Together with its project partners, Southwestern is growing our workforce training and education opportunities to address the growing need for highly skilled welders.  Twenty percent of the manufacturing workforce is age 55 or older, but for those with specialized skills, such as marine welders, the average age nationally is 58. The knowledge and skill sets that aging welders, metal structural fabrication workers and designers possess are critical to our regional, state, and national economic growth. Not only to build new manufacturing facilities, but also to replace or upgrade the infrastructure of our bridges, roads, railroads, land-based and marine based transportation.

The project is enabling Southwestern to retrofit the welding lab to increase the number of students that can be served each term and hiring additional full and part-time welding instructors. The instructors will also conduct industrial trainings, certifications and career awareness outreach activities using a state of the art Mobile Training Lab.

Whether you are in high school, looking for a new career or upgrading your skills, Southwestern’s Welding and fabrication programs delivers state of the art training essential for a highly skilled workforce.

For more information on our project and our programs contact Chris at 541-888-1507 or email at chris.amaral@socc.edu.