San Diego landmark becomes floating classroom for student welders

A small group of welding students from the San Diego College of Continuing Education performed fabrication, repair, and restoration work aboard the decommissioned USS Midway. Images: San Diego College of Continuing Education

The USS Midway aircraft carrier was once the world’s largest warship. Nowadays, the decommissioned ship is docked in San Diego Bay and is known as the USS Midway Museum, a floating time capsule and prominent attraction in downtown San Diego.

The floating museum also has become a floating classroom for some welding students at the San Diego College of Continuing Education (SDCCE). In late 2023, eight students participated in a pilot program between the college and museum in which they spent one day a week aboard the ship fabricating guardrails and gates for the Midway’s aircraft elevators, as well as doing repair and restoration work elsewhere.

“It'll be cool to point that out to friends and family someday and say ‘Hey, I made that,'” said student Mark Silva.

A 10-Acre Lab

The USS Midway Museum has always been supportive of educational opportunities and outreach, whether it be field trips or partnerships.

When the pilot program received the go-ahead to proceed, Brad Dorschel, welding instructor and co-program chair of the skilled and technical trades department at SDCCE, looked for a handful of students who would be interested in honing their skills aboard a historic warship.

“We saw it as an opportunity to allow our students a different experience for completing their lab hours,” said Dorschel.

“As far as welding goes, they have a very well-equipped welding lab [at the college]. However, there’s some applications that you can find on an aircraft carrier that we can’t replicate in the lab,” he said. “We worked kind of behind the scenes logistically for about two years to figure out how we could do this and make a partnership that's mutually beneficial. It ended with us determining that we would have the Midway become an off-site educational facility.”

The partnership is seen as a win-win scenario (as blogger Josh Welton also writes) for everyone involved, as both the museum and college wanted to give valuable experience to student welders. Museum Education Director Tina Chin described the aircraft carrier as a “10-acre lab” for the student welders to improve their welding skills and soft skills.

While the primary focus was the guardrails and gates, the students also had to be ready to work on other things and adjust accordingly. Jasmin Hernandez, one of the students selected, hopes to become a pipeline welder someday and saw this opportunity as a steppingstone to her future.

“Before I knew it, there I was on the ship,” she said about being selected for the pilot.

The college and aircraft carrier museum partnered to allow welding students to accumulate welding experience outside of school.

Hernandez said in order to fabricate the guardrails, they needed to gather materials, prep for the work ahead of time, weld, and read and follow blueprints.

“It's a really great and amazing opportunity, but it’s also very challenging,” said Hernandez. “When you’re in welding school, you feel very comfortable, you can practice one thing over and over and get used to it. But on the Midway, it’s about as real an experience as you can get.

“There will be times when you’re not with the best setup, so you have to make it work. We just try our best,” she continued. “You're very out of your comfort zone, but I think that's the best way to learn.”

The pipe material required the group to bend, weld, grind, and measure, said Silva. The project required plenty of short-circuit MIG welding, he added, and as a result, he believes his MIG welding skills have improved significantly.

“This is real-world stuff. I can't learn this in school,” said Silva, who also works at a fab shop.

“It gives me and everyone who is a part of it a real-world experience,” he added.

More Welding, More Midway?

Welding opportunities continue to grow at SDCCE. Late last year, the college announced it had received $1.175 million in funds from BlueForge Alliance to double the size of its welding program and expand its facilities. BlueForge Alliance is a nonprofit devoted to increasing manufacturing for U.S. Department of Defense needs.

“The BlueForge Alliance funding that we received was due to a demand in submarine fleets,” said SDCCE President Tina King.

Like other institutions, King said the college is trying to put a dent in the nationwide and local shortage of skilled workers like welders by expanding the welding program, continuing to provide tuition-free programs, and providing arc welding certificates and American Welding Society certification opportunities. Expanding the program, for instance, will reduce the number of students the program turns away for lack of space.

“There's a huge demand and buzz for welding programs,” King added.

A group of eight students worked primarily on the guardrails and gates in the Midway’s aircraft elevators.

Museum and college officials want the pilot program to expand. Chin said they want more student welders working on the ship as well as students from other programs, like HVAC, electrical, and plumbing.

“We want to first make sure that this program, the welding component of it, is sustainable, that it has legs, and that everybody's getting what they need,” King said.

BlueForge Alliance partnership with Nuts, Bolts & Thingamajigs

BlueForge Alliance, a non-profit integrator supporting the efforts of the U.S. Navy’s Submarine Industrial Base, also announced a three-year educational partnership with Nuts, Bolts & Thingamajigs, the Fabricators and Manufacturers Association’s charitable foundation, starting in 2024.

This partnership includes a national sponsorship of all NBT Summer Manufacturing Camps to inform and encourage young students of metal fabrication career opportunities specifically in the submarine industrial sector. These camps will assist in developing a skilled manufacturing workforce to support the BFA and SIB mission to build and maintain America’s next generation of undersea platforms.