know, I'm very you know.
Somebody says tells me somethingI I want to see.
Is there?
Maybe we can set up anexperiment to prove it.
Yeah, let's find out.
Yeah and uh.
So that's, that's kind ofwhat's kept me interested in in,
in going, in terms of trying tokeep understanding what's
happening, and I've also had theopportunity that a lot of

(56:12):
welders and even um instructorsat campuses that uh may be more
remote from where I am, but Iknow the, the, what, the
research activities at theuniversity of waterloo, at the,
and and uh.
I know you, you're more familiarwith what goes on in alberta,
but you know, I'm a half an houraway from you know, one of the
biggest welding research, uhfacilities in the world and and

(56:37):
I I'm very uh friendly with alot of the professors up there
and I try to, if I can, attendseminars, so I I try to stay in
tune with that real academic andhigh level research world, the
leading edge bridge that, bridgethat back into teaching welders
and try to be that, the sort ofthe bridge between those two

(56:58):
worlds.
And uh, try I can, I canunderstand just enough to make
be dangerous about what they'redoing at the university and I
know just enough about weldingto be real dangerous to, to work
, to work in the world of thewelders.
And there's this opportunitymaybe to bridge that gap.
And sometimes it means runninga little experiment.

(57:19):
Uh, you know, let's, I I got, Iknow so many little things I
want to do, uh, experiments Iwant to run and and you know
articles I can write about itand and that's what I've been
interested in and I just again,I see, learning teaching people
is really giving me an, anopportunity to learn more about
that thing and after I learn, ifI learn more and I'll teach you

(57:43):
what I know and then, together,we'll go off on a journey to
find out even more.

Speaker 1 (57:47):
Yeah, and anybody that says they understand
welding completely is it's not athing, not a thing yeah, I
remember someone told me oncethat you never really learn
until you teach, and I didn'treally get that sure until I
taught when I got that first,you know, because I was, you
know, 20 years on the tools Iknow welding and I got two red
seals and you know I know mystuff I'm.
And then you go to teach thefirst class and you get a whole

(58:09):
bunch of whys and whys and whysand whys and whys and then you
really got to get deep in thebarrel to the point where you're
like you hit the wall andyou're like I don't know.
I got to go find out, becauseit's okay to not know but it's
not not okay to leave it hanging.

Speaker 2 (58:30):
I but it's also true that the more you.

Speaker 1 (58:31):
You know, you find out the less the more questions
sometimes that come up.

Speaker 2 (58:33):
Right, yeah, so you know, and so that's.
It's never ending.
I keep these questions justkeep popping in my head like
geez, it would be really easy toset up an experiment to do this
.
Right, yeah and so, uh, andthat's been challenging because
colleges aren't really set up todo research.

Speaker 1 (58:47):
No, they'll say their funding is limited, like I mean
it's, and the bureaucracy isslow.

Speaker 2 (58:52):
The bureaucracy, oh the bureaucracy is almost beyond
slow.
It's actually it's a terminalillness at some of these places,
because they, they really theyput a bureaucrat in charge of
things that they really have noidea about.
And then they're trying to telland even they don't, even, they
don't even understand sometimes, that there are people who not

(59:16):
everybody, but there are peoplewho just want to find out
because it's interesting andthey're curious and they they.
They can't conceive of thatbecause they're.
I guess the opposite of curiousis incurious yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (59:28):
So they're just, they don't care status quo, move
forward, don't care.

Speaker 2 (59:32):
Yeah, that's that's not me and I've never been that
way, and and you know, it seemslike the now that my you know my
family's more out of the houseand whatnot and I have more time
on my hands, it's sort ofbecome my hobby is, uh, is, uh,
is finding out more aboutwelding.

Speaker 1 (59:47):
So well, one of the things that's been a theme since
I've known you and even priorto me knowing you because I
heard of you, um in in thisfield was how involved you
always were with your students,not just as a teacher, because
you know there's lots of greatteachers out there and that's
what they do they teach and theygo home.
I've had some great instructorsthat I have no idea you know.

(01:00:08):
Even you know what they do orif they have a wife or kids or
nothing like it's just they justtaught me.
But you're the type of teacherthat you know you put in the
extra time and this podcast isgoing to be released during, you
know, volunteer month here inapril, and one of the things
that that's come up throughoutour other uh podcasts for the
month is is why you know whysomeone like you who's got a

(01:00:33):
family, you got a job, you,you're busy, you're you're, you
know things, you're inquisitive,you want experiments.
It's not like you don't knowhow to fill your 24 hour clock,
Jim, like you you can fill your24 hour clock very easily, yeah.
But what is it that makes youwant to take on that extra task

(01:00:54):
to volunteer for your localassociations, going to the
seminars that no one makes yougo to, it's just to participate
and network with these groups,be a part of these things that
are, you know, in your field butoutside of your realm of
necessary.
What is it that makes you wantto do that?

