My Eye-Opening Visit to an NBT Welding Camp 

During a recent meeting of the FMA Management Advisory Committee, Dana Brown, program specialist for the Nuts, Bolts & Thingamajigs (NBT) Foundation, shared details about the foundation’s mission and encouraged committee members to attend one of the summer manufacturing camps that NBT sponsors.  

After searching the camp map online, I found the one that was closest to my home in Palm Desert, Calif.: an industrial welding technology camp at Borrego Springs Unified High School. The school is located in northeastern San Diego County, about 50 miles west of the Salton Sea. This is a very poor community in the southwest desert of southern California.  

As this was the first NBT camp I have ever attended, I wasn’t sure what to expect. On Friday, June 28, I drove to the school and met the teacher, Mike Kitten, and 11 terrific kids as they shared their welding projects.  

When I arrived at the school and met Mike in person for the first time, I liked him immediately.  Mike is a large man with an infectious smile and warm, welcoming demeanor. He told me his goals for the students: learn to show up on time, understand how to use their PPE, learn to weld, complete a project, and go on a plant tour where they’d see manufacturing operations in action.   

I was moved by Mike’s dedication to the kids and saw his generosity to the Borrego Springs community as he was grilling lunch not just for the 11 campers, but for all the students in school that day for summer classes. Talking to Mike as he was cooking barbeque and burgers, I discovered this was his first time hosting an NBT camp, and next year he is going to apply for a grant to have a two-week camp.  

I asked Mike what he learned from hosting his first welding camp. He said he wasn’t sure what to expect before the camp started. The participants that enrolled were all from the Borrego Springs area except one student who came from Lancaster, Calif., which is in northern L.A. County. His mom brought him to check out the camp and allowed him to stay the week after she was comfortable that it was going to be a safe environment and an educational experience for him.   

As I walked around the camp and watched the kids, I noticed they were engaged and working on their projects or some other aspect of welding. Mike made the class fun and informative. The camp gave youth the opportunity to learn about different types of welding, preparing metal for welding, and finishing the weld. The camp projects, which each of the participants showed me, were as varied as the students. They included a bike frame made of stainless steel, a tulip, a small bicycle, wind chimes, a War of the Worlds character, a tortilla heating pan, and some creative masks like you would see in the movies.  

Attending the Borrego Springs camp helped me understand how NBT is working to solve the skilled worker shortage by inspiring and encouraging young students to pursue manufacturing career pathways. The value of these camps in helping to prepare the next generation of skilled welders and fabricators cannot be overstated.