Information Sharing and Mentorship Will Create More Qualified Folks

Fred Vernon

I had to make a decision after high school: was I going to go to college, was I going to go to the military, or was I gonna stay and get involved in industry and help my family continue to maintain their home? For me it was simple: join industry, make money, help my family. And oddly enough no one in my family had ever went to college, so that wasn’t even an option on the table. When I tell you nobody even knew how to apply for college, FAFSA, that was all foreign. We didn’t know, okay.

So shortly thereafter I would become a welder. Learned how to weld; failed the SAT miserable when I did attempt it. When I started welding I took about a year, two years, off from school, saved up some cash, worked at the Motiva Expansion Project out here and I saved up some money and I was able to afford my first semester in college at Tyler Junior College.

The only reason I went to college is because my brother, he’s my younger brother, enrolled in Texas State, got a full-ride scholarship in football and I said he wasn’t gonna be the first one in the family to graduate from college. So the competitive nature in myself: I decided I was gonna enroll in college, I was gonna beat him to the punch. This is after taking a year off from school. And I enrolled in Tyler Junior College, ran out of money, had about $10,000 saved up, ran out of that money and end up moving back home to Port Arthur.

At that point I needed to get a job. I learned how to weld—while in high school I was part of a program for welders, okay? I learned how to get the basics of welding, okay? Well, I needed a job when I got back. And nobody was hiring, nobody was hiring, So I was like, well, okay, I gotta upgrade my education. I got to upgrade my skills, right? At that point I can only weld two pieces of metal flat together: it’s called a structural weld, okay? But they were only hiring for pipe welders.

At that time I was about 19, 20 years old. So I went up here to the local, I forget what it was then, the pipe fitters local, but it’s now Local 211 out of Houston. I went there and I was immediately denied. And I mean literally within two minutes of me walking in. What the causes were? I had to do all these tests—again, information I did not have. And he said, “Oh no, you can’t do it. I can tell you right now because you’re 20 or XYZ, you can’t, you gotta go.”

Alright, no worries, I didn’t take no for an answer, I kept looking. Found a small welding school down the road and they did teach me and they did allow me to weld. And it took me a couple of months, I got my pipe welding certification—I still got the burns on my arms—obsession! And I became a pipe welder, and that’s why I got on the Motiva Expansion Project there as a pipe welder.

When I got there, we had a orientation class. I was the only—there’s not a whole lot of African American welders, I can tell you that. And so while I’m sitting there in the orientation class, and the foreman comes in, and they’re taking the numbers from the class they’re orienting, and they are supposed to have two welders, two pipe welders and then they got a couple helpers.

Well, he comes in and he says, “Hey, where are the, we’re supposed to have another welder here,” and they are going crazy trying to find the other welder and we’re all sitting right there and so finally I heard them talking and I said, “Sir, I’m the other welder.” He looks at me, he’s like, “No way, no way.” And I said, “Yes sir, I am.” He said, “You know they’re gonna x-ray your welds, right?” I said, “Yes sir, I’m aware.” “So okay, well, we got a welder.” We went on to work. So anyway again overlooked, overlooked, because one reason or another.

But I can tell you right now: the unions, as it stands right now, are not diversified nearly enough. Hey, there may not be qualified folks—but guess what? We learned about a little word called “mentorship.” People who are not ready, grab them by the hand and pull them up and give them opportunity. If they’re gonna fail, let them fail out. But other than that, give them a shot. Mentor them. Teach them.

And I want to say this in closing: that America is not a bad country. This is a phenomenal country and this is the best country. But we’ve got to do better to move it forward and—the past is in the past, okay, but we’ve got to grow, we’ve got to heal, we’ve gotta process. But we don’t burn it down, we reform it. We rebuild it into what it can be, okay? Access to information and mentorship. Thank you.