Today we’d like to introduce you to Joaquin Urrutia.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Growing up in northern California in a town known as Fresno, I had a paper route working for the Fresno Bee. During the 8th grade, I would get up at 5am everyday before school and deliver papers to 80 customers a block away from my house. I made a dollar for every customer, that added up to $80.00 a month, enough for a kid to buy fishing gear, BB guns, and mini bike parts.
Reading the classifieds I would see all these jobs available and think to myself if I could learn one of these trades I would always have a job. Jobs listed were plumbers, electricians, machinist, welders, and the jobs in the construction field. Recognizing the need for certain skill sets at a young age it stuck with me.
When I was in high school my parents moved to Southern California for my step-fathers employer and better schools for my brother and I.
After high school, I attended ITT Technical Institute for electronics while working in a cabinet shop building children’s furniture in Riverside California.
After two years of building furniture, the shop next door hired me as an apprentice Tool and Diemaker in 1991. We made the machines that build heat exchangers, rotary die and piercing/folding die sets for header plates.
Working along side with owners of different company’s I heard the pros and cons of owning your own business. Looking back I believe this was the Lord’s way of preparing me for the business we created.
My machining skills opened up opportunities with different organizations that led me into the maintenance field in 1995 for a company that built custom electrical conductors that used for robotic retrieval units like the one that was used to discover the Titanic.
Working as a Maintenance Machinist, I was required to machine parts, fabricate, weld, and provide electrical troubleshooting. The training I received from trade school really supported my career in the maintenance field. Five years later I was offered a position working for the University of California Riverside as a Senior Mechanician. I designed, built, and repaired all kinds of cool equipment used by biology and neuroscience. While working at the University I had the opportunity to train graduate students that were working on their PHDs. I would teach them how to use the equipment in the machine shop, sheet metal, and cabinet shop.
This is when I realized the Lord gave me another gift besides working with my hands, it is the gift to teach. One of the graduate students told me that I should be a teacher, this came from someone who’s entire life was academics.
While working at the University I went back to school in pursuit of finishing my education as a Mechanical Engineer, eventually changing my major to Business and Management.
While working at the University of California Riverside, I received a phone call while working in the Biology Machine shop, it was the owner of the cable company asking me “what it would take to get me back. “
This was after two years of being with the University, and at the time I was being promoted at UCR, I turned down the offer with the cable company.
Two weeks later the owner of the cable company called me and asked me how much the University was going to pay me in ten years, they matched it, and matched the vacation and leave pay.
I really felt honored and a sense of self-worth I never felt before.
I was younger then and the thoughts of making money was more important than the benefits offered by UCR. That saying if it sounds too good to be true, it must be. Sad to leave such a great job for more money to find out money does not buy happiness!
Something I did not forget was how I enjoyed training others. I was attending classes at a community college in order to finish a degree to start teaching at the community college level, this was around 2012. The Lord led me to the organization Metropolitan Water District, there was an opportunity working in the machine shop and I applied.
While waiting to hear back from Metropolitan Water District, I applied to two other positions for the same company. One was working as a Hydro-Mechanical Mechanic and the other was as instructor of the Apprenticeship. I was interviewed and tested and offered the position to work in the Machine shop at Metropolitan Water District. While working in the Machine shop I was asked by HR if I would like to test for the Hydro job and the instructor position. I tested for both positions and I was offered both positions.
I accepted the teaching position and again I had an overwhelming feeling of self-worth.
As an instructor of the apprenticeship program I trained Water Treatment Mechanics, Convenience and Distribution Mechanics, and Pump Plant Mechanics. The subjects were welding, machining, valves, pumps, maintenance procedures, and much more.
When I taught the machine shop and welding classes, we would use two different college’s facilities because the apprenticeships shop did not have enough equipment for the amount of students in the program. This was great because I worked with some amazing instructors that taught me the means and methods used by one of the top welding departments in Southern California. And this is when I saw a huge need for welders.
During my time working at Metropolitan Water District, I did not always agree with the way the apprenticeship was being managed.
I believe students come first and it is about performance and not about appearance of a program. Putting the students first cost me with my relationship with my manager. I believe the students recognized that I cared about them and because of that, it generated a trust and respect that they will always have for me.
When Covid hit the US, I lost my mom, at that point I was not happy with my job and made many attempts to transfer out of the department but the company would not let me. I started looking outside of California for another opportunity, we found it in Florida. Working for another apprenticeship that wanted me to train Industrial Mechanics which included welding, machine shop, and electrical classes.
USSugar is the name of the company and it was such a blessing! They paid for my wife and I to fly out to Florida and meet with management and students.
Again, I felt an over whelming feeling of self-worth.
The training facility at USSugar is amazing, all the equipment was new and I was developing the curriculum at the same time teaching classes. Honestly I felt I had found my dream job with an amazing manager and departments support to achieve the performance I envisioned.
My wife and I lived in a travel trailer for a year with no success on buying a home. I was praying for the Lord to lead me and I believe He said my wife’s happiness is more important than my dream job. So I asked her where does she want to live, and her response was Texas, because her family lives here.
So I gave notice to my employer and they understood what we were going through.
