T-Bird Arkansas Elite Welding Acadamy

so to battle the road podcast i'm your host ty linker uh today's episode is always brought by slick man welding apparel uh you can find me at slickmanwelding.com slickmanweldingapparel.com uh nate montez it's nasty nate on tiktok he's got his link tree there got the 820s my favorite the glove i wear all the time every day day in a day i've had the that i wear now for two and a half months my birthday stick well we're also brought to you by wobros wobros.us american steel and sex appeal this makes great fr shirts so i don't know what the ounce is but they're low ounce great material um hold starch real well for the guys like getting starch plenty of patterns to choose from that's wobros.us give it chris also brought to you by tnm welding supply big spring texas mr touts and miss mary carry everything for a firefighter do their job or a welder in general um i can give out his phone number but you can google them online and get the shop's phone number uh that's tnm welding supply big spring texas today i am joined by travis bird also goes by t bird what's up man oh yeah i got you yeah good good all right um so where are you from first question i'm from a town called greenbrier arkansas it's about an hour north of litter rock north central arkansas foothills of those ark mountains it's got to be some pretty country there for sure it is it is very pretty well you got 22 years that you've been welding what got you into welding man i had a uh opportunity when i was 17 to get on that local welding shop just as a little grunt labor hand sweeping the floors and literally working in the owner's wife's flyer bed and uh long story short i stayed there and then the day i turned 18 i got to go on the road with him as a helper and just kind of went from there the uh but you have any i know you do um you're a very well-rounded welder but you have like a a popliner or a welder in your family or i don't i'm the first generation now now i do have i got an older brother that got into it after me i kind of helped him get into it um but me and him are the only ones so first generation for the people that don't know uh we're going to talk about it more but he's the owner president of arkansas elite world yeah i guess i should have led with that no it's all good it's always good yeah so you um i guess you worked everywhere looks like uh you let's say this you um when you went from the shop and then you decided you was going to go to the fineries and stuff was that a big jump or was it all similar stuff that you was doing when you was working in the shops um well it was a big jump because when i was working in the shops i was just a helper and i ended up actually um i stayed with that company and i'll make it fast i'm not a good storyteller because i i usually i get straight to the point instead of taking five minutes but i stayed with that company for about a year and a half um very young didn't know what i wanted to do for the next 45 years so i left tried four foot four or five different other occupations uh at the age of 20 i still didn't know what i wanted to be married to for the rest of my life but i knew i needed to get in the lane and stay in it so i decided going away i knew i could make some money there and at least be on the adventure platform okay some dream dreams and visions came along so i didn't i went to at that point i went to welding school and when i left welding school actually my very first gig out was at lionel refinery that's in eldreda arkansas um which that's a huge step if you're going to go from straight from welding school straight to refinery because that is an x-ray job but man i just at 20 years old when i went to welding school i'd been chewed up and spit out enough i knew the opportunities in front of me like i i didn't have a vehicle when i went to welding school um the um i went to welding school with the vehicle that i had it was a it's like a 99 s10 blazer i used it for clatter or to buy a four-wheeler then the transmission goes out in this blazer and and so i'm in welding school no vehicle can't pay for the four-wheeler they come get it all it's funny because that same guy's my same banker today but he's a good dude man um so i'm bumming a ride so i knew the opportunity in front of me but we went to school five hours a day i literally like hand on the bible i put my bible up on my phone went to school instead of five hours a day i went 10 hours every day i got to go on saturdays like i each sleep and breathe it and when i left there i went straight to refinery so yeah it was a big jump because i went from being a grunt and sweeping the floors and and cleaning up behind everybody to um you know being a welder right out the gate you know at that time you didn't see a whole lot of young well i was the youngest welder on the job for a long now it's pretty common to see people right out of welding school you got a lot better welding schools today than you did back then so yeah big to get to your initial question yeah it was a big difference the uh where did you go to welding school at back then man um i'm not supposed to say exactly where i went to well school but it was a big welding school out in oklahoma um and everybody knows what i'm talking about uh and back then honestly i had really good instructors back then but you had to have an aggressive personality if you're gonna make it through there i mean you're talking you got 90 kids um you know every little row you look down um so it's a you gotta have a very grab the bull by the horns aggressive attitude to get out of there um and most of the people that i've seen in that school did not you know you could you didn't have to try your own dad's money they hang out in the break room not show up on free time i mean but that's school i went to and back then i will say that's been top notch instructors and that's been a long time ago i i don't know where they're at today you you know matthew thomason man yes i do i'm uh i'm gonna well i was gonna type it in my phone i got like 3200 numbers in my phone um so i i got a hillbilly in my phone and i'm pretty sure that's him um but i wouldn't have his real name he's from arkansas live in arkansas i'm sure it's same guy that's the welder i worked for when i was an helper he also went to that same welding school back in the day yeah ask him if he knows t-bird i got a hillbilly on my phone and i'm almost certain that's the same one yeah well i tell you what i'll look up his number you just tell me real quick you're gonna do that i just i want to know that'd be bugging me i'm almost certain it is though yeah did you say his first name thomas his last name is thomason now remember i got last four digits is 80 87 well i don't mean he's been through a couple wives since then so i don't maybe yeah i can't he's from monticello arkansas okay he might be the same guy but we go it's all biker dude but he went to school at the school that we can't name in oklahoma yeah yeah i had thomas hillbilly so it's got to be the same guy the uh well now i kind of know where we're at on the school so um no i mean i i don't mind i mean i just you know dancing around some of it what what led us to this is parker uh oh yeah parker mhm parker run together a little bit here and there off and on um i don't know did he go to whelan school he did um he went to whelan school before i right before i opened the whelan school and then when he got um ready to do his pipeline side he actually come to one of my i do a pipeline course once a year if the pipeline's busy that year i've went as long as five years without doing it just had a dry run wrong president office what have you but he actually um i'm actually got taught that guy how to downhill and now he can outweld me on the downhill side probably parker makes people look crazy yeah um are you crazy slow and not even slick at all um he did that and you i guess how long did you do the refinery stuff would you say before you got to a pickup and went and done it that way um and i've done it all the way to 07 and 07 i rigged up um i was doing a job not far from the house and uh old rigs started popping up at the house and so i'm gonna jump on some old rigs uh not running my rig truck um and i've done that for a few months uh it was nice it was at the house but i can remember uh you know just whelan on a flow line and being just totally having to take your clothes off before you get in the truck i was like i'm gonna get back on pipe i don't care if it's not the house or whatever um but it wasn't long after they started running pipelines so i put my rig together and you know grandfather dinner after the house you know everybody and everything that's going on so man i was blessed i got to slide right in there at uh early in my career like in 07 i was 25 years old that's i broke out when i was 25 26 25 27 something like that um so you always just part pop on around arkansas or are you you spread out pretty far no i i enjoyed i enjoyed the traveling um i never was married didn't get married to honestly until four years ago this week i'm actually on my anniversary trip right now in panama city um but i never was married um and i enjoyed i would seem like i'd work around the house four five months out of the year but man i just you know i had gypsy blood i enjoyed and i was a hater and i enjoyed being gone and everything that goes along with that um and the money was always better out of town it seemed like you know some higher end gigs around the house just gathering systems local pressure stations um but i i traveled up until uh my son was two which would have been 2012 um my son was two uh me and his little mom me and his mom uh decided to split up even though we wasn't married we we split up but it was all cordial um we done joint custody which means i couldn't travel no more it's no big deal just grandfathered in at around the house i just came back to the house to work um but it started drying up around the house i was able to squeeze about four more years of it out of it right there at the house um and when it dried up in 16 that's when i started the school so gave me nine years on the pipeline what uh i forgot made it before now what uh what led you to want to start the school well um what led me to start that welding school and why i do the welding school today are two totally different things uh as far as leading me to it it was it was just a means of honestly to to stay around the house when the old boom dried up uh um you know i had helpers on the plant side and and brought people up that way and always on the pipeline side i enjoyed i never i never uh it never bothered me to to see somebody better themselves and have to start off a new helper and i always enjoyed that part um and and i've seen i've seen this another individual that pioneered um he had the first welding school in arkansas but i've seen him pioneer it um and he's done a good job and and not to talk down anybody because that guy's got i'm sure skill sets way higher than mine in a lot of different areas but i knew my pedigree far as x-ray side of things on the plant side and the pipeline side were far superior and i just felt really confident that i could make that work um and then like i said when i first started it was just a means to to make a paycheck to stay around the house and i just felt really and it just evolved into a passion and a purpose it's funny as you get older and stuff like that starts coming out of your mouth um or needing a purpose but um that's what it turned into so the reason i started is different than i have it today uh and we'll get to that point later on here um the um i guess like i didn't go to welding school but i like to to think that i'll make you a