Speaker 2 (01:01:12):
Well, even as example , when I was in college, the
local chapter inKitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge was
called the Golden Triangle.

Speaker 1 (01:01:24):
The Golden.

Speaker 2 (01:01:25):
Triangle.
That's right, and it was theWelding Institute of Canada.
It was WIC no it was before, nottoo long before that it was the
Canadian Welding Society orsomething.
I forget what years it changed,but anyway it was might have
been wick by that point weldinginstitute of canada.
Yeah, um, but you might noteven know this.

(01:01:45):
I mentioned I worked at ontariohydro's research division, but
just before I had gone there andthey were it, the wick was
actually the canadian weldingsociety and the canadian welding
development institute, and thecanadian welding development is
Institute had their lab nextdoor to the lab that I was in at
Ontario.
Hydro.

(01:02:06):
They used a space at OntarioHydro.
And then they got their ownbuilding in Oakville in this old
elementary school and they hadthis big lab in Oakville,
ontario.
By that time it had joined andbecome the WIC.

Speaker 1 (01:02:19):
Yeah, I have all the original WIC procedural books
from my dad from when?
He was a part of WIC.
Because he was a boiler maker.
He was a part of WIC in the 80shere in Canada, and so when he
retired he gave me all his oldbooks and I have the full set.

Speaker 2 (01:02:34):
Well, that would have been what they called the
Gooderham modules.

Speaker 1 (01:02:36):
Yeah, the Gooderham modules, I have them all, yeah,
and those were super interestingthose were developed.

Speaker 2 (01:02:42):
I don't know what year, but yeah, it was uh so.
But the welding institute ofcanada was a real going concern.
They was a it was.
They had lots of meetings.
I remember I saw my first plasmaarc cutter at a chapter when I
was in college we went upsomewhere, is that one of the uh
, one of the gas distributorshad it and uh, you could go in

(01:03:02):
and, uh, play with a plasmacutter.
And I'd never even heard ofsuch a thing.
We didn't.
I guess we'd heard of thingsbut we'd never seen one.
Yeah, so I got to go play withthe plasma cutter and things
like that, like that.
Where do you get thatexperience?
And you know, it wasn't just me, but all the students like, hey
, let's go look at this.
It was a.
You know we'll pile in a car andit went down to these meetings
and, and next thing you know,there's people talking to you
about, you know, jobs jobs andyeah yeah, it was pretty

(01:03:25):
interesting and uh so and thenand then when I later, when I
was up at bruce power, uh, inthe construction it was, it was
kind of remote, so we didn'treally get involved from that
perspective.
But but when I moved to toronto, uh, I was in the research lab
in the research lab and my bossat the time he was starting a

(01:03:46):
family and whatnot and so hedidn't really have time for the
association, but he had beenheavily involved.
And then he said hey, you'renew, and you're just new to
Toronto, why don't you go join?
So next thing you know, I'm amember of the local chapter, the
Toronto chapter.
Now what?

Speaker 1 (01:04:03):
about the CWA, then yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:04:05):
Well, that was the WIC by that Still.

Speaker 1 (01:04:06):
WIC.

Speaker 2 (01:04:07):
It was WIC until late nineties, I think.

Speaker 1 (01:04:10):
I think it was like 98 or somewhere around there.

Speaker 2 (01:04:12):
Yeah, yeah, and so now I'm going to.
You know, I remember I met DanTaddick in 1984 or something at
some meeting at the Oakvilleplace.

Speaker 1 (01:04:24):
We used to go to meetings at the Oakville.
He was probably with the gassupplier?
I don't remember why it was atan aluminum conference.

Speaker 2 (01:04:31):
I remember I was going through some stuff.
I was cleaning out my desk.
I found this old there's allthe list of attendees I should
have kept it somewhere.
That's awesome, but Tadd, allthe list of attendees.
I should have kept it somewhere, but that's awesome.
Tattic was one of them and andI learned through the oh yeah,
dan tattic's on there, so I methim way back right so, yeah, so,
but you know, we had the.
We had a real going concern ourtoronto chapter and I was one of
the members executive and anduh, and you know we did all

(01:04:52):
kinds of cool stuff.
We had regular monthly meetingsand the famous rubber chicken
we used to have at the dinnermeetings at one of the hotels in
Toronto and all kinds of guestspeakers and got to know a lot
of people and, yeah, it wasgreat and I had been involved.
Ever since then I've beeninvolved in wherever, either the

(01:05:13):
Toronto chapter or now, morerecently, what we call the
Kitchener chapter, which is theone close to home here and
certainly, yeah, i's met a lotof people and I've always
encouraged the students to getinvolved.
And graduates, as they comethrough the technology program,
they're going off and I sayyou're moving, oh, I got a job,
I'm going to move to Calgary orI'm moving to Vancouver or

(01:05:34):
whatever.
I say, well, okay, first thingyou do when you get off the
plane is join the local, findout who the local chapter
executives are and volunteer andget to know people and start
networking.
It'll help your careerimmediately oh, and I swear, the
one time I was out at we haveyou know the uh.
What do they call the meeting?
Uh, the nac meeting, the nacfor those that don't know, it's

(01:05:54):
that the national association ofthe chapters and they have an
annual meeting and I went to oneof the Chapters and they have
an annual meeting and I went toone of the NAC meetings and
there was the chair of theVancouver, calgary and Edmonton
chapter.
Were recent grads fromConestoga's WellTech program.

