Lighting a Fire: Worldskills bronze medalists lead future workforce prospects by example
 

January, 2025- The proverb “the world is your oyster” dates back to the 1600s but is still widely used today to express a general truth that one can unlock a wealth of opportunities with hard work and determination. The way an oyster produces a pearl aptly illustrates the adage. Individuals have a 1- in-10,000 chance of finding a natural pearl in a wild oyster. The arduous process begins when an irritant lodges between the oyster’s shell and mantle. The shellfish coats the foreign object with layers of nacre which harden over the span of several years to form a pearl.

For Wyatt Hansen and Jordan Packer, turning difficult, uncomfortable circumstances into a catalyst for growth and self-improvement is a familiar story. In 2024, 20-year-old Hansen won a bronze medal in welding at the WorldSkills Competition held at Eurexpo in Lyon, France. Packer, 23, competed at the 2022 WorldSkills Special Edition held at the Lincoln Electric Welding Technology and Training Center in Cleveland, where he also won bronze. This marked the first American podium medal for welding in a decade.

LET THE GAMES BEGIN

The contests are used as a tool to help reach the next generation of welders, but navigating the qualification system is demanding and requires rigorous training to consistently perform at a world-class level. The American Welding Society (AWS) WorldSkills Competition Committee conducts trials to help students from high school and postsecondary welding programs become eligible for selection to attend SkillsUSA competitions. A series of local, district and state-wide contests determine which two students will represent their state at the national level. Each participating state sends its high school and post-secondary winner to the National SkillsUSA Championships, held in Louisville each June. AWS supports WorldSkills by setting global standards for welding, advancing the science and technology of the skill and oering scholarships to student members. Hansen says that when he was rather young, “I used to get pipe cleaners, twist them into goggles and a welder and pretend I was welding things around the house. The rst time I actually welded I was 12 or 13 years old. I talked my grandfather [Guy Hansen] into letting me use the stinger from his welder [electrode holder]. A year or two later, I started working for him as a laborer at Wadley Farms.”

In addition to livestock, produce, vineyards and formal gardens, the family-owned farm is a wedding and reception venue, complete with a castle. “My grandfather designed and built the castle,” Hansen continues. “When the owners decided to add on to the castle, my grandfather brought me on. I was able to do a little welding, too.”

The 2024 WorldSkills welding winners: from left, front row, Sanghyeok Lee (gold) and Zehong Hu (silver); from left, back row, Harrison Field (bronze), Branden Muehlbrandt, AWS WorldSkills Competition Committee chair, Wyatt Hansen (bronze) and Ben Rainforth (bronze).

FANNING THE FLAMES

At Altamont High School in Altamont, Utah, Hansen immersed himself in welding classes. As a senior, he also attended Uintah Basin Technical College in Roosevelt, Utah, and performed part-time welding work under instructor Kevin Mitchell. Eager to compete at the local level, Hansen’s three-year journey to a bronze medal at WorldSkills was almost derailed before it started.

“The school had a weld-o competition to determine who would go to state,” he says. “I didn’t pass the trials and I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to enter again. I thought about it over the next year while I continued to work for [Mitchell]. Finally, he said to me, ‘Wyatt, you can either be an oileld worker or a shop welder making $20 to $30 an hour; or you can sacrice a few years of your life for this competition— and if you make it—you will have endless opportunities for an exciting welding career with the chance to make some real money.’”

Hansen chose to return to UBTech and re-enter the competition in 2022, where he medaled at the Utah State SkillsUSA. He finished in the top 12 at the national SkillsUSA Championships. In 2023, Hansen chose to transfer to Utah State University Eastern, where he won the gold medal.

This qualied him to move on to the national SkillsUSA Championships, where he again earned a gold medal. Since 1973, SkillsUSA has been recognized as the ocial U.S. representative to WorldSkills which is held every two years. The event draws participants from 85 countries and regions to compete in more than 60 different trade skills.

WorldSkills 2024 featured 62 skill competitions, including 59 official skills and 3 exhibition skills, covering a wide range of industries and disciplines.

Members of the AWS WorldSkills Competition Committee Skills Management Team, from left, Ray Connolly, Martica Ventura and Branden Muehlbrandt with bronze medalist Wyatt Hansen.

PRACTICE

Hansen credits USU-Eastern and the welding faculty with helping him hone his skills in preparation for the AWS WorldSkills USA Welding Competition Committee pre-trials. The pre-trial phase included five test plate coupons, one pressure vessel and two sheet metal projects from materials such as aluminum and stainless alloys.

Hansen tacks up tee joint

Projects are inspected to meet extreme tolerances, measuring details within 0.5 mm, including bead width and height variation, weld size and defects. Test plates were X-rayed and the pressure vessel subjected to pressure up to 1,000 psi. Following a training regimen of 15-hour days, six days a week, contestants are eliminated during rounds. Hansen was selected to represent the U.S. at WorldSkills in March 2024. Prior to the global competition, he was able to complete his education at USUEastern and graduated four months early with an associate’s degree in applied science in welding.

Hansen with a stainless steel project.

Individuals who enter the process must have experience in all four welding disciplines— MIG, TIG, stick and flux core. “At WorldSkills, the criteria is more advanced than aerospace welding, which requires a high level of skill and precision. It takes considerable time and dedication to reach the level of worldclass competition. I did the math. Training was seven days a week, 14 hours a day for a total of 4,704 hours,” Hansen says.