better person than i am and i think that's a really good thing to do and i think that's a good thing to do and i think that's a good thing to do and i think that's a good thing to do and i think that's a good thing to do and i think that's a good thing to do and i think that's a good thing to do and some of them it takes them like 11 months and some of them it's further 13 or 14 months before they're pretty well around you know i do a lot of stuff different stuff you know i do anomalies play pop boot fab you know i do a little bit of everything but the uh i think it takes how long does it take you to take a green a green kid i don't know what you'd say green hand and make him into where he can go get a job with a firefighter is what i was getting at with this on the refinery side and and and just know there's a different extension to that beyond the refineries into the pipeline side as far as going through through us to do that um now this does depend on obviously you know you hear people say it all the time and we all know it's true the hard work and the ethic and all that stuff comes into play but at the end of the day if you're fixing to jump on that refinery side your skill level has got to be there and not everybody has the skill level to go right to a refinery or extra job right out of school uh and i would say probably only two out every 10 um got the whole total package skill level involved to go to refinery right after school but you're looking at um around five or six months what about okay let's let's backtrack not a refinery let's say a chemical plant or a paper mill or a food plant a food process someplace like that how long does it take to get a kid ready to do that well our our main two programs are going to be four and a half months and then a six month program and when those people leave there i'll just throw some numbers at you um just circle back around the long answer even though i said i don't like taking the long way around um so and i will deviate towards the school a little bit so one thing that that i absolutely cannot stand is a participation program okay and when i hear people talk about you know where you gotta hold the bar at a certain point and you gotta hold people down and all that it's a lot easier said than done and so when you get to a point where you do have a bar set and you are going to be a true mentor and you are going to hold people accountable they will raise themselves that bar but you also have to cut a lot of people we hover around the 20 cut rate okay that's higher than the abandonation because when you cut somebody you're you're cutting a check too because it's based on clock hours but when they leave there i am very very serious about them going to work when you leave there you got 30 days to take a picture of a check stub or a screenshot of a direct deposit to send in to retain your alumni benefits if not you lost them you can get them back just communicate with me and go to work get a picture of check tubs in him so last year i had keep in mind 20 cut rate i think 113 people attempted to program i think it's a number anyways 19 didn't make it whatever those numbers add up to but i had 94 people that graduate from that program out of the 94 people 93 sent in a check stub okay so i got a higher cut rate than anybody and i got a check stub on every single person that comes through that school that we say we job place that average number on the traveling side was right at 2700 bucks a week so that's people doing four and a half months and that's people doing six months so and i would say eight out of 10 of those people 80 of them are not going to x-ray jobs they ain't ready for x-ray right out of the gate some of them are you know it just depends on where they're at and how confident they are um so most of them are going to go to that non-x-ray side paper mill steel mill it ain't nothing wrong working in one of them places if i had one in my backyard i'd probably work in maintenance right there today but working your way up and cutting your teeth but there is individuals that come through there that literally can outweld us by the time they get out of there just blessed naturally blessed and they want it um so you know they got better hand eye coordination they got better eyes they can twist up in them simulators i mean some of those guys are good and they've been trying they've been wanting to be a welder since they were 12 years old so they you know so to answer your question how long does it take it takes anywhere from four and a half to six months depending on the individual and not everybody's cut out to make it and not everybody learns at the same speed no they don't and another fellow talked to me about that and he said i don't know about that i was like well it might take one like okay clay the helper i have now he has a four-year degree from texas tech like he had a business degree he's been on the pipeline like 14 months now as a helper maybe maybe 15 that might be pushing but he's ready to weld like the next job that we go to the weld boss is testing to go well i mean he'd be on the fire line or something but he's ready to go you know but that's that's 13 months of pretty much welding every single day you know yes learning how to read blue crabs that's whatever we're doing that's learning that and like today it's a hundred i think it was 109 out today 107 something like that well on that caliche pad it's 120 125. he's down off of the bell all the time in the last tie-ins on this little gathering system we're doing but he uh he's going to my machine not but it's over there running he uh uh you know he's got a lot of wanting to but like i had declan last year and declan i mean in it took declan like 10 months to be ready to pass a world test you know but he's just he's been doing it since he was a kid he's been around it since he was a kid it was just learning the lingo and how to read blueprints and stuff like that you know more than it was with his ability to weld but now he don't trust him because he busted the world test he's all upset about that but he uh he can weld he just sometimes he gets in his own mind you know a lot of welding oh yeah but the uh back to the school thing here the uh i guess i probably need to talk up a little bit for you hey i'm deaf man i have if you're young and you're listening to this wear your earplugs get closer and closer to the screen i'll talk up so the um do y'all okay how many do y'all have in a class that went like one period or quarter or whatever the first say in one in one class how many kids y'all have in that in that group so what we do here is we have a start date every six months i'm sorry old old days we have a start date every month we have a start date on that start date the number of people that are going to start depends on how many booths are open and we know that ahead of time somebody starts we know what day they'll graduate on the floor we got 68 booths on the floor another five or six in the simulator room i think there's five machines outside and we got a test because it's got eight so whatever all those numbers add up to but we stop at 60. there's nine of us instructors six on the floor three in the office so we run during our busy and we run 60 on the floor one week out of the month on that start date. The next week, people are leaving. And then you hit a start date again. So it goes down and up quite a bit. So one week out of the month, there's 60. You got one instructor for every 10 students. And then every week, it gets better after that. So a lot of times, like during our winter months, you may have one instructor for every six or seven students, sometimes lower than that. I got down to 26 on the floor this year during our slow season. But to answer your question, so it's kind of hard to answer that question. We call 60 full, but we have a start date every month. Might be four starting. Might be 12 starting. The slow season that you talked about, is that around Christmas time, November, that time? It is. When high school gets out, you get your high school rush, and that's mainly what's coming in there. Once January hits, you get your individuals that tried, college, didn't work out, made their moms happy, whatever the deal is, and then they're coming in there. But just over the last eight years, January, February, March, April are slow months. It's almost like farming. Our pipeline, I mean, sometimes it's slow January, February, and starts to pick back up around middle of March sometimes. It all depends on the backs of that president and stuff like that, how quick we get going every year. Yeah. Being doing more rehab work that I've been doing, it tends to be slower out the gate because the gas up north, it's still cold as all get out, so they keep the pressure up. But laying pipe, I mean, I started laying pipe this year in January. Me and Parker was out here in West Texas the first or second week of January. I guess the second week of January we was out here. Another question I wanted to ask about the school. So you say you got nine instructors, right? You got your office guys. You got your office guys that manage, you know, helping the office. But y'all rotate out to the shop as well, or y'all get it like set for every period? Well, we do a schedule every week, and you'll see us. I would say we try to be on the floor one to two days a week, if I'm being honest here right now. And I move around in the company a lot, just depending on where we're needed at. But, man, sometimes I don't hit the floor 10 hours a week. Sometimes I might hit it 20. It just depends on, you know, we're all wearing different hats, and we're floating around. And, you know, if it's recruiting season, I'm going to high schools or, you know, it's just. But those three guys that are in the office that wear different hats, you know, if somebody's out one day or we got one of them pulled into a classroom or something like that, they can just fill in. But it does make it nice. Even our social media guy, you know, he's a welder. Our recruiter's a welder. So there's always extra hands. If we get busy out there, and it does get busy, you get 15 new starts, you're fixing to be busy for a week and a half on that floor until they kind of figure it out a little bit. So I think we got, I think there's 15 or 16 employees there. And out of that, 95% of them are going to be welders. That's cool. I thought they're all welders in the background. Okay, so day number one, kid comes in there, what do they do day number one? What's the first, lay out the first week of what a kid does. Orientation. So we used to do orientation in one day. That's a long time in the classroom, so we broke it up into two days. So the first day you're going to sit doing orientation. I mean, there's a lot of stuff we got to cover. One thing is just being really, really transparent on the program you're getting into and what the expectations are, which if they take a tour, they know that. But anyways, that weeds a lot of them out. But going through OSHA, just trying to get them all the information on the front end. And then about two o'clock that day, they'll meet their mentor, which is a student that's getting ready to get out of there, as long as they're not behind on their curriculum. And they'll take them down the shop and they'll just start making the rounds and they get a checklist they go through to make sure they show them everything. Because it's kind of hard, you know, if you already got, you know, 30 kids on the floor, 40 kids on the floor, and then you're pulling all your instructors to pair up with these students, then nobody's watching the current students on the floor. So the mentorship program has helped out a bunch. Anybody that's watching this