Speaker 1 (01:06:12):
Yeah, and I was representing the Kitchener
chapter.

Speaker 2 (01:06:16):
Yeah, so it's been a great opportunity.
So again, I always encourageand then, and then my colleague
helped get the, you know,encourage the students and
mentor them into starting up theConestoga student chapter.

Speaker 1 (01:06:30):
So so now.

Speaker 2 (01:06:30):
I'm kind of got my my my when we go to the trivia
night I'm not sure if which club.
I should join, but.
Well, no one from Ontario wonthis year, so oh yeah, I didn
join, but well, no one fromontario won this year.
So oh yeah, I didn't hear.
I.
I didn't.

Speaker 1 (01:06:44):
I was about to log in , but I missed the deadline or
something, but edmonton took theprize and not even the uva
edmonton themselves.

Speaker 2 (01:06:50):
So oh, good for them yeah, but uh yeah, so I so you
know, but it's, it's for thosewho don't really engage in the
different chapters.
Step forward, literally.
I found that as a networking,you can use LinkedIn and all
this stuff, but I can pick upthe phone and I can.

(01:07:12):
Oh, I know this person in theCalgary chapter.
I wonder if he knows thiscompany.
And sure enough it's like youknow, is it the old movie Six
Degrees of Separation?
But it's like in the weldingfield.
It's like.
It's like three tops Maximumtwo maybe.
But you know, if I wanted totalk to somebody in Nova Scotia

(01:07:32):
or Newfoundland or whatever, ifthere's an active chapter out
there, I can easily get hold ofthat person and uh and uh,
certainly get, and and and trackdown something or somebody that
would be able to help me withsomething or answer a question.
So, uh, it's been, it's beengreat from that perspective.
So, yeah, it's uh what aboutthe development.

Speaker 1 (01:07:52):
You know you talked about the difference.
It's something I talk aboutwith my dad all the time.
I'm second generation in thesteel fields and and uh and my
sister also works in the steelindustry, so it's a family
affair in our house.
So around the kitchen table,you know I'll I'll listen to my
dad talk about stuff and heinitially is the one that got me
to join the chapter.
I was.
I actually was against it.
I was like I'm too cool forthat, like I'm a welder.

(01:08:14):
I know what's up, I know whatI'm doing.
I'm making good money.
I don't need this weird.
You know rubber chicken dinnersto prove anything and I was
kind of stubborn about it.
But you know he talks about howmuch things have changed and
also how much things stay thesame within.
You know his perspective ofworking for 50 years in the
industry.
Now for yourself, from thevolunteer perspective.

(01:08:35):
You know from you know being incollege and seeing your first
plasma cutters with these.
You know meetings that werebeing held by the, by the
association then to today, whatkind of.
You know what's really stoodout to you as something that's
different and what has stood outto you as something that's kind
of exactly the same.

Speaker 2 (01:08:55):
The challenges are the same in terms of getting one
of the one of the sort ofnegative reputations that we had
as an association especiallyback, you know, 20, 30 years ago
, was it's for engineers andsalespeople?

Speaker 1 (01:09:10):
Right, right.

Speaker 2 (01:09:10):
Well, there's no battle that I still battle that,
yeah, you know you got to do.
I have to wear a tie to this,you know?
No, you know that kind of thing.
So welcoming some of the morehands-on people into these
meetings and and getting themengaged has always been a
challenge.
It's you know it's just, youknow, I always say it's.

(01:09:31):
You know, one of the reasonswelders are welders because they
can shut the helmet and hidethe world out and focus.
You know, it's not like you're.
You have to interact with, uh,with people you can actually.
Or what does my colleague say?
Uh, in welding.
There are no tears in welding.
Or my other colleague said uh,one reason we put our mask down
is because no one can see ourtears right so but no, it, it is

(01:09:55):
a.
It is the type of thing that itis difficult to get people to
engage, and I think you wouldsay the same in any industrial
society like this if you werethe machining society or the,
you know the.
I don't know whatever would be,equivalent.
But yeah, I think they allstruggle with the same thing, so

(01:10:16):
that would be the same.
I guess that the good thingwould be the same.
I guess that the the the goodthing would be the the ease at
which people can participatewith remote technologies and it
used to be, if you had to evenlook at toronto chapter.
I want to go to a meeting intoronto chapter.
I leave my house in kitchenerat rush hour like that's a heck
of a trip, yeah forget about ita couple hours on traffic.

