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Josh, 32, was born in Elko, Nevada, and raised in Nashville, Tennessee. He completed the seven-month Professional Welder program at the Tulsa Welding School Houston campus in May 2026, and is now enrolled in the associate degree program to earn his Associate in Applied Science in Welding Inspection and Quality Management, a program he hopes to complete in January 2027.
Thanks for your time, Josh. What were you doing in the years before welding school?
I usually like to tell people that I’ve done more things in my 32 years of life than a 56-year-old man has done his entire life. But let’s keep it short and simple. I graduated high school and decided to do some pipelining out in the Northeast. I wasn’t really satisfied. I was making great money, but it was contract work, so it wasn’t secure. For a while, I was bouncing around between jobs, trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I was a paramedic at one point. I was a bartender at night and a paramedic during the day. I bounced around the United States for quite a while.
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Then I worked in an oil field in West Texas. I stopped doing that for about three years and went into the U.S. Army. After the military, I decided I wanted to do something better with myself, get an actual trade school education, and having the GI Bill behind me was a plus.
Thanks for your service. I assume you had prior welding experience to go pipelining after high school?
My father is a master mechanic, and he did quite a bit of welding. Anytime I was around, he would show me how to do some welding. We also had a program in high school that offered welding classes, so of course I went and did those. Those were the very basics of welding. From that point, I went to “YouTube University” and taught myself how to do a lot of welding. I just could never really get a stable career started until I went to Tulsa Welding School and got the certifications.
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You had welding experience already, what was the deciding factor in going to welding school?
I chose to go to Tulsa because, like I said, I’m a self-taught YouTube welder. But I wanted to actually understand the different welding processes and how to do them effectively, so I could eventually start my own company or perform well at another company. That’s what drove me to go to Tulsa Welding School.
Did school come easy to you because of your previous experience, or did you have some difficult days?
A lot of it was easy, yes, absolutely. But I did have difficulties understanding the motions of how to do certain techniques. Finding out that you can do things more than one way, and trying to learn more than one way, was the difficult part for me.
Because you were largely self-taught, did you find you had to unlearn some things – undo bad habits?
Oh yeah, absolutely. And that was enjoyable, believe it or not.
What did you enjoy most about your time in the Professional Welder program?
My favorite part was that all the instructors were dead honest when it came to evaluating your work. They would tell you whether it was good or bad – straight up. You really never had to second-guess it. That honesty is what got me. And, of course, getting the experience to weld the different processes. I don’t know if you’ve ever held a sparkler on 4th of July or at New Years? The way I describe welding in the simplest terms is that you’re holding that little sparkler in your hand and you’re just enjoying the fullness of the light. It’s like everything just disappears for that moment in time. It’s really amazing.
Were you able to use your experience to help other students who were newer to welding?
Absolutely, yes. Anytime the instructors were busy taking care of other classmates, I was there to kind of be a resource with what I knew. I was definitely able to help them out. I really enjoyed that aspect of it.
You’re currently working while continuing your welding education. What are you doing now?
I am currently a welding foreman at a company called Seojin Global. I’ve been with them for going on three months now. I started during the last few weeks of the Professional Welder program. We build giant energy storage systems (ESS) for data centers, hospitals, wind farms – anyone who’s going to need some sort of power storage system. They’re absolutely massive!
Did you get that opportunity through the school?
Yeah, absolutely. The Career Services team helped me get this job, and it was a damn near flawless process, to be honest.
You’ve worked in welding at different times in your life. Does the money in this field excite you?
Oh yeah, absolutely. I will say that the money is a plus, but you’re never going to make enough money if you don’t truly love what you do. You can also love what you do and make only $18/hour and be completely happy with that.
What’s your career plan from here? You mentioned possibly starting your own business.
Oh man. I wish I had a plan! My original plan was to go to school, learn enough to be able to branch off and start my own fabrication shop. But I don’t know, I’m happy with whatever happens. I’m a very religious man, and I believe that if it’s right for the picking, it’s going to happen. If it’s not right, it won’t. Everything happens for a reason. I just let God take the wheel, so to speak.
Right now, I currently love what I do at Seojin Global. I’m being trained to become a manager. Once my boss leaves to go back to Korea in a year or so, I’ll take his spot which is fine. I’ve still got a lot to learn.
Is your associate degree going to help you in that management role?
Oh yeah, absolutely. As soon as I told them that I was going to continue school for that Quality Management program, They perked up and were like, “Oh, really?” They were fully on board with me going to school and figuring life out as it went on.
What do you enjoy most about welding?
It’s a little of everything. The one thing that sticks out the most, though, is once I put my hood down – talking about my welding mask – and it’s just me and electricity, putting metal together, there’s nothing to describe that feeling. Everything just melts away. For that time, you’re only focused on performing good welds and making sure whatever you make lasts a long time. That’s the only thing you’re worried about. You’re not worried about bills, the old lady nagging you when you go home, you don’t have to worry about your kids. You’re just there in the moment. It’s just you and the light.
As a welding foreman, are you still doing much welding yourself?
I’ll still have the opportunity to get under the hood because I’m always finding ways to improve the shop, so to speak. If I have to build a fabrication table, then that’s my task and my task alone. As far as production goes, though, I’m mainly focused on making sure everybody else knows how to weld, so I don’t get a whole lot of time under the hood doing production.
Did you make friends or connections with anyone at school?
Absolutely. In fact, everybody in my class is working for me now at Seojin. I’ve got 15 welders out of my class, and then I’ve got another 45 more who are Tulsa Welding School graduates from different classes.
That’s awesome! Did you get the job first and then help recruit your former classmates?
Yeah. I got recruited first, and I started helping everyone get a job at this place. They all started falling in right after me.
What advice would you give new students about to start the welding program at Tulsa Welding School?
Go in with an open mind. Be an open book and absorb as much information as you can. Also, be ready to do countless welds. Don’t just keep doing them until they’re good, keep practicing beyond that. Welding is one of those trades where you don’t get good overnight. You have to continuously practice until you can perform the way you want to perform. An older guy told me once, “If you only weld one time and expect to get hired, pass a test and get good pay, it’s like trying to step on a diamond and break it.” It just won’t happen. But if you do 50 welds a day and keep doing that every day you show up at school, you’re going to find what you’re looking for.
If you’re a TWS graduate and would like to share your success and be an inspiration to others, please email [email protected] to be considered for a Graduate Connection interview. Please include details such as your graduation date (month/year), program, and campus name (Tulsa/Jacksonville/Houston/Dallas/Atlanta/Phoenix).