that has a welding school, I highly suggest doing the mentorship program. But it just pairs those students up with a student that's just spent several months there. And they spend, you know, that first three or four hours with them that first day. And then the second day they come in, orientation, and about 10 o'clock and then they hit the floor. And the way we run our system, we got a board up front. And when you need help, you go to that board, you put your booth number on there. And there's a sheet right next to it. You put your name, your booth number, look at the clock, write your time down. Then you're going back to the booth. And it's just a rotating door. Those instructors, as soon as they get loose, a lot of times they're just up there up front waiting and they'll catch you when you get to the board. But when they get done, if they go up front, and there's a couple numbers on the board, they'll just catch the next one. But they document that time. I'm real big on, I like to collect data. But that way, there's not ever any downtime. If you go to the board and there's already four or five numbers up there, obviously you're going to be awake in five or six, maybe 10 minutes sometime if you've got new people on the floor. So that's when you get a piece of plate in there. And like, I know you ain't no good at overhead yet. I know you're tying that down, like be burning and learning to get your money's worth. But it's a fast pace. And so it's just, it's a, that's what their first two days look like. And then we'll break off into cutting different groups. We got to go back out there and this time we do break it up with instructors, but I got to spend some torch time learning how to set a regulator and why and making sure they can run a torch confidently on their, confidently on their own. And so anyways, that's what your first couple of days look like. Y'all, y'all used it. Did y'all use beveling machines there? Did y'all make them hand, you know, Metabo it and then put their own bevels on it? So we've tried it all. Um, when I very first started out, it was beveling machines. And you already know, you just, in your mind, you had a green guy using a bevel machine. You've been to buy a whole lot of bevel machines. Um, and it was just too much for them and it wasn't feasible, um, ultimately to fast forward what we're down to is we put our pipe on a bandsaw and we cut it square three inches, three and a half inches long. And then they take the prep shack and they got to learn how to grind that, you know, even after six months there, I mostly did about my, my grinding jobs, but even after six months there, majority of the time, they still got, they still need to be hand cutting and hand grinding because they still don't have it where it needs to be to my liking. You run that, you run it. And then you go into a lot more of that in the refinery or, um, the plant side of things more, you know, but we had 16 inch flange or six inch, a six inch flange the other day. And my helper had to hand grind it because it was on a, you know, it was a bull nose side of a tee with no choice. And he'd done a very good job, but. Yeah. You talked to your, uh, you talked to your older pipeline guys that used to be plant hands. They'll tell you, they didn't even know what a beveling machine was. So they went to the pipeline side and I didn't either. Uh, so yeah, it's, you know, and. And I, I get it on the refinery side. You can't be throwing fire everywhere. Um, so. The, uh, have you seen the plasma cutter that bevels the pot? Man, I have seen that. I have seen that. Um, I haven't went down that road yet, but, uh, who knows? I mean, you know, he, he was cutting stainless with it. I don't know if they cut carbon with it too, but he was cutting stainless with it for free. Yeah, you can. You can cut carbon with it. I feel like a lot of stuff was set up to get to the point of cutting, but when he was cutting, he was pretty efficient. Right. I mean, the bevel was, you know, if you get a helper out there, they're going to mess it up no matter what, you know, or not no matter what, but it's, it's a man operating it. This one was automatic. So it was steady. It was so, like, you know, I've got electric banding or crawler, electric crawler. So you pretty much set it, you know, and it just goes around for you, but smaller five, you don't use bands. So a helper has to cut them and it looks like a damn sand shark. I was just wondering if you would, I think it's better to make them hand grind the pipe, which even though it takes up time, you know, but when I was a helper and I was collecting coupons, right, we would have a drop and sometimes, you know, sometimes I didn't have time to put a bevel on one side of it. So when I was at the RV park, I would spend, like, I might spend Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Tuesday, Wednesday, prepping all my coupons that I collected before or whatever. And then Sunday, I would, you know, I might start welding towards Friday and Saturday. But Sunday, I spent all day welding. Sunday was set aside for laundry and welding pipe. That's all I ever did. But I grind a bunch of, I hate that shit. They, something we do to kind of help in that area, which we do get them on production. And we probably go through a lot of material, a lot more raw is having them on production. And it's one of them deals. I gave him. If you get 200% production at the school, you're still going to be the slowest guy when you get out there. So we've got to, you know, they always say, man, I didn't get production today. I need to slow down and do it right. Our production is incredibly low, so you can slow down and do it right. But you've got to learn to turn and burn and get a little faster. Something we do to help out with that is when they come to school, it's 40 hours a week. We do four 10s. Okay. We've got a guy, his name is Dennis Black. He's 72 years old, man, still slick, uphill, downhill. I think he had 29 years on the plant side. He got a bunch of videos from the Red Sea on a barge. The last 12 years of his career was on the pipeline side. I was with him the same contract the last four years of it. This guy shows up. We don't start until 7. This guy shows up. My phone goes off at 3.30 every morning when he's going in the door. So they can show up at 3.30 if they want. That's three and a half hours early in the morning. And that's a 13 and a half hour day. Okay. And on Fridays, we pay somebody. The overtime to be there is 6 to 11. That's five hours. So when they're paying for 40 hours a week, they got 19 hours a week that they're not even being charged that they can show up for free. And when they say, man, who in the world is going to show up at 3.30 in the morning and stay until that's a 13 and a half hour day? I'm going to say that 10th grade girl down there that works at Sonic that plays ball and got to be there at 7.30 in the morning and work until 9 o'clock at night. That's the same day to shift it around. She don't get up at 9 anyways. It's more like 10.30. So it's a 15 hour day. I said, she's doing it. And you want to get into it, Chase? Money. And you're looking at 7.12 when you go to the plant side chasing money. So they got every opportunity. When I say we had a high cut rate, so far, it is 100% self-inflicted. Because when they go through that six-month course, it's right at 300 hours they get they never had to pay for. We keep up with them hours. And we show a man out of, I think it's like 297 hours, you took advantage of 50. Like you left 250 hours, two and a half months on the table for free that you had that you didn't take advantage of. So, you know, it's, it's, we put it, we put the ball on their court. And unfortunately, in America, you're stuck to a, we're stuck to that four or five months, six-month welding course. It's a cookie cutter time frame. Because when you try to go longer than that, you got people aren't interested in coming to welding school for six months or for nine months when they go over there for six. So I got six months to teach these guys how to weld. So it is fast paced, but they do have all the extra time in the world to get it. But I think it does for the most part. It does take the ones that are willing to come in early and that are willing to come in on Friday. So that's one thing that sets our graduates apart. How, when you, like, tuition-wise, right, is that set on, like, do they pay that weekly or is it just one flat rate? Like, it's a six-month course and you pay it and then you've got 40 hours a week, you know, extra 19 hours a week that you perform on it, you know, free for that, or, you know. Where you can get extra time in. But it's based on 40 hours, the 410s. Yeah. Well, that tuition, it's just like any school or any college, wherever you're getting your loan from. I mean, it's all due up front. And the program that most of them do, they got to start paying that loan six months after they get out of school. But all they're paying for, they're paying for their program. If they took the four-and-a-half-month program or the six-month program, that's what they're paying for. They don't pay any extra for the free hours. But it is all due up front. Right. So you can get, but you can get financing for this. I don't know. I don't know what your school costs or anything, but I know what another school, what I was told the numbers on that. And I would never, ever, ever, ever, ever pay that, ever, to go to school. But I also knew, I don't know, I had a wife and kid when I came to the pipeline. So I didn't have it, you know, like, well, I had two kids. I had a wife and a house to pay for. So mine was pretty much go get hands-on because the only time I was going to be able to learn to weld downhill was to be out there around people that did it and get paid to do it. And she wanted to kill me, even though, because I left anyways. But $27,000 is a lot of money. It is. Ours is, our highest course, I want to say right now, is $24,000. And I'll give you some examples. So in my opinion, it depends on the. The deck of cards you were dealt in life. If you know somebody that can get you on and you don't have the money to go to school and to fast track it, I think that's a great opportunity. If you don't know somebody, but you do have the money to go to school, that's a great opportunity. If you've got opportunity to do an apprenticeship program because you don't get blessed enough for somebody to co-sign for a loan, that's a great opportunity. And two, you know, you're talking about breaking guys. And I think that's really fast to get guys broke out. And this will get a little controversial. Maybe if it does, it'll get you some more views on here. But I'm going to give you my opinion on the plant side versus the pipeline side. And these opinions will sway. The guys that have been to the plant side, they're going to stand behind me and say it is what it is. And if you haven't been to the plant side, you might not agree with it. But either way, it's just my opinion. It doesn't mean I'm right or wrong. So when somebody calls me, and Parker Reese is an exception, but I knew he was really good. He's an uphill welder, and he came highly recommended. But I never let anybody go through my pipeline course that isn't an alumni. And there's reasons I don't do that. If they're going through that pipeline course, they've got to be an alumni. And I like them to have at least a year's experience. It's better if they've got three or four. And I'll bash the pipeline for a little bit, even though I love the pipeline hands down. That is my forte. But I cut my teeth in refinery. I know what kind of skill level it takes over. So on the pipeline, I'm in my truck. I'm in the middle of the woods. I don't