(01:10:38):
Yeah you're gonna be a roadwarrior to do that and I've done
enough commuting over the years.
I don't know if I want to, butyou know if push comes to shove
I'll do it.
But you know it's not somethingthat I would.

Speaker 1 (01:10:47):
But now you have the option to just sit on your
computer and watch it.

Speaker 2 (01:10:50):
You know, yeah, but it's not the same you know
really isn't, but it's somethingyou know, it's so it's easier
that way, but also there's somuch more noise now it used to
be an event where people, wouldyou know, pile in a car and go
to the welding associationmeeting and eat, eat rubber
chicken and have a few beers andand, uh, you know it'd be, uh,

(01:11:13):
you know, more more like asocial event.
Yeah, and uh, and and I thinksome of that's coming back like
it's certainly uh, the kitchenerchapter and, of course, you
know, jackie morris, and yeah,and and, and the crew that's uh
sort of leading the charge rightnow.
Uh, they've been uh very, verygood at, uh, the social aspect,
uh, but again, we have to keep,keep in mind that there's a

(01:11:36):
technical aspect and we have to,but it's it's hard to get a
sexy talk yeah oh, come out andlearn about csa.
Well, csa welding codes.
Okay, welding codes andstandards.

Speaker 1 (01:11:47):
I love that you know yeah it's got to be a good mix.
You got to have like uh, yougot to play all the crowds right
?

Speaker 2 (01:11:52):
yeah, that's right, and that's always a challenge um
and uh, getting the right topic, getting good speakers, and uh,
but y'all had a.
I I was invited to be a speakerat the toronto chapter.
Uh, and getting the right topic, getting good speakers.
But I was invited to be aspeaker at the Toronto chapter,
I guess in December, and I did atalk on the additive
manufacturing work that we do atthe college and it was well

(01:12:14):
attended.
I couldn't believe it.
They had like 70 people.

Speaker 1 (01:12:18):
Chapters across Canada have been having record
attendances the last couple ofyears, and I feel like there's
almost a desire.
Post-covid, everyone was scaredfor a bit, but now it's like
everyone's like maybe we reallyneed to interact with humans,
maybe that's actually importantyeah.

Speaker 2 (01:12:34):
So that's been encouraging to see that and I
have to hand it to you know theassociation in terms of the
events they put on nationally,like the CanWeld the last couple
of years and the one in well,the Industry Day that's coming
up in West.
So it's good.
So it's good to get people out.

(01:12:54):
I know it's still a challengeand now with everything going on
with the economy and tariffsand you know it's going to be
put a bit downer on on everybody, but but I think it's.
It's important that we do keepinteracting as humans on a human
level well, that's the waywe're going to solution these
things.

Speaker 1 (01:13:10):
You know, we're not going to solution these tough
times alone and like this iswhat I was pitching to the
company, because even cwb group,at the end of the day, it's a
it's an industry it's a businessand you know there's talks
about.
You know, do we cancel this, dowe cancel that?
And you know I had to put myfoot down and be like look, at
the end of the day, we'regetting all the smartest people
in this country in one room.

(01:13:30):
If we're having a bad time inthe country, this is probably
the best time to get all thesmartest people in one room
because yeah we this is a goodtime to get some opinions and
some feedback and get somethoughts, because we need it now
.

Speaker 2 (01:13:44):
You know, we can't just give up Like no, you're not
.

Speaker 1 (01:13:48):
What are you going to just give up and walk away Like
let's get everyone together andsay, all right, well, this is a
Canadian welding bureauassociation.
We're Canadians, we're inwelding, let's associate let
Canadians we're in welding.

Speaker 2 (01:14:03):
Let's associate, let's figure this out.
Yeah, so again the other thing.
I was going to give you acompliment too.
I remember and it was funny itwas actually at CanWeld in 2022
and I was thinking it was inToronto.
It was just after COVID, andyou and I were there and we were
sort of standing in a circlewith a few other people and
somebody comes running up to youand said the speaker just
cancelled.
I don't know who he was or whatit was, it doesn't matter, and

(01:14:25):
and we're all kind of looking ateach other they need a speaker
like to jump in, and I'mbreaking out in a sweat because
people are starting to look atme like holy smokes, what am I
going to talk about?
I'm not ready for this.
And then, and then, of course,max just jumps in and does a
great job.
It was hilarious.
There's probably nobody else inthe country that could have
just jumped in and did that, soI got to compliment you on that.

(01:14:47):
You've done a great job and youhave a way about you that
certainly helps the passion thatyou exude comes out in many
ways, and certainly that was.

Speaker 1 (01:15:01):
It was pretty hilarious, though, because I I
just think, oh my gosh, I dodgedthat bullet because they
started looking, people startedlooking at me like I don't have
another presentation, I just didtwo, you know well, it was
funny because in the post-eventsurvey of that conference I won
the award for the highest ratedspeed.
The talk of the week.

Speaker 3 (01:15:20):
And I thought that was so funny because I had no.

