December
18
2025
As The Caldwell Group’s welding education outreach program gathers momentum, it serves as a workforce blueprint for other manufacturing businesses to follow.
Meet Amy Garris. Amy spent 24 years as an educator in the Rockford, IL school district and joined Caldwell in the summer of 2025 as an executive assistant and education outreach coordinator. Along with Doug Stitt, company owner and CEO, Garris helped address a long-simmering problem of ensuring that Caldwell had enough skilled welders on board to sustain the company’s ongoing growth.
As many of us know, there is a huge deficit in the number of new welders the U.S. is producing versus demand. It is an alarming trend largely driven by experienced welders approaching or passing retirement at a time where manufacturing, infrastructure, energy, and construction businesses need this specialized skill more than ever before. This plays out to a backdrop of a wider skilled labor shortage, driven by insufficient training pipelines, and the rapid pace of industrial and infrastructure growth.
Caldwell was finding it harder and harder to keep the welding ranks full … and even more difficult to find the quality, experienced welders that our shop demands. Like others in the U.S., Caldwell was relying on a mix of job boards and classified ads, employee referrals, and staffing agencies for new applicants. But the traditional efforts were not producing the needed volume and quality to support the business’ needs.
Q: Caldwell has always depended on welders. What was different in 2025?
Garris: Caldwell is experiencing growth and that growth needs welders to sustain it. Good welders have always been in high demand, so we had to find a way to change our thinking.
We saw an opportunity to do a better job of engaging young people in trades like welding and industrial engineering. Too often, these careers are under-promoted, leaving students unaware of the opportunities, earning potential, and professional respect available in the skilled trades.
Welding is a great example of the gap between education and employers because there is strong demand for skilled welders, but not enough clear pathways that connect students directly from the classroom into the workforce. We set out to change that.
Having spent the last 24 years as an educator, I understand what students respond to, as well as the challenges, pressures, and limited resources many teachers face.
Q: How important is welding to Caldwell?
Stitt: Caldwell’s growth, like many other manufacturers across the country, is directly dependent on skilled labor jobs … and in our case, specifically high-quality welders.
All our welders are AWS D1.1 certified. Even if a welder arrives with existing certifications, they must be certified again via testing by an outsourced certified weld instructor. AWS D1.1 is the standard published by American Welding Society (AWS) that covers welding of structural steel: design, fabrication, inspection, qualification, and repair of steel structures made from carbon and low-alloy constructional steels.
We make complicated equipment that lifts things overhead … so there is no room for failure. And we don’t weld the same kind of thing over and over again … as would a company that makes metal cabinets or hand rails or something like that …so the skills we need are different. Our product line-up contains thousands of different items, and a good percentage of those are one-of-a-kind, custom builds. Yes, a welder has to know how to lay down a beautiful bead, but they also have to know how to plan out the welding process, and how to do it all to a high level of quality and with a high level of efficiency.
We have brought in robotic welders and other technology to assist us, but we know that our success is tied to having top-notch welders here to make it happen.
Q: So how did Caldwell approach the problem at hand?
Garris: We assembled a team and got to work!
I sat down at the outset and made a list of every high school and community college in our area that offers welding to students and started reaching out over the summer to staff. We learned about their program, students, and needs, building relationships along the way.
By the beginning of the fall semester, we were ready to launch. We engaged with many schools, doing classroom visits, offering plant tours, etc. And then we concentrated on Beloit Memorial, Beloit Turner, Belvidere, Belvidere North, and Harlem high schools, plus Highland Community College and Rock Valley College.
Q: What has happened so far?
Garris: Through a mixture of classroom visits and presentations, plant tours, frank discussions with teachers and students, we’re helping students understand what the “real world” needs and while making sure the jobs we offer maximize the potential of the applicants we’re getting. It’s been a win for both sides – we’re each learning something.
For someone like me, who spent the bulk of my career in a classroom, the results have been thrilling. We’ve already hired three new welders and have a few additional opportunities in the pipeline.
