National Welding apprentice competition in September 2014
The Iron Workers Apprentice Competition is a semi-annual event that has welders’ apprentices competing against each other. Shad Earls, a third year apprentice who represented Iron Workers Local 397 from Tampa, said that he has been practicing for about ten hours a day for the regional competition for the past month. He faced competitors from Atlanta, Jacksonville, and Miami.
The National Apprentice Competition consists of eight different competitions. The individual competitions are: written test, layout Instruments, welding, burning, knot tying, rod tying, ornamental and the column climb.
The two day event finished off with a 35 foot column climb that required the apprentices to reach the top with the use of their feet and hands. They have to have a tool belt that has 50 pounds of tool and climb the column as fast as they can. Earls finished the climb at 8.22 seconds to edge out the runner up by just a tenth of a second. He added that it was not his fastest time. He stated that he achieved a time of 6.6 seconds in practice two days before the competition.
The climb was the last of the eight events in the Iron Workers Apprentice Competition. Other events included a written test, and tasks such as knot tying, window assembly and installation, and welding. The top two finishers of the competition will represent the region at the international competition in Toronto this coming September.
Iron Workers General President Walter Wise came from Washington, D.C. to attend the event. He said that the contests represented the various tasks performed by iron workers. The iron working industry is diverse and most people associate it with high rises, bridges, and structural steel. Wise added that iron workers also place the reinforcing steel in concrete. Iron workers also place the glass walls on the exterior of buildings.
Wise said that competition is a good opportunity for people to learn about the skills of an iron worker. Apprentices can meet their peers from all over North America.