Speaker 2 (01:15:24):
I had no, nothing ready, no notes or anything,
nothing, it was like, and it hadto do it right then, like there
was no prep time or anything.
And it was pretty funny becauseand it wasn't.

Speaker 1 (01:15:38):
it wasn't in the welding conference, it was in
the manufacturing one orsomething.
That's right I had to do.
I'm not sure how it all works,but I had to do a, basically did
an hour on how to do youstreamline your manufacturing
processes on the industry floorlike oh my, oh, my gosh and I
had I had a presentation that Iprobably could have pulled up.
I don't think I had it with mebecause I have, you know,
probably a dozen in the pocket.

Speaker 2 (01:15:58):
Yeah, yeah yeah, so it's just I don't know if I had
it on the memory stick that I Iwould have, I don't know where I
could have downloaded orwhatever, but well, the that.

Speaker 1 (01:16:06):
That compliment goes both ways.
Uh, jim, because I've, I've,I've leaned on you pretty
heavily at many things.
You present for our chapters,you present for our conferences,
and your and your presentationsare always well attended so
that you know like.
I mean that's, I'm not lettingyou run away that easily.

Speaker 2 (01:16:23):
People talk to us.
Again, it's, I get lots ofpractice.
Yeah, the only thing is thestudents have to listen to me
for an hour or two, but Well,that's what someone said.

Speaker 1 (01:16:33):
They're like oh well, you know, I think it was
someone like in the GTA.
They're like oh, we alreadyseen Jim before.
I'm like yeah, but you got toremember that the rest of the
country hasn't Right, so youcan't just hide this guy in your
Ontario borders.
We can share him, that's allright.

Speaker 2 (01:16:51):
Like I say so, I've got various passions.
One would be welding safety,another one would be, you know,
the uh welding procedure,development and processes.
And the other one now is morethis additive manufacturing
stuff, that uh that we've beenplaying with at the college and
uh.
So that that's that's actuallywhat you asked me.

(01:17:11):
One of the what, what keeps youexcited.
But and I use this analogy Isaid just imagine that aliens
drop this new type of metal onthe ground out in front of your
house, and you go and pick it upand, oh, this is cool.
I wonder how they made thisright.
I wonder what it does Likeessentially, this additive
manufacturing.
Can I bend it?
Yeah, how do I test it?

(01:17:32):
How do I?
What happens if I heat treat it?
How do I make more of it?
It's basically like roswell in1947.
You know, you get this.
Oh well, this is really coolalien metal, right.
So but uh, and that's the wayyou know, we're looking at the
additive manufacturing.
Um opportunity is that you,basically you have this new way

(01:17:53):
of making metal that's not, youknow, it's not rolling, it's not
extruding, it's not forging andit's not casting.
I guess it's more like castingthan any of the others, but it's
different enough, it's notextruding.
It's not forging and it's notcasting.
I guess it's more like castingthan any of the others, but it's
different enough that it's justa new manufacturing method and
the material is not really inthe codes and they don't know
what to do with it.

Speaker 1 (01:18:11):
You can change things on the spot, basically, yeah,
you can change the mixes up.

Speaker 2 (01:18:17):
How does it corrode compared to casting?
What happens?
How do you bend, test it?
How do you inspect it?
All these so that opened uplike a whole world of mystery
again, of everything that weknow about forging and casting
and a raw product.
Now we have to learn about thisnew manufacturing method, this

(01:18:41):
new product form so alloying,mixing alloys, um, having a
alloy that's, uh, you know, softon the bottom, like a softer
alloy, gradually becoming agradient, yeah, yeah,
transitioning and all that stuffis possible.
So it's opened up a lot, of, alot of fun opportunities for me
in terms of just uh, exploringit's a hot welding world.

Speaker 1 (01:19:04):
I was just down in chile at the university of
santiago, and oh yeah, dr carom,tello she there she has, uh,
her, and she's like devotingbasically a big chunk of her lab
into the same thing, into wham.
You know like additivemanufacturing because the same
thing.
She's like well, nothing's offthe drawing board now.
You know like additivemanufacturing because the same
thing she's like well, nothing'soff the drawing board now.
You know like it's like, uh,I'm baking cakes now and I just

(01:19:26):
gotta tell me how sweet or howsour or how tall or how short,
and I'll just bake the cake.
You know like, yeah yeah,exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:19:32):
Do you want it hard?
You want it, you want it soft.
You want to harden this spotand crows resistant in that spot
, do you want?

Speaker 1 (01:19:38):
it jelly filled, or do you want sprinkles on top?
Whatever you want, man, yeah,basically yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:19:43):
It's actually fascinating and if you listen to
the true experts who aredeveloping this stuff and
there's not many centers ofexcellence in Canada on this-
Down at Dalhousie University, DrAli Nassiri has got some
capability and University ofWaterloo has capability and
University of Alberta hascapability.
How's the university?
I should connect you to, dr.
Karam, dr Ali Naseeri's got somecapability and University of
Waterloo has capability andUniversity of Alberta has

(01:20:04):
capability and there's littlepockets springing up of
expertise.
But there's a lot of researchto be done, a lot to learn, and
certainly Conestoga's played arole.
We started doing this 10 yearsago or so.

