Blue Collar Tour Exposes High Schoolers to Welding Careers
Through its sponsorship of Western Welding Academy’s 2025 “Blue Collar Tour” — a 60-day, nation-wide mission to spark interest in high school students for skilled trade careers — ESAB has directly reached a total of 3,180 high school students and impacted others through social media videos that have millions of views. From January 20 – March 13, the Blue Collar Tour bus and representatives from Western Welding Academy visited 31 high schools in 22 states to deliver welding skills demonstrations, discuss careers in welding and build enthusiasm through product giveaways and student welding contests.
“ESAB’s Future Fabricator’s program sponsored Western Welding Academy and the Blue Collar Tour because they change the narrative on how we communicate about welding careers,” says Justin LaFond, an applications engineer with ESAB who provided on-site support for most of the stops on the tour. “They brought it to the kids through social media and made welding cool again with events that have the type of energy you’d find at a state fair or rodeo (see video). We’re making a huge impact by doing things differently.”
Quacy Wilson, Director of Student Selection at Western Welding Academy, says that “Even if we inspire one kid, we’ve done our job. Blue collar trades are the backbone of our country. This is our way of showing kids they can go make a living and take care of a family by making welding their first career choice.”
This year marks the fifth Blue Collar Tour. Stops are selected based on welding student submissions from high schools. At each stop, high school students interacted with instructors and former students from Western Welding Academy (WWA), a trade school located in Gillette, Wyoming, that offers a 960-hour pipe welding course. Because WWA representatives are young themselves, students can easily envision themselves having that level of success.
For example, at the February 5 stop at a high school in Elgin, Illinois, approximately 100 welding students from School District U-46 and several surrounding area school districts had the chance to talk with half a dozen representatives from Western Welding Academy, three representatives from ESAB and other tour sponsors. The students learned and asked questions about careers in welding (“How much can you make?”), witnessed TIG welding demonstrations using the ESAB Renegade VOLT™ ES 200i battery powered welders, won gifts from the sponsors and participated in a “best bead” welding contest, which was won by high school junior Lou Jensen.
“It’s really neat to see people getting back into the trades,” says Jensen. “I love the passion of the Blue Collar Tour, and it’s great to be a part of it. I am good with my hands, so welding just makes sense,” said Jenson, who received an ESAB Savage A40 automatic welding helmet.
“I have taught for years, and I cannot excite my students about joining the trades as much as this event does,” said Luis Guerrero, a welding instructor at Elgin High School. “Our welding students wanted the Blue Collar Tour to come here as much as any rock star tour bus.” By being selected for the tour, each high school received a Victor® Medalist 250 Classic cutting and welding outfit.
To learn more about ESAB’s support for skilled trade careers, students and educators, visit https://esab.com/us/nam_en/landing-pages/future-fabricators/. To learn more about schools offering pipe welding courses, visit https://www.westernweldingacademy.com/.
