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Assabet Valley Regional Technical High School
Neil's Metal Fabrication Student News
Neil's Metal Fabrication Student News
January, 2013 - Rotary Club awards
Cam Belinskas
"Student Acheivement Award"
Cam Belinskas
"Student Acheivement Award"
This past week Cam Belinskas who is one of our metal fabrication seniors and certainly our most outstanding student in the program has received an award of "Most Outstanding Vocational Student" from the Hudson Rotary Club of America.
Enjoy the photos and additional articles below...
Best Regards,
Mr Mansfield
As the Wall street Journal stated in a most recent article, "It’s a good time to be a welder", and it’s a good to be a Assabet graduating senior entering into today’s metal working and welding work force.
As the bureau of labor statistics has casted their employment outlook from 2010 up to 2020 It has predicted is a 20 % growth in welding related technical careers areas, such as building construction, bridge and highway construction, aircraft and aerospace industry, natural gas and oil pipe line construction, medical industry, military defense industry, boiler repair and construction, heating and ventilation, just to name a few areas of positive growth with and good paying jobs that demand highly skilled workers.
For the past four years, Cam has been building upon his STEM skills which are Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math in order to become skilled craftsmen. Cam has laid the ground work in how to problem solve, design, and critically think his projects through.
Cam arrived at Assabet as a freshmen four years ago with a dream of becoming a welder someday. With the help of Cam’s grandfather who learned how to weld in the US Navy and taught Cam how to weld in his home garage. Cam’s family had taught him the value of hard work, determination, and "never give up" approach to life. Cam has earned himself Assabet’s Most Outstand Metal Fabrication Student awards in welding, creative designs, sheet metal , and an all-around most improved student for the past three years.
This June, Cam will receive a national Most Outstand Welder award from the AWS American Welding Society for his ability to master the art of welding. And welding is what Cam has excelled in. Cam has successfully gone on to pass several national welding certification licenses in alloys metals such as aluminum, stainless steel, carbon steel, structural steel, and very soon pipe welding. These certifications demonstrate to Cam’s future employers, his ability to weld at a professional level.
Just recently Cam has been considered to be employed at J. Kittredge & Sons aerospace fabrication and machining business in Hudson as a Co-Op student. Cam will apply his welding skills and continue to build upon his problem solving and critical thinking skills as a welder at J. Kittredge & Sons.
Cam has built a solid foundation in developing his technical skills at Assabet Valley Technical School to meet today’s challenging work force. Job well done Cam; We are so very proud of all that you have done!
It was not long ago that a young man named Cam Belinskas arrived at Assabet Valley Technical High School's metal shop’s front door. Well, four years later, Cam, now a senior and much closer to his graduation day, has brought his childhood dreams of becoming a welder and fabricator to a reality.
Cam’s excitement with welding began long before he arrived at Assabet. You see, Cam’s grandfather, who is a Vietnam War veteran, learned how to weld and make things out of metal while serving his country as a US Navy Seabee in the 1960s. Cam’s grandfather brought Cam to his small, one-car garage shop and introduced Cam to a world of welding. As Cam says, it was a cool thing to see sparks and fire while melting two pieces of metal together. Like so many other grandfathers and grandsons across our country, it was a way to spend time together while passing down traditions of building things and making them come together by welding.
As an eighth grader, Cam got an opportunity to tour Assabet Valley Technical High School and consider enrolling into the next year’s freshman class. Well, when Cam saw the metal shop with sparks flying in the distance from a welder’s torch, he knew then what shop he wanted. He felt right at home, as if he were working alongside with his grandfather and hearing his grandfather’s voice through the welder’s helmet explaining the art of making a weld. Cam was thrilled and willing to do what it took to become a skilled welder.
As we fast forward four years, Cam has worked at mastering all phases of the metal/welding program here at Assabet: he can fabricate sheet metal, weld light and heavy gauge sheet metal, problem solve, and take his projects from a blue print sketch to final assembly. Cam holds several AWS welding certifications in both stick, Mig and Tig, he has applied himself well enough through his unwavering work ethic to pass sheet metal structural certifications in aluminum, stainless steel, and carbon steel. Prior to his Tig certifications, Cam passed his structural steel plate tests in all three positions, and currently is working on pipe welding and pipe layout.
Cam has developed and fined tuned his metal fabrication and welding skills to a comfortable level; his movements are swift, accurate, and deliberate while working on each of his projects in our shop. Cam is the student that any shop teacher would enjoy to have in their shop, because he is respectful, kind, funny, and compassionate towards other students. Since Cam’s grandfather was a US Navy veteran Seabee, Cam has signed up to serve meals for the homeless veteran’s shelter in Worcester, Massachusetts. Cam has also volunteered to be a student team leader who will design, fabricate, forge, and weld a metal sculpture together for the Homeless Veterans’ reflection pool in their courtyard. You see, Cam is a young welder who has a wonderful talent for creating beautiful things out of many types of metals. So when Cam gets an opportunity to have a free project day in the shop, he puts his creative juices right to work and produces very impressive decorative iron work—of a level that a professional metal worker would make. Just recently, Cam created a bouquet of roses with a forge and welded a vase for his Mom.
What Cam has done at Assabet Valley Technical HS is make himself a marketable young man who is ready to accept any challenge that today’s welding industry has to offer. Cam is scheduled to go on a school–to–work program. In Massachusetts, we call it co-op employment . Cam will be working at a local national defense contractor that fabricates, machines, and welds parts for military jet engines.
It was Cam’s grandfather who planted the seed many years ago with welding; it was Cam who grew into a strong, honest, and skillful young apprentice welder. Job well done and the best of luck for Cam and all of the young men and women who are passionate about welding metal things together.
Mr. Mansfield
Retired US Navy Seabee Chief
Blacksmith artist, CWI/ CWE, NYC Iron Worker, sheet metal worker
Gallery pages 1-3 & 5-9 Photography & Website by D.M. Photographics. Marlborough, MA © 2007-2012.
All other photos and text by Neil Mansfield, © 2006 - 2013. All may not be reproduced without permission.
All other photos and text by Neil Mansfield, © 2006 - 2013. All may not be reproduced without permission.