have safety up my rear like we do in the plant side. Y'all might now. It's been almost a decade since I've been on the pipeline. I hear it's changed quite a bit. Okay. I got my truck, my cooler. I got Dr. Pepper and my cooler to drink. If that's what I want, I got a steak in there. I got my grill. I got my umbrella. I got a speaker on the back of my truck. And I'm on dirt. Like, it's good. It don't get no better. And I'm getting rig pay. Tax free. Okay. Um, but the truth of the matter is the welding process is about 10 times easier. Okay. We're welding from the top to the bottom. I cut my left arm off today and hire out tomorrow as a pipeline welder. That's just the truth. Yeah. I got a lot of contacts. So they're going, but it is, it's the truth. All right. You go to refinery, you got to have both these babies. You got to be a combo welder. You're taking metal from the bottom to the top. It's harder. You got to know how to weld. You got to know more alloys than just carbon. You better know how to run them with a mirror too. Okay. And you're getting around that pipe fitter and you're learning how to fit. Sure enough, fit. Okay. And you're getting your experience and you're getting your money built up. And then if you can foresee yourself being in it long-term and you want to invest. And I mean, nowadays rig trucks ain't near as cheap as they were in my day. Okay. It's a lot of money. We all know that. Okay. And then I got a person in that situation that wants to come to the pipeline course. And it's a busy day. It's a busy year. Okay. Like we got a good president in there. Like, yeah, I'm going to take a chance on you because I know you got a good rig. You can't pull up on a piece of junk. They don't want that. You got a good rig. You got experience. You know how to fit. I know what your skill level is. I know you got the secret sauce because you came through our program as far as showing up on time, your worth ethic, your attitude, all that good stuff. Okay. And then that pipeline course is only six weeks long. I can't take a helper and make my pipeline welder in six weeks. Okay. But then these guys, and then they do that course. They do that course on a busy year. Like I said, I went five years without doing it just because it wasn't busy. Okay. And then they go to work on the pipeline side because when it's busy and they can't buy a welder, they'll take a charity case. Okay. If it's a little bit slow and you got guys been doing it four or five years since the house, they don't want that. They're going to get somebody that's got a little bit of experience. So there's a sweet spot when you got to get them in there if you're doing it that way. But we'll get their own president there and oil and gas slows down and you only got three or four years experience and you're sitting at the house of the pipeline welder wondering how you're going to make your payments. You ain't finna pick up a Tigra and go. It's the plant side. Okay. But you're a lot more well-rounded when you take that journey that long way around. And nowadays, from what I hear, they're starting to do a lot of digging on some of these projects. But anyways, so that's my take on how I feel about the pipeline versus the plant side, even though I do love the pipeline side and that's my forte. But talk to anybody that's been on both sides and they'll tell you the same thing. So for a guy to go get. A loan to go to a welding school. Okay. And the average guy at this particular school is making $2,700 a week. So you got less than 10 weeks and you're paying your stuff back and you're fast-tracked it. You're not helping. You know, if you're helping, it may take you a couple of years. That's a lot of wages you missed out on. So there's right and wrong ways to do it. And I think it just depends on the deck of cards that you were dealt. And everybody's different in that area. But the only thing, like, I think that's a very good point. But the only thing that I think. Just my opinion. It don't make me right or not. But I mean, I've got buddies. That's all they do. Back home in Alabama, North Alabama. It's all they do is weld the plants, you know, and they get on to or they get on Snapchat and talk shit to me every once in a while. Oh, yeah. I'm going to tell you, you know, well-known live lines is a little bit different, you know, but besides all that. So when a helper does his six week or not helper, when you get a guy back in alumni that does his six weeks, I still think that he needs to go do a job as a helper. We're on the pipeline. I think. how things are handled and everything you know i know it's open country and it's it's in the woods or it's in the desert or wherever but everything out there is designed to kill you and so i agree you know a little bit of experience to learn how skids should be stacked you know what not to lay up under when they need to redo something you know or they got a piece of pipe rigged up you know all that stuff needs to be locked into your mind to pay attention to as you're about to lay up under you know 24 inch 500 wall pipe on some skids when them side booms are 30 joints away from me and that shit's still bouncing you know it's i just i'm not saying that they wouldn't be ready to weld out there i'm just saying that i think it would be beneficial to still go help for a job you know go get on a eight mile gathering system just enough to learn what you're looking you know what you're looking for keep your head on a swivel i 100% agree it's actually came out of my mouth after the the last time i've done that course the statement was i think i'm gonna make them be a helper on the front end okay go be a helper okay because a lot of times especially if you already know how to weld and you're gonna be a helper you ain't gonna have to come somewhere for six weeks but you go be a helper you get some contacts you know how how the pipeline's going on and then if you're on a spot where hey it's hard to get 10 hours a day in welding you know if you're lucky if you can get a little bit on your lunch break or on the weekend you can get somebody to help you i mean it takes a long time and at that point if you're set up and you want to fast track it and weld 10 or 12 hours a day for six weeks in a row because you got a shot to break out somewhere so that actually came out of my mouth too on but making them help on the front end before they come there so it just seems like i'm getting stricter and stricter on on uh who i'm letting in that course and why but you got to make it that way because you're trying to focus so hard on one little thing you know it's okay you know like it's got to be neck down you know you don't not everybody gets accepted to texas texas a&m to go to law school you know that's right nobody not everybody gets accepted oklahoma state for the vet program you know it's got to be kind of neck down to get the ones that really want it you know kind of i i would think so anyways like i was talking not long ago to to a buddy of mine about starting a helpers only school i just take like six weeks and just train helpers nothing more nothing less not teaching how to weld just strictly how to be a helper i think it would be i don't like bashing nobody because that don't look bad at yourself but i think there's some schools out there already for that they're just not labeled helpers yeah but i've also met some of them kids and they ain't helpers either yeah that's true that's true it's not it's not their fault it's you know it's like i know that everybody has to do social media these days you know but that can't be your main focus when you took money from from an individual that may or may not have it you've got to give something in return that make the money back you know a kid comes through your program four and a half months he goes to a to a uh paper mill well the pay is probably gonna be 32 and 100 or so whatever you know or you're working 712s because it's a shutdown so 84 hours a week you don't take long to make 24 grand back i've done it right when i'm slow you know i didn't heliarc i went i was a pipe fitter for me but that's right a pipe fitter and so you know it's not i've done it when it when after right before coven right yeah it was right before coven stuff kind of got weird or whatever yeah i went down to louisiana and done some pop fit for uh at the paper mill over for zachary i made a shit ton of money you know i mean we worked a lot like the biggest difference i can see between plant hands and pipeliners i worked 60 hours and make what you make on 84 that's the hundred percent hundred percent biggest reason is because i got a pickup set out there that they pay 16 18 19 whatever dollars for that i don't pay taxes on that's right it's great money and my arms most of the time a couple more dollars but that's the biggest difference but i also got some buddies that fly all over the country for about 55 an hour and all they weld on that chrome and yeah all sorts of different freaking alloys at them power plants that's all they do you know and most of them guys only work eight or nine months out of the year you know they don't have to work the rest of it but yeah i still rather pack one sure any day of the week but you know like these you've got to find i think that everybody has to find one little thing in welding that they got to be good at like like uh you got your beat at you got guys that are good at beat hands but they're a decent they're still a good welder well-rounded welder but they're very good at running beats you got your hot pass hands you know you got you got guys that are really good at tie-ins you got guys that are really good at fab you know you got to find one little niche that you're good at to get to build your reputation you know like i used to hot pass that's all i did was always hot pass but now i just want to be a tie-in or uh back of the fire line i don't want to do nothing else besides that you know hopefully i'll stand at the back of my truck and weld two inch the whole job if that's what it takes to not have to lay pot but the uh then made it a fab yard with a set of prints these days i'm in my 40s though but i know so many young kids all they want to do is lay that pipe that's cool hey it's fun it's fun but i after six or seven years of it i'm like i just want to go i just want to stand in the hooch or stand up under my pop on this cloud right at the back of my truck on that roll out roll i don't want to lay down i don't want to do nothing just sit there and roll it out roll it out but until i get ready for tie-ins i'll go to tie-ins i like doing tie-ins because you still got to use your brain you know sometimes that's right but okay so the uh kind of yeah we kind of got off course there but the uh that's fine you know and it is a huge conversation you know uh but i still don't care what anybody says popliners are top of the food chain not that they're not that our ski but just the just the way we present ourself i i got a bunch of buddies that road plans and they're hey they're great dudes and some of them get all starched up to go in there and they stay clean all day because they're just welding stainless over here and they look like a million bucks when they come out of there but when you i don't know what it is about the the title of being a pipeline welder i'm right there with you i i raise a lot of eyebrows i'm a pipeline welder i mean that's where i'm going if the school blows up tomorrow that's where i'm going uh but i do i do get a lot of country i imagine i see i'll be able to see some good comments i don't know how podcasts work but i bet there is there a place for comments we do a podcast uh they can leave a review i don't know release to youtube yet so i don't really know uh