UET Online Magazine

You could say that welding is in the Salminen family genes. Robert Salminen, an Ohio Department of Transportation Highway Technician 2 from OCSEA Chapter 4300, recently used his Union Education Trust benefits to take a course in tig welding at Ashtabula County Technical and Career Campus. But it wasn’t his first exposure to welding.

“My dad was a welder and he taught me how to weld in the 60s when I was a little kid,” Salminen said, explaining that was acetylene welding rather than tig welding. “He made stuff at home like I make stuff now. I’d go out with him and put the welding helmet on. He showed me how to dial it in and follow the metal where you want to weld it.”

Salminen knew he wanted to learn tig welding not because of his father, but rather his daughter, who is a boilermaker.

“My daughter has a tig welder, which is why I wanted to learn,” he said. “We have welding in the blood. I think that’s why my daughter picked it up naturally.”

“She’s more like me: she’s a hands-on person,” Salminen added.

Salminen has also used what he learned in the welding class in his job in the ODOT body shop.

“I basically learned it’s a lot like the acetylene welding,” he said, explaining that you need to know how hot you want your flame. “I knew it, but I didn’t.”

“I had to learn how many volts to use with the wire speed, and how to dial it in,” Salminen said. “It’s good that I had the background in welding already.”

Using UET to meet his educational goals has impacted Salminen’s career by opening up opportunities for him and improving his work-life conditions. He likes the challenge and work environment in the shop, agreeing that much of his work is like solving a puzzle.

“Being a Highway Tech, I’m supposed to be on the road, patching holes and stuff. But instead, I’ve been on the heavy equipment, doing the welding,” he said. “We have another guy who does the welding, but I’ve been helping him. I’m doing other things instead of going out on the road.”

To put it another way: “I was tired of dodging cars, risking my life,” Salminen said.

“It’s a little more laid back, being inside. You work by yourself at your own pace,” he added. “I’m trying to figure out how to rebuild something. You measure it. Dry fit it before you weld it in. It’s challenging.”

Next, Salminen wants to take a course in another type of welding: mig welding.

“I’m getting close to the end of my career, but I would still like to use more of the educational benefit. I did take the welding class, but I’d like to take more,” he said.

Just like the interest in welding has come full circle, so has Salminen’s varied career. He started working at age 13 in a gun club and held a job working with auto parts as a teenager. He studied auto body repair in high school and got a job as a truck driver when he graduated. He worked at an excavator company and drove large trucks for many years.

In 2000, he began working at ODOT. The schedule was better than the construction industry.

“My kids were a lot younger then and being in construction, you’re basically never home in the summer because you’re working the entire time,” Salminen said. “It was good experience because I learned to run heavy equipment of all kinds.”

“With ODOT, when they called me, overtime would be in the wintertime. That was good!”

It was still tricky juggling work and family, however: “I work at night, so that made it hard to go to school activities. I’d be up for days!”

Now that his children are adults, it’s a bit easier for Salminen to add continuing education to his schedule. The trick for him is to find courses that are shorter or offered in any season other than winter when he is busy.

“Fifteen years ago, our body man retired. I volunteered to do the body work and did that for a while,” Salminen said. “I used the educational benefit to study body work to catch up on things.”

That class was an auto body class at Auburn Career Center in Concord, near where Salminen lives. He has also taken computer classes using UET.

Salminen has been an active OCSEA member during his 24 years at ODOT, serving as a union steward and chapter vice president in the past. Now he is on the executive board for the chapter as well as for District 7. He’s also a delegate for the ODOT Assembly.

Salminen values both the union and the UET benefit, encouraging his “union brothers and sisters”: “All through the years, I’ve been telling them that they should use UET. They give us over $6,000.”

Salminen’s tip for others who are considering what courses to take using their UET benefit: If you have a challenging work schedule, like he does working more in the wintertime, see what shorter-term courses are offered.

“Check with the school to see if they offer a 30-hour class,” he said. “So you could do it.”

“This last welding class – they offered a 30-hour class. It was during the summer and fall. I was able to do it because it was just before snow and ice season.”

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