Campus News

Loenbro sheds new light on industry to Great Falls College welding students

Great Falls College MSU welding students recently learned about welding inspection from Loenbro.

GREAT FALLS -- Great Falls College MSU welding students recently got a real-world lesson on welding inspections when they met with Loenbro employees.

“It opened my eyes that there are other jobs out there in the welding industry,” said Brian Tucker, a second-year welding program student at the college.

In fact, Tucker said he is now considering becoming a welding test inspector as a career when he graduates in the spring. But it’s just one possibility as Tucker also is interested in going into a career as a union iron worker.

“Being an inspector would keep me in the industry, but it wouldn’t just be being a welder,” he said.

In either case, the welding program’s commitment to exposing students to industry partners as often as possible gives students a chance to sample multiple potential career paths.

“In the welding program, we want our students to be exposed to as many different career paths as we can,” said Joel Sims, trades division director at Great Falls College. “Fortunately, we have incredible industry partners, like Loenbro, who are happy to work with our students so they can see the full breadth of opportunities available to them.”

For Brian Kalgaard, a fellow second-year welding student, the Loenbro demonstration didn’t ignite in him the desire to become a welding inspector as he still wants to become a union welder, but he did get a lot out of the experience.

“With Loenbro, we got three main things out of it: We got to see a large company and how they work, we got to see their work conditions and we got to see the stress and how draining this life is,” he said.

He also noted that seeing how to check the quality of the weld is vital.

“You make a support pillar, the last thing you want to do is find out 10 years later, that’s where the big oops happened,” he said.

Kalgaard said having representatives from the likes of Loenbro, ADF International, Spika Design and Manufacturing and Phillips 66 frequently in the classroom is really eye-opening as he charts a career path.

Kalgaard, 35, and Tucker, 38, are both nontraditional students, so they are looking to learn the trade, gain real-world experience and get out into the world and earn pay checks.

“My aim for at least right now is to find a union to work for, mostly because of the benefits,” Kalgaard said. “I’m on the older side of the class, so I have gone through the young years, the stupid years, and now I need the financial stability, the health care and benefits.”

For the students, it was the second time meeting the Loenbro employees as they met them last year in their first year in the program when Loenbro was conducting a test on Phillips 66 pipe, Kalgaard said.

When they would detect a weak spot, Loenbro would weld a sleeve over it to strengthen the spot.

This time they went more in-depth on detecting weak spots.

“It showed someone like me who is going to be a welder a really good idea of what they do and how (weak spots develop),” Kalgaard said.

Tucker explained the Loenbro test inspectors showed them different ways to detect weak spots in pipe.

“It was pretty cool,” he said. “They showed us different styles of testing, x-ray, sound and magnet.”

Doug Zander, a welding instructor at Great Falls College, said Loenbro’s visit offered exposure to another part of the industry.

“Exposing them to the inspection side of things brings things into a full circle for them to be able to understand as a welder what the criteria they will be tested to in the field,” he said. “We also wanted to show the students that they don’t have to be the best welder or fitter to get a job in the welding field. Someone who is an average welder can be a great inspector.”