From film sets and furniture to shipbuilding and nondestructive testing, the event showcased the industry’s growing diversity and demand

Acworth, Ga.-based Georgia Trade School hosted a job fair in late October. The company has been nominated for the Impact on Industry Award, given by SparkForce, the FMA foundation.

It’s not every day you get to talk about pirate ships, deciduous trees, industrial furniture made of metal and high-quality maple, Pearl Harbor, and the U.S. embassy in the Czech Republic—all within a span of about 30 minutes. That’s what you get when you visit a job fair at a welding school: specifically, the one in Acworth, Ga, held by the Georgia Trade School. (Editor’s note: The school was a nominee for this year’s Impact on Industry Award, given by SparkForce, the Fabricators and Manufacturers Association foundation.)

According to school officials, the job fair was the largest in recent memory, perhaps a sign of momentum after a relatively slow summer for some welding employers, given the uncertainties over tariffs and trade. One glance at the tabletop exhibit space showed just how varied the welding field is, even just within the Southeast region. One room had representatives from shipbuilders, tow truck OEMs, mechanical contractors, niche furniture makers (like Iron Age Office), even fabricators that design fantastical elements for movies and entertainment venues.

Verlicia Carroll, director of human resources for Atlanta-based Exploring Inc., described the varied fabrications ID3 Group (subsidiary of Exploring) has made for Atlanta’s burgeoning film industry and beyond. She described a recent project involving a welded subframe of aluminum frames clad with plywood and shot with a hard coat. It was a pirate ship destined for a dinner show venue (think Medieval Times, but for pirates) in Panama City, Fla.

“Within our custom fabrications group, anything you think of, these guys can design it, build it, and bring it to life,” Carroll said. “Movie studios come to us for anything from basic movie sets to a highly complex custom fabrication needed for a specific scene. And for that pirate ship [with the aluminum skeleton], we started in October and finished the install at the end of May.

“And now we’re ramping up a project for a welded deciduous tree that will be about 55 feet tall,” she continued, “with a canopy that will have a treehouse within it. It’s going into a new corporate center.”

Minutes later, I spoke with the talent acquisition team at Applied Technical Services, about the various nondestructive examination teams the company employs and the opportunities a career in NDE presents—including work on the latest inspection systems (including one that “crawls” up the side of vessels).

Then there was Pearlsnap Pimps, a clothing company launched by Jonny Herrera, a pipe welder with an inspirational story to tell. He took pipe welding at the Kentucky Welding Institute.

Actually, “took” isn’t an apt verb in this instance. He embraced the process and (as some of the best pipe welders tend to do) obsessed about perfecting the bead. He convinced his instructors to allow him to stay late. “When I started, I didn’t have a knack for it. I wasn’t a good welder at all, honestly. But for six months, I made a trade with the owner of the school. I was able to stay later and practice if I did two videos a day for their social media. That’s how I got into social media.”

After 16-hour days learning the craft, he launched into a pipe welding career—not at the local factory, but overseas at the U.S. Embassy in the Czech Republic, welding bullet-proof safe-haven structures. After that, he returned to Kentucky, then tackled another golden opportunity, working with a contractor to weld critical pipe structures and other elements at Naval Station Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.

When he returned to the Lower 48 to work at other job sites, he began noticing just how “put together” the best pipe welders tended to be. If he saw a weld with a perfect bead, with good whetting into the base metal, he noticed their snap-up shirts, their clean work apparel, and (of course) their pickup trucks shined to a mirror finish.

Jonny Herrera, experienced pipe welder and founder of clothing brand Pearlsnap Pimps, exhibited at the Georgia Trade School job fair.

The best welders pay attention to detail, an attribute that applies to their welding and nearly everything connected with their daily lift. The revelation led Herrara to launch Pearlsnap Pimps in 2023.

Herrara’s career might seem atypical, but really, what is a typical welding career? Judging by what I saw at Georgia Trade School’s job fair, there isn’t one. An incredible variety of companies need welders—from NDE to furniture design, even the welding of fake deciduous trees. For an industry forever looking for skilled people, that’s a benefit worth trumpeting.