Lincoln Electric Welding Professional Series Enhances Skills at Ataco Steel Products

Lincoln Electric Welding Professional Series Enhances Skills at Ataco Steel Products

Welders who attend Lincoln Electric's Welding Professional Series update their knowledge of new welding procedures
and processes and gain a fresh approach to solving fabrication challenges.

Mastering basic concepts and entry-level techniques is a good first step toward landing a job in welding, but at some point, the basics are no longer enough. Eventually, the welder on the long-term career track will need additional training.

Lincoln Electric’s Welding Professional Seminars – also known as the Professional Series – are designed specifically for welding professionals seeking advanced training and expertise. The Professional Series helps welders dive deeper into standards and procedures, learn about the latest industry trends, train on advanced equipment, and more.

The Welding Professional Series is an ideal tool to fill the gap in the current training infrastructure for welders at every level, says Jim Muchka, a weld engineer for Ataco Steel Products and a certified welding inspector. Based in Cedarburg, Wisconsin, Ataco specializes in deep-drawn components, brake press forming, welding and multi-axis laser cutting. They are an OEM supplier for Harley Davidson, Caterpillar and other companies.

“There isn’t a whole lot of continuing education and advanced training out there for the profession, or at least the higher end of the profession – the CWIs, CWEs and so on,” says Muchka, who takes the knowledge he’s gained from the Welding Professional Series back to his team at Ataco. “I’m talking about the kind of training where you can actually sit down for a couple days and really dig into the nitty-gritty details and actually pick up some skills in a relatively short time without having to do it for five years out on the job site. So the Welding Professional Series has been extremely helpful for me in that regard.”

The Welding Professional Series is designed for a range of manufacturing personnel: managers, foremen, engineers, fabricators, environmental health and safety personnel, inspectors and more. The series currently offers six seminars that cover a variety of topics:

Practical Weld Inspection. Learn what to check before, during and after welding using the visual inspections method.
Advanced Welding Technology. Get up to speed on the latest in welding technology with a focus on advanced waveforms.
Welding Productivity. Acquire the skills you need to reduce rework, scrap and address other barriers to productivity and part-acceptance.
Weld Procedure Development. Enhance your knowledge of AWS D1.1 standards and welding procedures for compliance.
Design of Welded Connections. Get acquainted with standards and connections applicable to steel structures and steel weldments.
CWI Prep Course. An extra week of low cost preparation offered the week before the AWS CWI seminar.

Participants in the Welding Professional Series learn from some of the most knowledgeable instructors in the industry – using the industry’s best consumables and waveform technologies. It’s all built on Lincoln Electric’s deep foundation of industry knowledge and innovation that spans more than 100 years.

Advanced Training Lab at Lincoln's Welding Technology and Training Center

The Professional Series at Lincoln Electric's Welding and Technology Center helps welders dive
deeper into standards and procedures, learn about the latest industry trends, train on advanced equipment, and more.

To date, Muchka has completed several Welding Professional Series seminars, and plans to take more as they become available. The qualifications of the instructor and the thorough nature of the curriculum are important selling points, he says, especially as compared to advanced welding training courses provided elsewhere.

“The Professional Series instructor more than explains what you need to know, and he does a really good job of going through it,” he says. “My team at Ataco loves welding. We go into the details at a granular level, whereas with a lot of other courses that I’ve taken elsewhere, the instructor will say, ‘Here’s a Power Point,’ and we’ll spend three days just reviewing the Power Point. Five minutes into that class, you’re realizing that you’re not getting anything out of it.”

Location is an added benefit, says Muchka. The courses are taught in a state-of-the-art training facility, the Welding Technology and Training Center at Lincoln Electric’s world headquarters in Cleveland, Ohio.

“They have it all under one roof,” he says. “I wish they had a facility like that in every state. It’s a one-stop shop. It’s Disneyland for welding. There isn’t anything you can’t do there. For the welding professional who wants to expand their skill set, it’s anything and everything you can imagine.”

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