gotcha i know that this thing makes this new platform the more here it makes these little and i'll send you some of them for y'all's stuff on y'all's page too um but it makes these little like clips i was telling you about the other day oh yeah just i generate some or whatever so i'll post them here and they can do whatever you know people comment sometimes people like like i made a comment when i made a little video on tiktok one time and i said i don't carry bottles on my shirt because i'm not cutting no and somebody was like you can't fab just say you can't fab so then so then i dug through my phone and found all these fabbing pictures and stuff just so i could post them on the tiktok just because i said that i can't fab i was that's a joke people lighten up jeez i just have a roll on the back of my truck for looks it's not there uh it's just there collecting dust but people take that stuff way so serious you know but back to the school thing here so the let me see i want to work this so say a kid okay i want to ask you this before i lose it again what's the oldest person you've had coming to the school man i had a guy that come through this dude was uh i had uh and i may be a few numbers off but right around 61 years old um and i use him for an example still this day because his pro i remember distinctly pulling three 18 year olds in the office that had low production some ass guys already retired one job he's 60 something years old and his production i don't even remember it was like 100 and average like 140 something on his production and these guys couldn't even hit the i mean you get below 85 and and and you're in trouble um and i was having to give them a pep talk i mean the guy didn't graduate um you know i just don't do the participation but he still had good worth it was a good dude and i had a a good time his name is richard in case he ever watches this i won't say his last name but uh he's a good dude but uh he didn't make it to the program didn't finish curriculum um but he was i think my oldest i've got i've got a i don't know what her some kind of retired lieutenant colonel uh lady in there right now and uh how old is she 50 something um and she's uh you know a little slow out of the box she never wedded before but light bulb's going off for her she just she light bulb's been around and and make it um got another guy right now that's 46 is actually a really good welder but if i'm being honest here and i tell them when they come when they trying to sign up um and i try to scare a lot of my older people away uh they're not sponges like my young people my young people as a whole definitely learn a lot quicker but and they got better eyes and better hand-eye coordination and my older people guess they got twice as good a worth ethic and they're gonna show up early and they're gonna show up on three days they got that going for them but I do see a higher success rate out of my younger people. I know the big thing is to go recruit in schools, right? Say that again? To go recruit, like, you know, to recruit to come to your school. Do you all just do that in Arkansas, or do you kind of, you know, do you cross into Mississippi and, you know, Tennessee, the corner of Tennessee there, Missouri a little bit? Man, very rarely do we go out outside of Arkansas, and it has to do with funding issues. So we're not federally accredited, and that's our biggest barrier is funding. I know at one time over 60% of the people trying to come to Arkansas Elite couldn't get finance to come through there. The easiest way is if you live in Arkansas and you have a co-signer that's got good credit that's not retired. Outside of Arkansas, it's personal funds or personal loans. So even though 41% are out of state, man, they're just pros and cons, and getting federally accredited, and it's not something we entertain that idea for a little while, but it just, it didn't go, long story short, it doesn't go hand-in-hand with, or maybe it does go hand-in-hand with participation, and I'm just not on that bandwagon. So we do have to try a lot harder to recruit. There is a lot of missed opportunity there by not being federally accredited, but, I mean, at the end of the day, I'm making a good living. I'm okay doing this to our retirees. I thoroughly enjoy it, and I like the pride of having, in my opinion, yes, I'm biased, but the best product out there, when you're talking about welding schools, I mean, so that's just kind of where we're at with it. But, so, inside Arkansas, and very rarely outside Arkansas. The, what, I'm actually this, too. When, okay, say the kids are from southern Arkansas, right, and they come up there, how does housing work? Do y'all kind of have something set up, or how does that work? Yeah, we got a housing coordinator, got my housing coordinator on some stuff, I own some stuff, and then we got some locals that own some houses, apartments, stuff like that. So the housing's actually been pretty smooth. Haven't had any issues there, man. Like I said, we got, we got a lot of people that are, you know, we got a lot of people that are, you know, we got a lot of people that are, you know, we got the housing coordinator, he owns an RV park, he owns a house. I've got a place that I rent out my old house, and then we got about three or four locals in there that got different houses that we rent to, and just, it's been good for everybody. Does that count as part of your tuition, or is that a separate experience? It's separate. Yeah. Yeah. But, I mean, a kid that goes to school, say you show up at seven, leave at five, you could still get a part-time job. You know? Yeah, because you're, I mean, you're all, you got a three-day weekend. Yeah, I work all three weekends, you know, or weekend days. It's hard to get a 17, 18, 19-year-old kid, 20-year-old kid to do that. Yeah, after a night. Man, before they sign up, we do a tour. It's roughly about an hour and 20 minutes on this tour, and my opening line on that tour, for lack of better. It's going to be really, really intimidating, but it's just being 100% transparent on what you're thinking about getting into or thinking about letting your kid get into, but they got to hear all that and still want to be a welder in their heart. If they sign up after that tour, then they more than likely got it in their heart enough and hard-headed enough to make it through that program, but honestly, I scare half the people that walk in that door. I'm the worst salesman there is. Half the people that walk in that door taking a tour aren't interested in being a welder after they leave there, but it takes doing that to get a good crop and a good mindset, and I think that's a good thing. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't start out doing that. I started out begging people to come, but as we got busier, this time of year, we get up to between a six and nine-month waiting list this time of year. I mean, we're booked out the rest of the year, no spots, so when you got that many people that are interested and you're not interested in putting a second or third shift in, you can just get very, very transparent, and it weeds a lot of people out, and people understand the mindset that you're looking for at that school and what it's going to take to get through that program. For most people, more than 40 hours a week, showing up early, but if you can get that kind of mindset on the front end, you got something you can work with, and I say it all the time. I think the mindset of our students on day one is better than the mindset of any other school on graduation day, but I said you just. I talk to them just like I'm talking to you. I know you got the plant hand side to it, but I feel like you probably are a little bit more aggressive like it's the pipeline. Pipeline, I feel like. You can get away with a lot more. a lot of stern-er-ness. I don't know if that's a word. I might have just made that up. Anyways, you can be an asshole out here and get away with it a lot longer because you're not dealing with a superintendent directly or a safety guy directly or HR directly. It's most of the time a well boss. That's the first line of defense for a helper, I guess, is a well boss, and most of the time they're going to take care of you. They're going to take the guy that's putting the metal together, his side over a helper. I do know cases where it's just flat wrong what's been happening to a helper. It's just somebody should never be treated that way, but I feel like you go into it more with that kind of approach than more on your heels. I would use a word instead of a-ho, I would use the word a true mentor. There's so many people that talk about. At our school, if you don't do this, you're probably not going to make it, or we hold our standards to high or whatever, and that's easy to say, and I said this earlier, but I see you in the shop, or one of my instructors, I've let some really, really good people go. I've let people go that could outwell me hands down. Just their mentorship wasn't there. You see somebody in a shop not wearing their safety glasses, the worst thing you can do is say, hey, dog, throw your safety glasses on. You get on a real job, they're going to run you off. I tell you what's going to happen to that guy. You decide to get cool points instead of being a mentor, so that guy drove to Wyoming and hired out and went through a stressful web test, spent a bunch of money on an Airbnb, and his mom made a Facebook post, and now he's getting run off because he's in a habit of putting his glasses on his head because you took cool points and wasn't a true mentor. I tell them that, and I say the same thing on the tour. You've just got to be able to handle being around people that truly want to see you succeed and that are going to hold you accountable. If your production's lacking. I'm not going to be screaming and hollering at you, but I'm going to say, look, man, if you don't catch a step, you're dragging feet when you walk, you're showing up at 7 o'clock when you could have got here at 4 o'clock. You ain't going to make it, man. I talk to them like I'm talking to you now. I'm not going to be an a-hole about it. I'm just being a true mentor, but it's communicated very, very clearly on a tour before they ever even sign up. Like I said, a-hole is not the word I would use. I would use the word being a true mentor and holding everybody. Underneath me, as far as employees, to that same bar. You know what my favorite saying is when I catch shellfish without safe glasses on? What's that? You can't be a golden arm without golden eyes. That's right, man. You can't lick a pipe. You can't have the best arm in the whole world, but you can't lick a pipe if you can't see the welder. Apparently, I've been in a garage drill before because that shit sucks. Yeah, it does. Yeah, it does. I heard my helper say it to another helper the other day, and that helper, I don't know if he's even trying to be a welder, but Clay wants to be a welder, and that kid's over there. It was transition or something. Clay's like, you can't have golden arms without golden eyes because he's heard it a thousand times, but Clay wears glasses, so he's always pretty much got his own, but I say it to people all the time. Welders. I say it to everybody. I used to be younger where I didn't care about safety glasses. Oh, I didn't care. Man, I'm thankful that I can still see. Too big to do little things. You ain't going to do big things. Another thing about the safety stuff is even when I'm off work, it's pushed so much out here in our line of work, whether in the plant, pavement, wherever you're at, PPE. You were talking about not wearing earplugs. I don't wear earplugs, but you should. When I'm off work, I don't pick up