SKILLED LABOR AND GOOD CRAFTSPEOPLE ARE HARD TO FIND

By Marty Baker
Editor

The title statement is one we hear repeated across the country and Alaska is no exception.  Brian Walsh, Welding Instructor at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Career Center in Anchorage, says, “Wages are very good and we have conducted recent welding training in the villages of Ambler, Shungnak, Elim, and Tununak.  Currently we are working with welders from Selawik utilizing the SMAW (shielded metal arc welding) process for building fuel storage tanks in the village this winter.”

This village needs to construct ten 50,000-gallon, bulk fuel storage tanks on site.  These tanks are approximately 21-feet in diameter and approximately 18-feet high.  All of the tanks are placed over 140 twelve-inch steel pilings driven into the ground to bedrock.  There will be an approximately four-foot high dike wall around the perimeter.  All welding electrodes are E7024 for the deck and E6010 and E7018 for the tank construction. 

“We have had unseasonably warm weather across the state and this makes for freezing in piling a “bear”!” Brian comments.  “Anchorage finally received about four inches of snow in mid-December, the first for the year.” 

The tank farm construction project began the first week of January 2003.  These projects are funded through state and federal grants. 

“Hobart Institute’s Shielded Metal Arc Welding curriculum including the video series and worksheets are working very well for us,” says Brian.  “There is a tremendous need in bush Alaska for skilled labor and good craftspeople are hard to find.  Because of this, we are planning on doing similar training projects for next summer on the Kuskokwim and Yukon Rivers so we will definitely be using Hobart curriculum.  Some of the local welders have expressed interest in coming to HIWT in Troy to get further training.”