Speaker 1 (01:20:22):
Myself and my colleague Dr.

Speaker 2 (01:20:23):
Tam colleague, uh, dr tam win.
Yeah, he's wonderful, he's agreat guy and uh and very he's
kind of he's similar to myself.
He just can't learn enoughabout this, this whole, this
whole business.

Speaker 1 (01:20:30):
So well, I have one of your gifts that you gave me,
little wham gifts here that yougave me.

Speaker 2 (01:20:34):
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the coaster, yeah, the
coaster.

Speaker 1 (01:20:37):
I still got it here.
I love it.
Yeah, yeah, I show it to people.
They're like yeah, what's thebig deal?
It's like oh, you just don'tunderstand.

Speaker 2 (01:20:45):
Yeah, so that has certainly lit a fire under me in
terms of trying to learn moreabout welding.
And again, just a newapplication for welding and a
great opportunity for thewelding industry to basically
apply themselves to a newtechnology.
So it's been great, so that'sbeen a lot of fun.
That gets me, opens my eyesagain to all the possibilities,

(01:21:09):
and so I've been working on thatas well.

Speaker 1 (01:21:12):
So at the end of the interview now we've kind of
rolled through the train.
Now the train's leaving thestation, right, you got a month
left before the contract's upand summer holidays hit and this
is going to be the long summernow, right.
So what are you thinking?
What's exciting?
You now, as you look into thewindow of retirement and I'm

(01:21:35):
very curious to hear your stakesmy dad did not retire well.
My dad fought retirement like agrumpy old man.
It took him a bit to get intoit.
You know like.

Speaker 2 (01:21:45):
Yeah well, I guess I'm grumpy some days, but
generally I try to be prettypositive.
But I really am I going tofully retire?

Speaker 1 (01:21:54):
Highly unlikely.
No, no way yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:21:59):
I'm not going to just you're healthy, you're good,
yeah yeah, I'm not gonna sinkinto the couch and uh with a
beer in my hand and uh, fadeaway.
There's no way.
I just can't.
And I'm not gonna be out in agolf course.
Uh, my one, my one, uh fear isthat, uh, all these little jobs
that I told my wife that I'llput, I'll do that when I retire.

(01:22:19):
I'll focus on that when Iretire.
So, all these little projectsaround the house, my wife's
looking at me now I say well,you are retiring right.

Speaker 1 (01:22:28):
Yeah, she'll pull out the master list on you.

Speaker 2 (01:22:31):
So I have to, I have to, I have to coax it.
Well, it's a semi-retirement,so I have to keep playing my
games, For example.
I'm going to go to Red Deer andI'll see you out there.
And again, it's just.
It's what else I'm going to do.
I really haven't had a chanceto think through it all, simply

(01:22:53):
because I've been in the thickof doing my job, Right.
So you know, today I left thehouse at quarter to seven.
I was at the campus at seveno'clock.
I was in in class, uh, fromeight o'clock, and then I had
another class and then, uh, Ihad to teach a lab and I went
down in the machine shop and oneof the fellows was, uh, helping

(01:23:15):
me, one of the my colleagues.
I was trying to make these umbars so I could heat, treat them
, uh, from square to round anduh, I haven't used a four jaw
chuck on a laser in a long time,so he was helping me get it
centered, yeah yeah, so get it,so I could make make these.
You know you need a four jawchuck, not a three jaw chuck, to
hold square things and uhanyway.

(01:23:36):
So, uh, he was helping with that, so and then, and then I zipped
home and jumped on this meeting.
So it's been a to stop andthink about what my next steps
are.
I have not done that thoroughly, but it will be something.
I just don't know what.

Speaker 1 (01:23:51):
Well, I am hoping and I'm going to put five bucks
down that you still are involvedwith the chapters and I still
can count on you for thevolunteer work that you do,
because as a mentor, you gotanother 30 year career ahead of
you, right Like oh sure Becausethe mentorship side, like I mean
, look at how much I lean on DanTaddick still you know like I
mean I, I understand the valueof mentorship.

(01:24:14):
I've had some great mentors.
I hope to be a good mentorsomeday, as you, as you guys are
.
I hope to be a good mentorsomeday, as you, as you guys are
.
And you know, and I, I'mexcited for this next stage of
your life because you knowyou're going to get some.
Some things will be easier foryou, right.
Some things will be lessbureaucracy.
Some things will be more justbecause you want to right.
Yeah, and.
And on the other side of that,there will be days, jim, where

(01:24:36):
you wake up and think you knowwhat I do want to sit on my
couch and drink a beer all day,and you can.