nothing without gloves on. I know that's just from hearing it every single freaking day. Wear your gloves. Wear your safety glasses. Wear your damn mask, whatever. My kids, and I think it's a welder thing, but maybe we're just used to being hot, but my own kids make fun of me because I don't do nothing without my slickman zone. How about that? There we go. There we go. It's just, I don't know. Maybe it's because you're used to touching hot things. Yeah. I just put on my gloves before I touch anything. And if I don't have a pair of gloves handy, my helper better have his gloves to pick up whatever I'm trying to go after. That's right. And that's another thing. I didn't realize that there was helpers on the other side. I got hotfitter helpers. Man, you know, very seldom did I see jobs on the plant side. And like I said, I ain't been in the plant. I just swapped the pipeline. in 07 so i hadn't been to plant in 07 other than in 2016 i took my first two classes with just a few of us to a couple shutdowns and i kind of hired out as their little crew leader fitter to kind of babysit them just for some outfits that i worked for in the past and they knew what the whole deal was but they'd give us a little project we knock out um but but i i really very seldom did i see helpers um on the plant side they may have them now um but it was just a fitter and a welder um and honestly as a welder you're you know a lot of times you're just another tool in that fitter's bag when it you know when he gets a weld ready you're out there he puts you on it but no i didn't didn't see a whole lot of help and that might be the that might be why i have a job today around the welding school was because they didn't have help they don't have helpers apprenticeship programs too and i still i'll just go down another rabbit hole um and i say this too a lot you know those those people that come to the welding school they're an environment they're surrounded by people that want to see them succeed when they leave there and they go to these plants that's usually not the environment they're in they they're around people love to see other people fail um so i see a whole lot of that going on and i think that's a large portion as to why the industry is in the situation it is with shortage of welders um and i think that's why i have a job at a at a welding school and probably will have one hopefully till i retire hopefully longer than that but um people not doing those apprenticeship programs for sure the uh what i think is the two major things is how they maybe three major things is how they pushed college for so long you've got to go to college to make any money you know people journeymen not wanting to help you know the kids coming up through there you know and then the damn wages are the darn wages is another thing that i think uh you know it's a still mate right now it's been in a still mate for years the pipeline side plant side fluctuates more than i mean the pipeline side don't fluctuate at all them wages have been set forever and that's what they are yeah y'all making the same money i was making however long ago yeah but the uh i think that's what's kind of but a lot of it comes from the lack of ability or accountability for older guys to make hands you know when they had a good helper they wrote them to the dirt yeah burn them out on it you know it didn't they'd be out there practice like i don't have my helpers practice until i know that they want it like you're taking time out of my day you know i got kids to talk to i got podcasts record now but when i see they're out there every day and they got a good handle on it well then we're going to polish you and turn you loose to the world that's yeah i don't know well i've done it for a while you know that's just what i am about it i think uh i don't i mean it's if you want to call it a welding school or whatever you know it's uh but they got to show that they want it you know there's gonna be a lot of that they get maybe i'm a little pissed off things ain't going exactly my way you know they take a little custom here and there you know but we let it go at work and we come home and they practice and if they need some help and i go out practice you know but they don't understand i mean a company just paid me a hundred dollars an hour to be on their payroll all day and now you're gonna take that time away from whatever else i got going on so they gotta really want it you know yeah but also i got a dm list as long as the moon about kids that want to come be my helper just what and i try and i'll tell some of these little fellas i've got this buddy that needs a helper you go help him he needs a helper right now i don't want to help you i'm like there's one of me and it takes a year so you're never going to be a welder you know these other ones out here that i know that can help you more than i can help you you know i can help you i can help you help them yeah but they say look you don't you you're looking at helpers wages for at best a year why don't you fast track it and and pay your money up front and then in six months it'll be getting journeyman wages and i'll send you over to t-bird how about that yeah we can do that hey i mean i'll take a little cut off the top they just but they you know um you're about you're my field recruiter you'd be my field recruiter yeah the tiktok recruiter because they're all in them dms i don't like i'm like and i and i and i'm a small bird on there you ought to see austin depreciates uh dms where these kids reach out to him you know and he austin's he's he's different like he's a little he's a little mean you know i don't know that's that i don't know that his goal is to go out here and break out helpers you know my goal is to break out helpers if i can because then i don't ever have to look for a job if i got it's kind of like when you have a bunch of kids to go out and work and then you set it home maybe it's the same thing if i get all these kids out here that are welders well when when old dad needs a job i'm calling up be like hey you know baby boy dad needs a job and maybe they'll hook me up i'm hoping that's the uh that's as simple as you reap what you sow yeah or you reap what you sowed and they you know it's i feel like i've built a decent reputation for my self so it helps them when they call up and they say well it's all in here i used to work for talent i want that to mean something that also means that i've got to put out quality work steadily you know so when they do break out you know and they talk to so-and-so well boss they uh they have an opportunity because they know the type of person i am and the craft craftsmanship that i do you know helps helps them get a job you know it's the same thing for you when you yeah i when you're doing your job placement i mean that's the same thing for you that's a lot on your name it's the product that you've sent them time and time again or when you was a welder you know it's that same repetition this job is not just on a resume it's based on some of who you know and some of what you know you know you gotta have the perfect mixture for everything i don't look i don't i i mean if i get fired or something i'm looking for a job but generally it takes me a day i have to have most of the time i'm i'm okay with taking a week before i even started looking for a job you know because you cut your vacation short you call them too early but like this deal here like he told when i come when i was coming back out here this for the guy that me and park worked for earlier in the year i called him and said hey i think i'm gonna leave over here blah blah he was like uh he's like well i need you here tomorrow i was like i'll be there in a week we we settle on that well uh he's all he calls me like two days later he's like hey you're gonna be here in a week and i'm like i'm gonna be here in a week i'm gonna be here on monday right i said the next monday i'll be there but not this monday i won't be there this monday at all so don't be looking for me i'm not gonna be monday i'll be there he's like all right brother i need you i need you as soon as i can get you but they uh going back to the school thing i i hear a lot of good things which i'm also biased because i know you know i know parker and stuff so i'm more biased to certain people but the uh and and like parker he when he decides he should when he quits welding he should go be a teacher parker's a very good spoke very spoken or well spoken explaining what he's got going on you know yeah i think uh he is he is uh man the last time i done a pipeline course and keep in mind i've been out of the pipeline side for a decade um i i had a guy lined up to do it um and he's a crop dust pilot six months out of the year now scott davis is his name um but he got a call a little bit early so parker raised he's gonna bail me out well i had to cover for about the first week until parker got there and when parker got there you know he's fresh off the pipeline and i've been out of a while i could already tell he was gonna do a way better job with those guys than i was doing um so and that made me feel good because you know he is one of my guys uh but yeah i say i'll have to say that he he's a top-notch welder and a very good very good instructor as well he's very when i met parker he was like 20 years old yeah i've been younger than that he was young but he's been slick since day number one which i also know the well one of the welders he used to work for uh cory mitchell i don't know if you know him cory cory was slick not a slick as parker but he's a good welder too you need to ask parker who's slicker me or him he might say t-bird he'd probably say he'd probably say t-bird used to be yeah i don't know about these days for sure the uh so what you okay i know i know like your bread and butter is the let me i want to ask this question so do y'all do like a blueprints reading part in it like a iso stuff like that man i think it is really really important um i don't think i know you can't teach a guy or a girl what they need to know in six months become a journeyman it just ain't it ain't possible and there's a whole lot they need to learn but i don't have any other choice i can't do a nine i've tried doing a nine month program or a year program and nobody's interested and i'm kind of repeating myself a up a little bit here because all the welding schools there is in america it's like a six month cookie cookie cutter template four and a half to six months so that's the window that i have to work with okay and one thing that's made us so successful is i didn't try to spread a whole bunch of light over touch over a little bit of what these guys needed i later being focused on one thing you ain't getting you ain't stepping foot on that job if you ain't getting past a weld test period okay so man it is 99.9 percent of time you're in that shop and you're welding and man this is the point where like if it's down the last day and you got one test pass and you slick one out but it's got an art mark outside the bevel you didn't make it son like if you couldn't see that art mark you ain't getting it but it is strictly welding and and it's and it's got to be able to get past the cwi when you're doing these tests and these final tests and stuff do you bring in a on like a an off-campus cwi i do not yeah so it's all in-house yeah yeah um do y'all do any x-ray or anything like that or we just are we just man i don't uh you know i don't know what it would cost to run x-ray i know we can't afford it we've had them come out there a time or two but we don't we just bend straps out everything we've been in it for a while huh y'all just bend straps if y'all break some too on the pipeline side we'll break some but