Unlike the U.S. contests, participants vying for a prize are given criteria, prints and other details shortly before the competition. “You know what you’ll be doing,” says Hansen. “You have 18 hours to complete requirements for your test plates and pressure vessel. Basic steps primarily are to clean your material, tack up and weld. I calculated my timing down to a T. I had an idea of where I was going to land in terms of points but was prepared for either outcome. Next thing I knew, they told me to grab my American ag and said, ‘you are going on stage.’ I was called for third place and presented with a bronze medal.”

Hansen estimates his total competition career added up to nearly 8,000 hours, not including real-world work experience. Most people are so focused on the physical aspects of training, he says, that little is mentioned about the mental training needed to withstand the strain of competing.

SUPPORT TEAM

The bronze medalist points to a strong support team that included his mother, past competitors, instructors and Mitchell, his first mentor and part-time employer. He also credits fellow contestant Packer with helping to anchor him during the process. “Jordan helped me train,” says Hansen. “He said, ‘Wyatt, let’s look at this like an elephant that you eat one bite at a time.’ You have to break the task down and figure out what you are facing at the moment. For example, determine your angle and all the steps in between, one at a time. It taught me to learn how to adapt to the circumstances I found myself in.”

Packer agrees that the mental strain “at this level is absolutely exhausting. You are in a booth by yourself welding for 10 or more hours a day. And that last five to 10 percent you are trying to pull off is so difficult to achieve because the scoring can boil down to 4/10ths or 7/10ths of a point. You literally might have to hit a hair’s width of measurement to advance. You have to be able to maintain that mental focus consistently for roughly eight months or so.”

Packer, who also went to USU-Eastern, holds an associates degree in applied science in welding and a second science degree. “The school has a history of producing WorldSkills competitors,” he says. Like Hansen, Packer found his passion for welding at a young age. “By the time I was a sophomore in high school, I knew exactly the route I was going to take and where I was going to end up,” he says. Packer joined SkillsUSA in 2015 and competed three years in a row at the state level, where he earned a gold medal. In 2021, he participated in the National SkillsUSA championships and garnered an invitation to the pretrials.

ADAPTING ON THE FLY

Packer’s competition experience took an unexpected turn when the pandemic cancelled WorldSkills Shanghai 2022. Packer ultimately secured his position in the WorldSkills contest with his performance at the USA Final Weld-Off held in March 2022 at Alabama Robotics Technology Park. Sponsored by AWS, the competition consisted of four modules completed in 18 hours over three and a half days. Packer spent 80 to 90 hours a week practicing MIG, TIG, flux cored and shielded metal arc welding.

Jordan Packer wins the bronze medal in 2022

Packer’s company KickStart Welding installs a custom gate for a private residence

Navigating COVID meant Packer had to adapt on the fly. “Wyatt’s experience was a longevity game,” he says. “Mine was ‘you don’t have time to think about it.’ I found out three months before it was announced that WorldSkills was rescheduled and would take place in Cleveland. I hadn’t welded in four months so I had to hit the ground running.”

Packer spent the time training with Chandler Vincent, the 2017 WorldSkills USA medalist (Medallion of Excellence), a business owner at age 20, and an advocate for other young welders.

Despite the pandemic’s disruption, Packer finished the four-day WorldSkills competition with a bronze medal. His final score was just 1 percent lower than that of the gold medalist. In November 2022, Packer opened KickStart Welding and Fabrication LLC. From custom homes to ductile pipe and industrial welding, Packer says he “has the resources to handle most jobs regardless of size.”

ROLE MODELS

As WorldSkills medalists, both Hansen and Packer received a $40,000 scholarship from the American Welding Society Foundation, funded by Miller Electric Manufacturing. Hansen plans to attend Weber State University to pursue a welding engineering degree.

With their competitive careers behind them, Hansen and Packer hope to mentor other young welders and have some sage advice about the path to WorldSkills.

“Every minute I spent bettering myself and trying to be the best—the family gatherings I had to miss, hanging out with friends, putting my personal life on hold during the two years I competed—was worth it,” Packer says. “Self-investment is worth any cost.”

Hansen agrees. “The competition helped me to see that if I was willing to invest the time and effort—whether or not I won—I would be miles ahead. Under normal circumstances, you could graduate from high school and work your way up to being a competent welder in 10 to 20 years. Training for WorldSkills I compressed 10 to 20 years of on-the-job training into two years.”

BRIGHT FUTURE

For Branden Muehlbrandt and Martica Ventura, Hansen and Packer represent a dynamic blueprint for creating new generations of welders.

“A key building block is reaching people while they are young,” says Muehlbrandt. A 1995 USA silver medalist who chairs the AWS WorldSkills Competition Committee, Muehlbrandt is also a weld consultant for Lincoln Electric, the global sponsor for WorldSkills.

“One thing that hinders us as a country and in the skilled trades is that from the 1990s through the 2010s, most traditional industrial arts classes disappeared from middle and high schools. Showcasing welders like Wyatt and Jordan allows other young people to say, ‘hey, look what they did, maybe I can do that too.’”

AWS uses its network to invite prospects to each new competition cycle. Ventura, a long-term AWS sta member and secretary for the WorldSkills Competition Committee, acknowledges the process is not for the fainthearted. “Once we send out the invitation, we follow up with an email that contains blueprints for the first contest module and [we] conduct online training. People do drop out along the way because it can be overwhelming. Half of our job is to ready people for these levels through education.”

This spring, a new qualification cycle begins for the 2026 WorldSkills competition. The journey of pre-trials and competitions to the global stage offers young people the chance to find their passion and, with the level of training they receive, weld their way to a six-figure income or higher.

American Welding Society, 800/443-9353, aws.org.