Speaker 2 (01:24:42):
And kudos to you, brother Like good, yeah, yeah,
well, I guess, yeah, it's justthat it's like Galloway,
unchanged.

Speaker 1 (01:24:51):
No bureaucracy.
Yeah, yeah, he's free, he'sfree.

Speaker 2 (01:24:55):
But then again, if I wake up and it's a miserable
snowy morning and I don't wantto get up and do anything, I
don't have to right.

Speaker 1 (01:25:01):
You don't have to.
Yeah, that's the.
That's when it really was good,yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:25:05):
Yeah, so again, uh, I haven't really come to grips
with it all, but, uh, I, I,there's a lot, a lot of things I
need to.
I need, well, and uh, and uh,who knows where it takes me,
awesome well, it's beenwonderful having you here on the
show.

Speaker 1 (01:25:24):
Um, you know it's great, uh, which is your local
chapter, that you work with bothkitchener and the student
chapter, I assume in costco,yeah technically, I'm kitchener
chapter.

Speaker 2 (01:25:33):
Okay, I'm only student chapter because I'm in
the class with the students allthe time who are the student
chapter, so it's uh, it's hardto separate the two sometimes,
but Jeff Moulton is the keymentor for the student chapter
Awesome and Josh Hyde has beenmentoring them for a number of
years.
He's very heavily involved inSkills Canada and Skills.

(01:25:54):
Ontario and so he's sort ofstepped back from mentoring the
chapter.
And Jeff Moulton, one of myfaculty colleagues, has jumped
into the fray and been helpingthe students get organized.
But the students ultimately runthe chapter.
But, as you can appreciate,student chapters have a high
turnover rate.
They do, it's not because ofanything other than they

(01:26:16):
graduate and get jobs.

Speaker 1 (01:26:18):
The turnover rate's equal to equal to success yes,
that's right.

Speaker 2 (01:26:22):
So uh, but you know, we've had a thriving student
chapter for, I'm guessing, 10 or12 years yeah, it's got to be
over 10 by now.
Yeah yeah, I, I don't knowexactly, but, and all the
students who have gone throughand you've met a lot of them who
are the chapter chairs ofstudents, but uh, again, uh, so

(01:26:43):
I some days I'm not sure whichchapter I'm in, but definitely
it's the industrial version, notthe student version.

Speaker 1 (01:26:50):
That's the well, if you're in the gta and you loved
this podcast.
Make sure you join your localchapter, really anywhere in
canada.

Speaker 2 (01:26:57):
Make sure you're joining your local chapter
because jim is one of the peopleyou will meet at the networking
events and and at the thingswe're doing and you know much as
much fun as we've had on thispodcast in person, we have way
more fun oh yeah it is actually,you know, I it's very one thing

(01:27:17):
I've noticed about people inthe welding industry, and I
don't know if you this yourexperience, but I find them
relatively friendly compared toother skilled trades, and I
think I attribute that to ifyou're a jerk and you work in a
welding shop, you're bringing abunch in the nose right.

Speaker 1 (01:27:33):
Yeah, you don't last.

Speaker 2 (01:27:34):
You can't be a jerk because you're just not going to
be successful.
You're going to get selinesomehow.
I'm sure there are jerks inevery field, but but generally
in the welding world people are,I find, are friendly and, I
agree, engaging and, uh and andwilling to talk yeah, yeah, a
lot of interesting charactersthat, uh, that I've encountered,

(01:27:56):
people I've worked with, uh,you know funny stories and
characters that I've worked with.

Speaker 3 (01:28:01):
It, it's just it's it's always been a lot of fun
and that's what I it's.

Speaker 2 (01:28:05):
I guess maybe that's what brings me back as much as
anything is just the peoplegetting to in, the young people
and some of the stories theytell and your experiences it's
and going to work.
You know, let's face it, I'mlike.
I'm like the one of thesemythical creatures that sucks
energy from young things.
Well, I didn't want to go thatfar.

Speaker 1 (01:28:30):
Okay, a welding vampire.
We'll call it that.
Yeah, okay.

Speaker 2 (01:28:32):
Welding energy vampire.

Speaker 1 (01:28:35):
Well, you know, it is true.
It's funny that you bring upthat welders are a special type
or people in the steel trades.
If I'm out camping or at themall or something and I happen,
I don't know, I'll see someonewith a Miller jacket.
I'll be like, oh hey, are you awelder?
My wife at that point willleave me.
She's off shopping on her ownbecause she knows for the next
hour I'm going to make friendswith this random stranger and

(01:28:58):
we're going to talk for an hourbecause it's it's like we just
love talking about our industry,you know yeah, yeah, it's, it's
, you'll see it at every levelyou do, you see these, uh, the
people, the uh researchers thatuniversity of waterloo or
university of alberta and youknow some of the characters I'm
talking about, yeah, but verypassionate people and very
entertaining and engaging people, and you'll see it.