we do on the plant side they don't do they don't do nicks like we do on the pipeline side it's just strictly been test just side bins and regular bins yeah on a heavy wall on a heavy wall monster coupon we'll do side bins but out everything else is root and faces so i mean the i mean me personally i feel like uh if you didn't have x-ray and if you broke some straps well you know you can see exactly what's in the weld but also hilly arkin is not like running 80 10s downhill either you know it's yeah you know it's a whole it's a whole different process that we go down a whole rabbit hole about but like uh so is it so do you start out with hilly arkin do you start out with 70 18 man you gotta man you gotta start out you gotta build a foundation it's from the very very bottom like literally running flat bees on a piece of plate 70 18 working on overlap working on tie ends and then you just from there it's horizontal vertical overhead getting into t plate learning how to stack those beads then into your butt welds 60 10 roots some backing strips and it just goes through a solid solid foundation on that structural side before you ever get the pipe and when you get to the pipe side it does start out on stick and transition into tig once you get into tig you still got to fall back twice a week to knock a stick refresher out because at that point in your career you put that stick right down you're gonna get rusty pretty quick then evolves into tig and then it revolves into restrictors and then going outside and getting on some bigger pipe different animal engine different machines um and that's just a quick 20 seconds of about how we run it i told you i wasn't good at telling stories yeah the uh i think it's you know it is pretty impressive to go from uh well just trying to put a bead on a plate to six months later you know hilly arkin pop i think or you know four and a half months whatever it is that's pretty doggone impressive you know for a kid to accomplish that but they may actually get out in the field for a while and be around other guys and see how quickly they evolve through that that's pretty impressive i'll tell you what i like and i do enjoy that part too but um next month will be eight years so eight years since we kicked it off so now i'm seeing a lot of you know these people are these young men that were hoodlums are turning into grown men and they got getting married and they got kids and and um you know they're they're using this that's a lot of young people are doing now they're using this this um this welding as a financial platform for when they really have visions and dreams i'm really big on being smart with your money and that's part of that tour i don't if you're 18 and you think it won't be a welder that's going to change for most of you when you give it 10 years and put a wife and kids into the equation so and i know i'm getting off track here but um i'm talking about you just talk about the vision seeing them go from not being able to strike arc being a pipe welder um i like seeing them going from being a welder to to being a good young man um and being smart with your money and setting yourself up outside of welding and not missing out on the important things in life i even take the point there's a financial advisor that i really like that i come in there every time i have a graduating class i've got them sitting in front of this guy um and i'm really big on educating yourself on financial literacy because these guys are i mean i mean let's just be real they're making a killing out there like at 2700 bucks a week that was the very first week out of school starting out that's if they're paying 31 and 100 that's the bottom of the barrel like they're begging for kids out of welding school because that ain't no money when it comes to welding and they're working 712s so yeah these guys are making five six grand a week at a very before they're even 20 years old so i really push the idea of use it for a financial platform to set yourself up um i'm big on entrepreneurs when you when you have a vision or a dream whenever that comes to you on down the road you're on a financial platform to go after it but you can go after it fearlessly because if you fail at it go back to the welding you know i'm saying what's the difference between a rich welder and a poor welder when we're talking this level it's one paycheck so that's where i really i really push people and that that's probably because that's how i feel about it and so i've always pushed that real hard and now i'm at the point and the age where i'm getting to see some of that turn full circle and i'm like i'm gonna do it i'm gonna do it i'm gonna do it i'm getting to see people get into real estate i'm getting to see them flip houses i'm beginning to see them start businesses i'm getting to you know i'm getting into that part of it's coming around so back to you get to see them run a beef the first time then their pipe letters that fulfillment i'm getting a lot bigger fulfillment than that in it so and i said earlier the reason i started the school and the reason i do it now it's it's to become a passion and a purpose and so that's that's where t-bird's at age 41 i'm just an old man with a purpose and i'm getting to see all that full circle come around and it'll continue it's going to be a revolving circle now for until you quit doing it you know yeah that's uh i like that you know like i got helpers from well my the first helper i ever had he was a welder for a while and i quit now he's chasing his country music dreams he's playing guitar and goes over and frisco good for him though i mean he's doing what he wants to do um some of them went home and they weld for like one of them welds for atlas up in lubbock he's happy doing that he's home every night you know and some of them still chasing you the pipeline it just uh but the financial thing like i had a guy on last week he's not a pipeline welder not a welder in general he's the woe grows guy chris i had him on last week and had a whole time with him because his entrepreneurship the way his mind works is not like normal people's like he he was he was working in some union and he decided to build or do the hey dude still toes but the fr shirts was his big thing he's great at marketing you know he's got he's you know he's always thinking of these crazy stunts to do you know but uh there's a book that he reads i don't remember the name of it i'd have to go back there but there's a book that like he lives by whatever but it's it talks a lot about financial stuff in there and all that but the uh for an 18 year old kid with no kids no bills besides maybe a truck note and you know they're little or twenty thousand dollar in debt you know or um they're schooling you know the uh i mean first six months all that stuff's paid for you know but it's i always tried to live on when i was a helper i tried to live on helper well i lived on helper wages and when i first become a pipeline welder i still lived on helper wages for as long as i could you know i tried if i could make it on eighteen hundred dollars a week well i can damn sure make it on forty four hundred dollars a week you know with ease and still save money and i'm not saying i've always been the best because i buy guns and stuff i spend money like i don't look at price tags very often i've gotten better as i've gotten older but like right now the whole truck situation you know i totaled out my pickup last monday or last tuesday and i'm extremely sad about that but i'm glad it didn't mess up our podcast we've been shooting four six months well he did uh i was supposed you know you know austin ross from mid-state yeah i know who that is i don't know him personally but i've seen him yeah well last last tuesday i was supposed to record with him well about 5 15 i sent him a picture said hey brother i'm not gonna make it tonight so we moved him to monday and i was gonna do y'all back to back monday and tuesday and then we worked late on tuesday but uh yeah and i'm not looking forward to spending 75 to 100 grand on another pickup my god i was out of debt and i was enjoying being out of debt and then boom it all goes up in smoke which i'm glad nobody was hurt you know trucks were replaceable but uh that's right you know i just wanted to cut me a good check for it so i can get her fixed because uh without that truck i'm really nothing more people know that truck than they know me so what am i saying if you never had you know how to run a tig rig yeah well i'm uh my helper i just took his machine i took his 200 out put my 300 in this truck and we're we're working for now till i till i get off this job and i can sit down and really figure out what i'm going to do next about it But, I don't know, maybe I need to come take me a four-month class to learn how to hilly arch. I tell you what. It's no joke that you said that. The job that I'm on, they had a spot where they built some stainless headers and stuff, you know, which they had to bring in a different welder because none of us, you know, the eight that's out there, none of us hilly arch, you know. I can hilly arch or TIG weld, but they ain't going to like it. The downstream ain't probably going to last the rest of the place. D, I had a guy and a guy I used to run with quite a bit. He's a pipeline. You might know him, Pipeline Weld Boss. He called me the other day and needed some combo hands. Daniel Hignight. Yeah, is he still at Castle? Man, don't get me lying to you. I said we used to. I don't know if he's still with Castle or Progressive anymore, but Parker worked for him. I know the name. Yeah. But it was paying good. Yeah, it's becoming a normal thing, you know. There's the more stainless like through, especially where it's poly and it transitions out to tie to carbon. Most of the time it's stainless. When it goes into them little meters, you know, then it's carbon coming out the other side. But it's becoming more of a thing, especially out here in the desert where the oil is real nasty. You know, a lot of carbon seems to eat up quicker because of the sand and the shit. You know? Right, right. You know, and the gases and stuff. So do you – so you said 60. Is that your – to go back to the score, like do you see expanding into bigger or is that where you're drawing the line at? That's it for Arkansas League? Well, it gets a little tricky there because when you – man, when you – when I was bossing on the pipelines, it's almost a dictatorship. I know what we've got to get done and I'm going to speak to orders and we're going to get it done and make it happen. When you're working with people, when you're trying to – when you've got a business going and you're working with people career-wise, like this is where y'all are going to retire at, it takes a whole different – you can't run it at a dictatorship. So a lot of – you've got to start – you've got to learn a lot of leadership and you've got to pour a lot of leadership stuff into you, reading books and getting mentors. And there's a lot that goes along with that if you're trying to be successful long-term. And you've got to have vision for people of growth to keep your people interested. So they're that – I've got that weighing on me. I personally don't want to get any bigger. You know, we could throw a night shift and a third shift in there pretty easy, especially this time of year. Like I said, we're booked out the rest of the year. So to create growth for my people, without tugging on more students, I want to go down a different avenue. I want to start – I actually already started. It's an investment group on the realty side, and I want to put money into that and do profit sharing on that side. I want to use the school's money as it's profitable to