Tawana Gorham
As a young girl growing up in Chocowinity, Tawana Gorham enjoyed working on car and motorcycle engines with her brothers and the neighborhood boys. Today, Gorham is a welder helping assemble fire trucks, refrigerated beverage vehicles and other types of trucks for Hackney Division of SVC.
“Learning welding was a life changing experience for me,” she said. “I am financially stable and able to do a better job of helping my family.”
Gorham, a former nurse's assistant, came to welding on the recommendation of a male cousin who was studying welding at the time. At Beaufort County Community College, she learned TIG (Gas Tungsten Arc) and MIG (Gas Metal Arc) welding techniques under Instructor Ted Clayton. To reinforce her TIG skills, she entered the on-site training program at a local industry operated under the auspices of BCCC and passed all the required tests early in her training.
Sammy Deans, plant manager at Hackney, agreed that jobs are available locally for skilled industrial workers, particularly welders. “It's important that we train as many skilled welders in this area as possible,” he said. “We hear all the time about the nursing shortage, but there is also a shortage of welders.”
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Thursday, April 01, 2010 06:43:56 AM
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