James Packard

I got into welding in high school when a friend of mine who was a couple years older graduated and went to work as a welder. When he showed me his paycheck I was hooked. I have 25 years experience in construction/mining. I went to work in 1997, started welding for a living in 1998 and had my first welding truck in 1999. I bounced between construction and mining companies welding anything from stainless steel pipe and heavy mining equipment to building LNG plants and compressor stations until I started weld inspection in 2019. Welding has taken me from Great Falls, MT to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

I really like experiencing our students starting from never having touched any welding equipment before to becoming extremely talented welders. I also like seeing some of the natural talent come in and just kill it when welding. I thought I had all the tools needed to be a good welder, but once I started working at the Academy with all the other great instructors and seeing their talent, I started to pick up their techniques. I feel I am a better welder now than I have ever been. I think WWA is unique in that we won’t just fill a position with a warm body to keep a certain ratio. We search for and recruit only the best/most talented people we can find. It’s quality over quantity.