Welding holds America together, and the career paths stretch far beyond the hood, as Patrick Meza, certified welding inspector and shop operations manager at PVB Fabrications, can attest.
Trish Fliss
Senior Media Lead, American Welding Society
There’s nothing you can buy that hasn’t been touched by a welder. The trucks, trains, ships, and pipes that deliver commodities, the heat and electricity for our homes, and the buildings we work in all depend on welding. America depends on welding fabrication and manufacturing, and Americans can depend on good-paying welding jobs.
Welding uses an electric arc, flame, friction, and now even handheld lasers to permanently fuse two pieces of metal together. The American Welding Society (AWS), a nonprofit organization with a global mission to advance the science, technology, and application of welding and allied joining and cutting processes worldwide, highlights career options on its jobsinwelding.com site. Patrick Meza, now 39, embodies the career path possible.
Career opportunities
“When I was young, I thought I was going to be a welder forever,” he says. Success, however, opened more doors.
Today, Meza is the shop operations manager and an AWS Certified Welding Inspector (CWI) for PVB Fabrications, which operates as a diversified industrial contractor with fabrication at its core. PVB employs about 400 people, expanding to 1,000 as needed, across its field operations. It recently expanded to a new facility in Marana, Ariz. (just north of Tucson), on a 14-acre campus anchored by a 50,000-square-foot shop that employs about 35 welders.
Meza oversees estimating support, project coordination, quality control, and the daily flow of work through the shop. Just as important, he is responsible for ensuring that welding activities comply with AWS D1.1:2025, “Structural Welding Code — Steel,” the definitive, globally recognized benchmark for ensuring the safety, quality, and structural integrity of steel fabrication.
The structural steel elements from PVB Fabrications are woven into the supporting elements of our daily lives, including structural supports for power plants, utility companies, mining operations, pump stations, conveyors, and even sunshade structures for F-15, F-22, and F-35 fighter aircraft.
A typical day for Meza includes reviewing blueprints, qualifying welding procedures and operators, inspecting welded joints, identifying defects, and documenting results. Internally, he works with welders, supervisors, designers, engineers, estimators, and other quality assurance personnel. Externally, clients gain value from Meza’s hands-on welding experience and CWI knowledge.
“Good communication reduces rework, solves problems before they occur, and keeps projects on schedule,” he says.
From field to facility
Meza started welding in high school and took first place in the SkillsUSA state championship. SkillsUSA is often described as the “Olympics for skilled trades.” He earned an associate’s degree in welding technology, started at a small shop, and hit his stride working on pressure vessels and pipelines. By the time he was 30, he had achieved the dream of many young welders today.
“For more than a decade, I was pipe welding and fabricating using my own welding rig — that’s a truck with an engine-driven welding generator mounted on the bed — for remote access welding and fabrication,” says Meza.
For skilled welders willing to travel and put in the hours, a “rig welder” can make a six-figure income. When Meza wanted to plant roots and have the routine hours associated with manufacturing, he transitioned to PVB Fabrications.
“Being a supervisor was the next step up,” he says. “However, I kept getting asked to perform weld tests and oversee quality operations. I decided to move into quality control full-time, where it made sense to pursue the CWI certification.”
Because of his knowledge and communication skills, PVB Fabrications soon promoted Meza to his current role. Among his biggest accomplishments, he helped lead the company’s implementation of AISC (the American Institute of Steel Construction) certification, which confirms the firm’s welding procedures and commitment to quality control and quality assurance.
“I love the career path welding has afforded me,” says Meza. “There are so many things to do in welding, and all of them keep our PVB Fabrications team strong.”
