Jefferson State Opens New Welding Lab

December 15, 2016 dbobo Blog

welding ribbon cuttingBirmingham’s manufacturing community came together at Jefferson State Community College on December 15 to celebrate the grand opening of a new welding lab on the college’s Jefferson Campus.

The new lab will provide students with the latest in welding equipment for all types of industries and will greatly increase the college’s capacity to serve students in welding technology.

“Jefferson State strives to meet both the needs of our students and the workforce development needs of our region,” said Jefferson State Interim President Keith Brown. “This new lab is a great addition to our manufacturing technology program and symbolizes our commitment to providing meaningful solutions to workforce education.”

Welding Grand Opening Page CollageThe new lab will allow Jefferson State to serve approximately 75 welding students each semester (up to 20 students per class). Since welding impacts virtually every industry, these students will have the opportunity to pursue high paying welding careers in a wide range of areas, such as construction, aerospace, fabrication, automotive manufacturing, ship building, iron working, and various other production careers.

“The safety of our students is our first priority and the new lab contains a state-of-the-art fume extraction system which removes welding fumes from each workspace to ensure a breathable and safe learning area for students,” said Jefferson State Retired Manufacturing Technology Program Coordinator David Felton. “Fumes are directed to an outside filtration unit which ensures clean air is being released back to the environment.”

Each welding booth in the new lab is equipped with a Lincoln PowerWave C300 multi-process welding machine allowing many types of welding processes to be taught to cover a wide range of industries. A Lincoln Virtual Welding Simulator will be used in the lab to allow students to concentrate on improving their techniques used in difficult welding processes. Two down draft fabrication tables and a programmable CNC plasma cutting table will also be used in the lab.

For more information on the Jefferson State welding program, go to www.jeffersonstate.edu/welding or call (205) 856-8517.