fund that and be a profit-sharing side and build that company up. And I'm giving you the short version to establish some vision and growth to keep people long-term. Because if I don't want my school to get any bigger, then it kills the vision and growth for the people that work there. And the only thing that's keeping me from wanting to get bigger is I don't want to – I like having a good product. I like the personal touch of knowing everybody that comes through there, and I don't get to know some of them as much as I do others. But like on day one of orientation, I'm the guy up there that's starting out with them. They're texting me their name, first name and last name, to my phone, and I'm saying, and I tell them to send a picture so I got your face on there. I don't care if it's 10 years from now or whatever, but you need to be able to communicate with me while you're in school and when you're first getting those jobs because you're going to get in some hairy situations. I like spending time on the floor. I like asking what their parents do and getting to know them. And when they leave there, I like being in contact with them and getting those check stubs. I think that goes a long way in business, but I enjoy that aspect of it too. So if the floor – if we was to expand there, I would lose some of that, and I think the bigger you get, it's going to be real hard not to water your project. It's doable, but I just – I feel like you use that personal touch and maybe your product gets watered down a little bit if you're talking about growing too big or doing a second shift or a third shift. So I've really been hard-headed on – I've got that particular school as big as I want it. Now, there might be some other avenues, a test facility. We actually put up a building for that. We're a high school hub or maybe expanding on to the realty side of things and letting the people have part ownership in that or profit sharing, however you want to look at it. But that's where I'm at with the vision of growth. I know we've got to have it, but I'm just trying to push it to a different company that they're involved in instead of possibly sacrificing the product that we have now. And I know I said this before, and, yes, I'm biased, but – and anybody that's been through this. I know I've been through that school or people that are on the plant side. They know who the best school is and the best product is. And I just thoroughly – I mean, I'm a welder. It's competition. I mean, I like my welds being the slickest one out there. I like being in the truck while everybody else is still welding. And I just take that to the same – when we're teaching people, I just like a good product. So I always say a saying, "I don't get to make a weld on a piece of pipe, and it's my business card." Like, these students are my business card. And I thoroughly enjoy having the best product out there. Right. And also, another thing you touched on there. Six months is also – there's a lot of kids these days raised by their momma, you know, or like, huddled by their momma. And it's another thing to take – just have them for that short amount of time to get them ready to go into the line of work that's grown men. You know, it's – you know, you're feeling you're at the gate, and this is grown men work out here. Yeah. It's watered down a lot more than it was, you know, eight years ago or nine years ago and stuff. But it's – I mean, you kind of – I worked for an old popliner. And I do my business the same way he does his business. If you want respect, you're going to earn it. And if you're going to earn it pretty quick, you're going to, you know, kick rocks, just part of it. And I've been fortunate. I've had really good helpers the last couple of years that want to be good welders, you know. But they – I still – I think it's impressive to turn – you know, because I know what they're going into. I mean, not so much on the plant side, but when you – I was a grown man, 25 years old. When I went to the pipeline side – and there were still days I felt like I was just a little kid, you know. You know, I've done a lot of – you know, I've done a lot of that slow to speak, fast to listen, you know. Yeah. I didn't do a lot of talking. I've done a lot of listening. Figured out the lingo and all that stuff, you know. Now my, you know, my BS-ing and stuff is far and none. I'm real good at it. You can ask Parker. I'm good at it. But the whole – and Adele, to get back to the growth of vision here. It's – you know, that's why I started the podcast. I don't want to – I mean, I probably will weld forever because I love it, but, you know, I wanted to have another revenue – not so much revenue because I don't make that much money from it. It's pretty – it's kind of crappy, but the – one day, who knows, you know. Welding's a long story. If I can – if I can push the way that I've been pushing the past month, if I can keep that momentum, you know, where it's two podcasts a week recording, you know, who knows. I've got 17,000-some-odd impressions this month. That's the most I've had in a long time, so things are looking up. That's right. Just be consistent, whatever it is. I'm tearing it up. The only thing I'm consistent at in my life is for my kids and welding. That's it. The best of it comes and goes, you know. I work well. I work well. But the – you know, another thing that I think attracts more people to poplining, you know, is those – like, you know, you mentioned earlier, when you're in a plant, everything is right there in front of people's eyes. But when you're poplining, you get away with a lot more stuff out there, you know. Oh, yeah. You can act like you're a bunch of grown men that are kids with your buddies, you know. I think – I didn't grow up until I was 35 years old, and I contributed a lot of that to being a pipeline welder. Oh, for sure. That's a good one. I know guys that are above 35 that ain't grown up yet and probably won't ever grow up. If I was – if I was still poplining, I would not be grown up, so. All right, to kind of put a bow on this thing, you know, to get you back to your anniversary trip and stuff, the – Yeah, I'm getting looked – I'm getting looked over here for my wife. It's our last night here. Yeah. It's been a good trip, though. You said you was free Wednesday and Thursday with the – to wrap up – I put you off long enough, and this is the first podcast I've ever done, but, hey, I have enjoyed it. But go ahead. I appreciate it. To put a bow on everything, to go back to the beginning of your career, you know, what is one kind of like something that you learned that's, you know, kind of followed you through or, you know, something that you learned early out the gate, an experience or, you know, something that you kind of lived by in that time, you know? the golden rule Matthew 7 12 whatsoever you would mention do to you do you even to them that's treating people the way you want to be treated i haven't always been a good christian but i remember i memorized that at a very young age um and you do reap what you sow and that goes a lot deeper than most people realize um a smile goes a long way the way you treat people the more hands you shake the more money you make i tell my kids all the time and they're only 17 and 13 uh you you um even in school at 13 years old the way you treat people the smile on your face are you approachable and i do i go over a lot of psychology with them because i'm into that too but um that's all going to come back to you you know if you're 13 years old and you fast forward 10 years and you're 23 years old and you're still in your hometown and you start a facebook thing because you got a business going you're still in your hometown and you start a facebook thing up because you got a business going I think I covered every question that I thought about. Hey, man, if you didn't write them down, we'll do it again. Yeah, for sure. I'm going to circle back through. There's a couple ones. I know that this is an evolving door with you. Sometimes I'm just after a guy's story, and so I get their story. It might change in a couple years, but for now it's encapsulated. Like the Rod Shield guy, like Bernardo Sanchez, I want to cycle back through with him because he's not welding anymore. Now he's just strictly doing his business. Stuff like that, I just want to get back into those. I just released a podcast with Mackenzie Buzzer. She's a female. I've been trying like crazy to get more female on the podcast to kind of brighten that up a little bit. Have you had a – I see one of your sponsors, it was Nate with Slickman. Have you had him on the podcast yet? Yeah, Nate was like my fourth episode, I think. But I want to go back with Nate now that he's quit welding and stuff. I want to get back with him on it. I went to his shop the other day and picked up some gloves and stuff. I don't buy welding. That dude, I like that dude. You know, he's just got a vibe about him that kind of lures you in, and if you see one of his TikToks, you're going to follow him. But he – man. He was gracious enough to come to our welding competition this past – I think it was in March. But that guy – that guy's going places, man. I liked his. He just carried himself well. He's well-spoken. And, you know, he hit me up on questions like, hey, man, what's some good books, some good leadership stuff? I mean, he asked the right question for somebody that's going to go down that entrepreneur journey. So he's going to be – he's going to be huge. He can weld. But, like, probably one of the best compliments I ever got was this job here. I was rolling out some little pipe, and I was putting some slick ones on. And one of the guys walked over there, and he was like, man, it looks like nasty Nate's out here on the job. Yeah. You know, probably one of the best compliments I've ever got. But I like – That dude can teach. Huh? I said he can explain it very well when he talks. Very well. Well, see, like, him and Chris, Chris from Wobros and Nate are pretty good buddies. They bounce stuff back and forth. And Chris finally convinced Nate to start doing the little classes on his TikTok, and it seems to be going well. I mean, I like him. Okay. When I first got on the first fab job, first real fab job I went to, just to say it real quick, Nate was out there with us. He worked for a different contractor, but we was on the same job. Well, he just, like, I would go over there and BS with him and stuff, and he would be showing me those. Yeah. He's always been that way. You know, that was years ago, and he's the same way he is now. Yeah. He's a genuine good guy. Oh, yeah. Yeah, he'll go. That dude's going to go far. Yeah. I appreciate your time, D-Bird. I don't want to hold you up no more from your little staycation. We're going to go back to the real world, but I'm coming through there in July. I'll be coming through there. I might try to stop and visit with y'all. Yeah. Give me a heads up. Give me a heads up, and I'll do my best to be available. Yeah. We'll see. I know that's a hard thing to get you on, too. Availability. Hey, I'll be there. I'm working every day, but some days I'm just. Do you want to drop your, real quick, do you want to drop your social media stuff? Man, I got a social media guy, and he's real good at all that. I don't know what to tell you. We got Arkansas League Welding Academy. I don't know what it says on the TikTok. I don't know what it says on the Instagram, on the Facebook, but if you punch that in, surely you can find us. Yeah. There's a link to you on there to get to the website, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, I appreciate your time, T-Bird, and y'all be safe. You bet. You bet, Ty. Good talking to you. Y'all boss. Take care. See you.