Speaker 2 (01:29:19):
Uh, you know the, the instructors that you've known,
and very entertaining andengaging people, and you'll see
it.
You know the instructors thatyou've known and worked with and
the ones that I've known andworked with, and the students.

Speaker 1 (01:29:29):
And the suppliers and the salesmen and the suppliers,
like all over, like everyonethat touches them.

Speaker 2 (01:29:34):
You just got to.
You got to take the.
You know there was always bad,but you got to.
You got to appreciate the good,because I think there's a lot
of industries where they don'thave nearly as much fun.

Speaker 1 (01:29:43):
I always say that I don't.
I actually don't know of anyother industry that has even
something remote to what we haveas an association like number
one we're over a hundred yearsold and like I'm not yet no, but
I mean the association is overa hundred okay, sorry right, the
Sorry, the electricians, theplumbers, they all have unions,

(01:30:03):
they have things like that, butthey don't have outside
professional associations thatdo it just for the sake of the
industry.
Well, one of the interestingthings.

Speaker 2 (01:30:11):
You mentioned electrical.
They have something called theElectrical League.
Are you familiar with that?

Speaker 1 (01:30:16):
No, no, I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:30:17):
Yeah, maybe it's just Ontario, but anyway it's the
Ontario Electric League and Iwent to one of their meetings
one time to talk about weldingelectrical safety, but it wasn't
electricians, it was electricalcontractors, it was the owners.
Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:30:32):
Which is kind of a specific audience, I guess.

Speaker 2 (01:30:34):
Yeah, but you got the distinct impression that there
was an owner's club and thenmaybe there's the the junior
club somewhere else.
Well then, there's more of thetrade union club what is?
It International Brotherhood ofElectrical Workers.
I don't think those two groupsmeld.
That's just my.
I could be wrong and maybethey're missing something.

Speaker 1 (01:30:56):
I think it is like that, because it's like that, I
think, and even some of thesteel trades were.

Speaker 2 (01:31:00):
I think, and even some of the steel trades were.
I mean, that's anotherconversation to have, yeah, but
I think the welding association,the way it's established, is
welcoming to both the hands-onfolk and the business owners and
the engineering people thatsupport it.
And that's where the networkingcomes in and the engagement
comes in.
Well, awesome, jim, thank youso much, and I know you had a
great last night that support it.
And that's where the networkingcomes in and the engagement
comes in so well.

Speaker 1 (01:31:20):
Awesome, jim, uh, thank you so much and I know you
had a great last night.

Speaker 2 (01:31:24):
Uh, uh, you know they had the roast of jim galloway
at the conestoga event lastnight there well, I told, I told
the students it wasn't about me, it was uh.
For those who aren't aware whatwe're talking about, last night
the student chapter had theirawards night and gala and and so
our student chapter set up, thestudents set up an event at a
local brew pub in Cambridge andit was 175 people and over 20

(01:31:53):
award winners, that's amazing.
Of student awards and somesignificant prizes donated by
industry.
It was a really fun event yeah,real fun.
And students are.
Some of our technology studentsdid presentations of their
third year technical projects atthe capstone, projects that
they do so it was a it wasreally really great event.

Speaker 1 (01:32:12):
Yeah Well, I'm glad that they had the time to have
you out there and honor you tooas well.

Speaker 2 (01:32:16):
Well, again I I honor you too as well.
Well, again I I I insisted itwasn't going to be about me so
they said a few words and uh,and then I deflected and awesome
jim, we'll take care and uh, oh, thanks a lot and thank you for
the time and for the peoplethat have been following along.

Speaker 1 (01:32:34):
Please, you know, get in with the associations.
Get in with the chapters.
You can see the wonderfulpeople that we have supporting
us also.
You know, talk about the tradeswith your families.
Talk about it with theassociations.
Get in with the chapters.
You can see the wonderfulpeople that we have supporting
us Also.
You know, talk about the tradeswith your families.
Talk about it with the kids.
Talk about it with your niecesand nephews.
These are wonderful careers youget.
The breadth of careers is sowide that you can go from any.
You can be a doctor, you can beanything in this field, from

(01:32:56):
right from the floor to the top.
So, you know, don't don't beworried about finding something
you'll like in this niche.
There's a niche for you.
And uh, and, of course, keepfollowing along with the podcast
.
We really appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (01:33:06):
You can be a welding engineering technologist too,
yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:33:12):
At Conestoga program.
Yeah, awesome.
Well, everyone, take care andstay tuned for the next episode.
We hope you enjoy the show.

Speaker 3 (01:33:32):
You've been listening to the CWB Association Welding
Podcast with Max Cerullo.
If you enjoyed what you heardtoday, rate our podcast and
visit us at cwbassociationorg tolearn more.
Feel free to contact us if youhave any questions or
suggestions on what you'd liketo learn about in the future.
Produced by the CWB Group andpresented by Max Cerone, this
podcast serves to educate andconnect the welding community.

(01:33:54):
Please subscribe and thank youfor listening.

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