As an example, we are currently working with a school that operates on a very small budget yet continues to do exceptional things for students. Finding ways to support this school and others like it is very important to me. Educators in this area are known for accomplishing a great deal with minimal resources and understanding that reality helps Caldwell identify meaningful ways we can provide support.
Q: Who is involved?
Garris: Caldwell welders, from entry level employees through our plant manager, are participating. We have gotten involved in welding competitions as judges, donated materials, served as mentors and the opportunities continue to grow. Honestly, it’s a company-wide effort with support from engineering, safety, quality control, marketing, HR …it really does take a village and we’re all on board.
I remain indebted to Thad Grzeskowiak, our plant manager; and Bill Springer, our manufacturing manager, who have provided advice, leadership, and support as this outreach program gathered speed.
Stitt: It’s honestly been good development for our staff, too. That was something I didn’t expect to happen. Practicing leadership skills in a new setting is valuable, makes someone’s job more rewarding, and benefits Caldwell in the long run, too.
Q: What’s on the horizon?
Garris: Perhaps the most exciting part has been the creation of our U.S. Youth Apprenticeship Program. I was able to meet with a few other companies in the area, who graciously shared their knowledge and experience to help us form our own charter effort.
The program is a structured work-based learning initiative that combines paid on-the-job training with classroom instruction for high school or early post-secondary students (aged 16 to 18). It’s designed to give young people real-world experience while they earn academic credit and industry-recognized credentials.
The goal is for students to build skills, confidence, and a strong connection to Caldwell so that, after graduation, they choose to join us as full-time employees. When that happens, Caldwell will celebrate the commitment with a special signing day, similar to a college signing day, recognizing students who officially join the team. Once on board, it’s important that we continue to give welders the best possible opportunity to be successful. In that sense, there isn’t an end point to the program.
We also have a number of additional initiatives already in motion, including a lab day with one of the local high schools, where they have asked some of our welders to come in, work alongside students, and provide feedback while they are welding. We are also planning to sponsor a welding competition between two rival high schools this spring, which will help support students while building excitement around the trade.
Q: Is the trade skills challenge unique to the lifting and rigging industry?
Stitt: As proven by the Lifting Equipment Engineers Association’s (LEEA) Think Lifting campaign — itself a school-engagement and awareness project — industries like the rigging and below-the-hook equipment sector generally do a poor job of celebrating the opportunities they offer. That isn’t limited to welding, but, as we’ve explored, it is at the eye of the storm. To some extent, lifting industry stakeholders are apologetic about their industry rather than being proud of their work and actively promoting their employers.
Garris: All of our welding education endeavors have reflected that reality. Our ‘We make cool stuff’ tagline is a good example of how we’re trying to champion our work and demonstrate what welding can help to achieve in the wider world. I’ve seen students drawn into our booth at careers fairs, with their interest piqued. Lifting is one of the most exciting, diverse industries in which to be a welder. Aerospace, automotive, and energy, for example, sound fun, and they are inescapably home to some of the most talented welders and engineers in the world, but a below-the-hook equipment manufacturer can offer a welder significantly more variety and exposure than a company producing just one or two standard products.
The six careers fairs we’ve participated in to date have driven that message, empowered by our virtual welder training tool, which lets people don a helmet and virtually lay down a weld … almost like a computer game, but with all of the same skills as live welding. While it’s a serious training tool that we can use in house to help people practice without wasting material, at these career fairs, it’s a magnet. Everyone wants to try it.
In one instance, a group of students were betting bags of potato chips they received at another company’s booth to see who could get the highest score. I’m not promoting gambling as a concept, but the engagement was the important point. We told them we make cool stuff — and they digested that message.
Q: What’s the bigger picture?
Garris: This program is a clear starting point for us, but can also serve as a workforce blueprint for other manufacturing businesses to follow. I’d bet my bottom dollar that other businesses in the Stateline area will be as well received by the education sector as we have been. One of the most exciting parts of launching this program has been seeing just how eager schools are for real world support and opportunities for their students.
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Want to know more about Caldwell’s welding opportunities? You can see open positions and contact Human Resources here: And, you can meet some of our top-notch welders here.