When we moved to Tyler we found a house within a month, God’s gift! We sold that travel trailer after we moved in and we are still working on our fixer upper in Tyler Texas! After we found a house I applied to a few positions, one was a manager of fabrication, another was field machinist, and I applied to a teaching position at La Tourneau University. La Tourneau wanted someone with a PHD and my experience, I laughed. I was offered the other positions but did not believe the salary matched my experience. Both employers shared something with me, it was the lack of welders for the positions they had open, and there was a high turnover of welders with both companies.
Years ago when I was teaching at Metropolitan Water District I thought if I open a school it would focus on the bare-bone essentials of turning young adults into assets for companies and focused on what has supported my success working in industry.
I saw the need in east Texas for a school that would equip those seeking to start their careers in the welding field in the shortest amount of time training.
Both of the programs of welding I taught for the two different apprenticeships were only 96 hours of training. This was enough for the students to learn the basics of structural welding and equip the students to work in the field, and class size was typically 10 to 12 students.
Ok, I recognized the need for well trained welders to enter the workforce and hit the ground running. There is a need for structural welders and a need for pipe welders. To be a combo welder is setting up students with room for opportunities of growth and getting their foot in the door.
Most schools are training 20 students at a time and the quality of training is diminished by the quantity of or lack of time with each student.
So, if I am able to equip students with double the amount of time of training and limit the size of the class to half of what I was providing in the apprenticeship programs I taught in the past, I believe this is a formula for well equipped welders to enter the field of welding.
The curriculum at Hammered Out Welding Academy is performance base, with weekly tests on key knowledge of welders, practical performance evaluations every week on welding, metal removal, fabrication, rigging, critical thinking, blueprint reading, and safety.
The other supporting aspects of Hammered Out Welding Academy, is that we are an Accredited Welder Testing Facility by the American Welding Society and a fully equip fabrication shop. We have welders that come through the facility testing for positions with different companies and/or testing for themselves to become certified welders with the American Welding Society.
I use the small amount of fabrication that goes through our shop to show the students real-life field applications of fabrication, blueprint reading, and application of industrial math.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
In the beginning it was really rough. my wife had to get a job and most of the money the company was generating with welder certification and fabrication was being put back into the business to purchase equipment for the school.
To pay the bills I worked part-time for Tyler Junior College in the Industrial Maintenance program teaching electrical and industrial maintenance classes.
The first year I believe I only brought home $20k for the entire year, and used most of our savings to start the company.
The customer that told me they would send me up to 12 welders a month for welder certification, in reality was maybe 2 to 5 welders.
Fabrication and working part-time for TJC saved the company from closing the first two years.
It took two years to complete the requirements to become licensed with Texas Workforce Commission, that is because we had to work to survive.
In 2024, the first class we had at Hammered Out Welding Academy was only one student, he finished the program and started a job that I believe was close to $26hr. He is rockstar welder and student!
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I actually designed and developed a muffler for performance and silencing exhaust, I had a provisional patent on it and the month the provisional patent expired another company of racing products started producing the muffler I designed.
While working at the University of California I designed and developed some really cool equipment for the biology and neuroscience departments: a little machine that would pull the web out of a spider and wind it up on a test tube for the development of a synthetic web. I developed a machine that has adjustable stroke and beats per minute for the simulation of flow for cardiovascular research. It simulated heart beat and pulse in plasma flowing through an inverted microscope flow chamber. A temperature controlling convection heater that maintained temperature of a microscope chamber plus or minus one tenth of a degree.
But what I am most proud of is the students of my past are now able to support their families, They. will have moments of feeling valued by their peers. They will become managers, inventors, teachers, and they will be successful!
What sets Hammered Out Welding Academy apart from other schools, we care about the students success. Teachers of other schools may care about the success of their students but they do not have control of how many students are in each class, we allow only six students per class. At Hammered Out Welding Academy, when students are practicing, they are monitored closely to verify they are practicing correctly!
What else sets us apart from other schools, other schools are not testing welders for the jobs currently available in East Texas. Most schools provide training and the instructors do not keep up their skillsets with fabrication or challenging jobs as we do at Hammered Out Welding Academy.
I can’t teach experience, but can I teach from experience. With over 35 years experience working in shops that built heat exchangers, guns, prosthetic implants, specialized electrical conductors, equipment for biology and neuroscience departments, water treatment and pump plants, sugar manufacturing, has given us a background in structural and pipe welding applications.
How do you think about luck?
Sorry it is not luck! It is being blessed!
The Lord has guided through out my life even when I was not walking the path I should of be walking, I had signs pointing me in the right direction. I also had many struggles from lack of direction.
Faith is key to any business being successful, confidence and dedication to excel at what you do is essential. Continually seeking more productive means and methods within the time we have to serve others.
Those that believe going to school is enough to guarantee success in life are highly mistaken. Experience is necessary and having the ability to listen, learn, and adapt are key to business. You must be flexible and have a plan that can be adjusted as the current flows from one day to the next. Businesses focused on relationships will thrive.
Be grateful for the little things in life!
My wife’s confidence has encouraged me through the thick and thin of this business, from tears of doubt to tears of joy. I attribute the backbone of the businesses success to listening to her and God’s hand upon our marriage.
Meeting my wife was not being lucky, it was being blessed!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Hammeredoutwelding.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stories/hammeredoutwelding/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100085366996535
Image Credits
Dorsey Photography
https://www.facebook.com/dorseysphotography/
