Industry comes to aid of vo-tech welding program

A group of collision shop owners and suppliers have come to the rescue for the industrial welding program at Lex La-Ray Technical Center in Lexington, Missouri. The school recently received a donation of nine Miller 140 MIG welders from benefactors within the industry to replace equipment from a discontinued equipment loan program.

Lex La-Ray offers courses in a variety of specialties for both high school students and adults. The industrial welding program has served as a test site for the Inter-Industry Council for Automotive Collision Repair (I-CAR) for several years, and students in the school's collision repair program had access to the welding equipment to receive training in automotive welding repair.

The welding equipment for the program had been on loan to the school since 1996, originally by Praxair and then by Lincoln Electric. This past spring, the school was informed that Lincoln (and other companies) were ending the equipment loan program at the end of the school year, which had industrial welding instructor Tim Gill wringing his hands about how to continue the cross-training for the welding and collision repair students.

"Being that it was short notice, it really put us in a bind," Gill said. "Even if we split the cost between the collision repair and welding programs, it was just too much to replace the equipment."

As luck would have it, Gill mentioned his plight to an old friend, Toby Chess, an I-CAR instructor and chairman of I-CAR Los Angeles. Gill, a certified welding inspector, first met Chess via the I-CAR welding program. Over the years, Gill had helped educate Chess on welding technique, and Chess had impressed him with his dedication to improving weld quality in his region.

Chess had provided assistance to Gill's welding program before, rounding up t-shirts, jackets and gloves for his students going to the SkillsUSA competition, and even providing some welding helmets for the school.

"I admire Tim a lot," Chess says. "I think the industry really has to embrace these schools. That's what this is all about. We have to help our kids."

Chess went to work, calling on his contacts on the West Coast and elsewhere to drum up donations. In short order, he had commitments for eight welders, in addition to the one that Chess planned to purchase.

"Nobody even had to think twice," Chess said. "I had everyone on board with just one call. They all said yes."

Donors included Rollie Benjamin, president of ABRA Auto Body & Glass; Dan Bailey and Stacy Bartnik of CARSTAR; Craig Oliveira and Tom Pavlik of supplier Kent Automotive (Sacramento); Erick Bickett, CEO of Fix Auto (Yorba Linda, Calif.); Bruce Mackey of Body Craft Collision Center (Sacramento and Folsom); Mike Quinn and Pat O'Neil of 911 Collision Centers (Las Vegas and Tucson); Tom Holmes and Steve Morris of Holmes Body Shops (California); and the late March Taylor of Autobody Hawaii.

"It was unreal how fast he was able to generate the necessary funds for the purchase," Gill says. "I ordered them through a distributor here in the state, and we basically had nothing to worry about anymore."

Gill is a career educator, and has been teaching at Lex La-Ray for 14 years. The industrial welding program is primarily targeted at high school juniors and seniors. He works with a number of students from the collision repair program, many of whom go on to careers in the industry. Traditionally, Lex La-Ray students have placed very well in the welding portion of the SkillsUSA collision repair contests.

"I like helping people, and I love teaching," Gill says. "That's why it was so easy to work with the I-CAR program. I know many of the donors have been big supporters of the I-CAR program. I don't personally know all of these people, but like the rest of us here, they were interested in seeing a good thing continue."

More information on Lex La-Ray can be found at the school's Web site, www.lexlaray.com.