WorldSkills brings the world's best welders, fabricators to Lincoln Electric

The Lincoln Electric community is quite proud of its Welding Technology and Training Center. Opened in 2018, the 130,000-sq.-ft. facility houses 166 welding booths, 15 classrooms, a 100-seat auditorium, a virtual reality training space, and more.

Last October, the center—located at Lincoln Electric’s Euclid, Ohio corporate campus—received arguably its greatest international exposure yet. For one week, 30 of the world’s top young welders and craftspeople gathered at the facility for the WorldSkills 2022 welding and construction metal work competition.

“The best of the best,” said Andreas Fetz, director, marketing communication, international welding, at Lincoln Electric.

WorldSkills, a global skills competition held every two years, scrambled to find alternate sites for its 62 competitions in 2022 as Shanghai, the original host city, no longer could accommodate the event due to the COVID-19 pandemic. From September through November, WorldSkills split the competitions among 26 cities in 15 countries, including the Cleveland area and Lincoln Electric.

“This has been a great event for all people involved,” said Jason Scales, Lincoln Electric’s global education director. “There's a lot of interactions going on. They're talking to our students, our students are talking to them, there’s a lot of camaraderie going on. People get to see the skills others have around the world.”

Which Young Welders, Fabricators Took Home WorldSkills Medals?

Korean contestants took home top honors at the WorldSkills welding and construction metalwork competitions.

Welding

• Gold, Dongwook Kim, Korea
• Gold (tie), Tetsuya Takayanagi, Japan
• Bronze, Jordan Packer, U.S.

Construction Metal Work

• Gold, Seongsu Kim, Korea
• Silver, Zheng-Wei Huang, Chinese Taipei
• Bronze, Guillaume Oswald, France

Twenty-two contestants competed in welding and eight contestants competed in construction metal work, respectively. In the welding competition, the students were given prints to follow, material to work with, and had to demonstrate their ability to weld using multiple processes while working with mild and stainless steel and aluminum. Construction metal work took it one step further, requiring the contestants to demonstrate their welding skills along with cutting, shaping, and forming steel plates.

In the welding competition, Jordan Packer of Utah placed in the top three and earned the bronze medal.

“Leading up to the competition, I didn’t have time to feel anything, but I knew that I had done everything in my power to prepare,” Packer said in a statement released after the competition’s conclusion. “This was the experience of a lifetime to say the least.”

According to WorldSkills and SkillsUSA, Packer qualified for WorldSkills at the USA Final Weld-Off competition in March at Alabama Robotics Technology Park in Tanner, Ala. The American Welding Society (AWS)-sponsored event consisted of four modules completed in 18 hours over three-and-a-half days.

Packer practiced at least 75 hours a week to improve and master the four arc welding processes, all the while balancing school and family life.

Packer joined SkillsUSA in 2015 as a high school sophomore in Provo, Utah. He competed for three years in high school welding, winning state gold in 2021. He went on to compete in the 2021 SkillsUSA Championships, ultimately earning his place in the 2022 WorldSkills competition.

He is working towards an associate degree at the welding technology program at Utah State University Eastern and is considering pursuing a bachelor’s degree in welding engineering.

“I loved meeting new people, being introduced to so many cultures, and creating many new friendships across the globe. And it made me so happy to see my country’s flag on the podium knowing that the team and I made that happen,” Packer said.

Host to the World

The Welding Technology and Training Center attracts clients, customers, and students, and is home to the Lincoln Electric Welding School—the longest-running welding school in the world.

When WorldSkills began looking for an alternate venue for two of its competitions, Scales and others at Lincoln Electric asked, “Why not us?” After all, the company is one of the competition’s global industry partners.

“Well, there might not be a better place than the Welding Technology and Training Center in Cleveland, Ohio,” Scales said.

“Lincoln can host this unique event and it shows our capabilities,” added Fetz. “The competitors have these big welding booths; they have the best space and spots to do the competition. They can cut, they can weld, they can do everything here.”

Like other WorldSkills partners—which include Samsung, AWS, Autodesk, and Mitutoyo—Lincoln Electric wanted the competition to resume in 2022 to continue showcasing skills that often go unnoticed in the world. The contestants spent years improving and mastering their metal fabrication skills. And, depending on where they came from, some of the contestants had plenty at stake pending their WorldSkills performance—jobs, education, prizes.

“These students are practicing just as hard and working just as hard to achieve their dreams,” Scales said.

He continued: “When you think of workforce development and the workforce challenges, it’s all over the world. Why do we host these events? Why do we do these events? Well, as more people see that this is an actual event and that these competitions are complex and challenging and rewarding, maybe we can encourage more students to go into the trades and become more active in it.”

A Global Challenge

The week-long competition and gathering also included an education summit where an international panel of industry representatives discussed and answered questions regarding skills development, education, and welding.

The international panel included Scales, WorldSkills Intl. CEO David Hoey, AWS President Dr. Richard Polanin, SkillsUSA Executive Director Chelle Travis, author/speaker/CEO Mark Perna, WorldSkills Netherlands CEO Erik van der Zwan, and Lincoln Electric Business Development Manager Dorothee Schmid.

Perna said the education system must continue to debunk the stigma that a person who doesn’t go to college is a failure. Not everyone should attend a college or university, and their outstanding skills can be applied elsewhere.

“There are lots of ways to be successful,” he said.

Perna and others also pointed out teachers as key figures in the conversation. For the next generation of welders to flourish, they will need welding instructors in the classrooms.

“Education has become a very difficult path today. A lot of teachers are talking other people out of becoming teachers,” Perna said.

Polanin said they must help potential instructors excel and stay in the classrooms through professional development. A welder may want to share what they’ve learned through their years of experience under the hood, but can they actually teach those skills and connect with students?

“Some folks are just interested in providing training. That's really not what we would like to do all the time,” he said. “In educational training, there are some other things to teach.”

Hoey supported the showcase of skills to attract youth interest.

“Skills competitions work,” he said.