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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, AUGUST 18, 2016
Welding: College will expand auto, ire science offerings
Continued from Page 1A
“I think it’s really import-
ant for these kids to get a
jump on this stuff,” said Bris-
tol, who came from a fabri-
cation shop to head the col-
lege’s welding program
through the 2000s. “Not all
of them are going to go on
to being engineers or teach-
ers or whatever, and we need
these people in the vocational
ield to carry on. Every day,
you handle something that’s
been welded. Somebody has
to do that.”
A useful skill
For many of the students
in the program, learning to
weld is an investment. Weld-
ing positions are perpetually
in demand, offer above-aver-
age wages and often require an
associate degree or less.
“It’s just a skill I want
to learn and get out of the
way, and have something to
fall back on,” said McCar-
gish, who hopes to become a
mechanical engineer repair-
ing medical machines. “And it
makes for a heck of a hobby.”
When he’s not at class,
Chase said, he works construc-
tion six days a week with his
father.
“Next year we’re going
to build a ishing boat, so I
wanted to learn how to weld,”
he said, adding he hopes to
become employed as a welder
at Lektro, a Warrenton man-
ufacturer of electric airplane
tugs.
The genesis of the summer
welding course started with
Long, who said he had been
trying to become dual enrolled
at the college to take welding
courses when Warrenton High
School Principal Rod Heyen
started putting together the
class.
In addition to working
construction and managing
moving crews, Long sings in
choir and plays in orchestra,
hoping to be a teaching assis-
tant at his high school. For his
career, though, Long said he
wants to open a fabrication
shop.
“Our family’s a lot of jacks
Warrenton High School student Christian Saputo grinds down the welding tables at Clat-
sop Community College on the last day of class Monday.
Photos by Edward Stratton/The Daily Astorian
Harley Bristol, who headed Clatsop Community College’s
welding program from 2000 to 2010, came out of retire-
ment to teach Warrenton High School students during a
summer course.
of all trades,” he said. “We
don’t stick to one thing.”
Long will most immedi-
ately be applying his weld-
ing skills to the 8-by-20-foot
frame of the tiny house he and
his father are making over the
summer.
Keeping them
interested
Heyen said the summer
welding program grew out
of the high school’s frustra-
tion in trying to it students
into the college’s schedule and
transport them to campus. He
talked with Kristen Wilkin,
the college’s dean of work-
force education and training,
and quickly set up the course
before starting to ind potential
students.
Working with a slim bud-
get, Heyen has had to be cre-
ative in expanding career-tech-
nical opportunities at his
high school, which boasts a
ish hatchery raising juve-
nile salmon, a volunteer-run
auto club ixing up and sell-
ing cars, and robust robotics
programs, but no traditional
wood or metal shops. He often
sends students to the college
for academic and career-tech-
nical courses, while offering
college-high school courses in
Warrenton.
The hope among Heyen
and
Warrenton-Hammond
School Board members is that
more hands-on, career-techni-
cal courses will help encour-
age academically challenged
students, especially males,
who often graduate at lower
rates than females. Less than
60 percent of males in Warren-
ton graduated with the class of
2015, compared to 85 percent
of females.
Heyen found a partner in
the college, which has had
to pick up the slack since the
closure in the early 2000s of
the Area Vocational Center in
Miles Crossing, where high
schoolers from throughout
the county used to go to learn
trades. The college and local
high schools signed an agree-
Students from Warrenton High School got the chance to play around with plasma cut-
ters on the last day of their welding class Monday at Clatsop Community College’s ca-
reer-technical course.
ment to offer career-technical
opportunities after the cen-
ter’s closure. Educators have
been trying to rebuild offer-
ings at the career-technical
Marine and Environmental
Research and Training Sta-
tion campus that in the 2000s
hosted as many as 60 stu-
dents a year taking welding,
automotive and ire science
courses, when budgets were
more lush.
Wilkin said at a recent
college board meeting that
Astoria will be expanding its
automotive and ire science
offerings at the college, along
with adding a course at the
high school in industrial con-
trol systems.
Bristol said he is conident
at least half the students from
Warrenton’s summer welding
course will return in the fall to
take night classes, paid for by
Warrenton-Hammond School
District.
“It was successful,” Heyen
said of this summer’s trial
run. “I want to try and take
15 underclassmen and do it
again” next year.
The hope is that students
who complete the summer
course will continue in night
classes during school year,
with some leaving high school
as certiied welders.
Aug 23 rd , 2016
Aug 23 rd , 2016
Aug 23 rd , 2016
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Aug 23 rd , 2016