Some of our graduates have stopped by or sent mail to let us know where they're welding.  Below are listed a few, with pictures when I could get them, in no particular order.

Kevin Smith, '07

Hi Steve,

How are classes going at MMA? I'm up here in Toronto working for SNC-Lavalin on a combined cycle project. Things are going well for the most part. The project is slightly behind schedule and over budget. I guess these things happen on large jobs. I'm working with about 10 other MMA graduates here. MMA seems to be popular with SNC-Lavalin.

Well take care,

Kevin

Steve Collins:
Hello Kevin:

Great to hear from you! Sounds like you are doing very well. It's always amazing to me how fast our students move into successful careers. This is a time of great opportunity for engineers.

Things are going well here, too.My youngest son is in his second year here at MMA, and doing well. Also, we just replaced all the welding machines with new Miller XMT 350's, so now every booth has stick/MIG/TIG.

I would like to post your e-mail on my Faculty Page, along with the others from former students, if it's ok by you. They are at http://weldinglab.mma.edu/

Also, if you're working with any welding, yourself or others, hands-on, design, or supervising, I'd appreciate hearing about it. It would be great to use real examples in my classes from former students.

Steve

Peter Burke ('04) stopped by the Welding Lab and the Machine Tool Lab recently. He told us about some of the incredible places he has visited on the S.S. Wilson, a cargo ship with Sealift, Inc. They regularly go from the U.S. Gulf to Africa, where they visit a lot of small ports. Since they are often in port for several days at a time, he gets to travel ashore and visit places that most Americans will never see.

Brian Leblanc (06) stopped by the Welding Lab recently. You can find him in myspace.com at http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=54613241 . He is shown in this picture welding on the draghead davit.

Prof. Collins,
Thanks for adding me to the alumni page. Its really neat that you made that
page to show what we are doing out in the industry. I just got back on board
the day the ship's welder went home and thats all I have done the last 4
days. So far they have all held! and a couple of them have been put under
some pretty intense stress. Glad I paid attention in class because it sure
has paid off on this ship! I guess they like my work because when the welder
is on his time off, I'm the guy they come to. My company is Great Lakes
Dredge and Dock, and my ship is the M/V Dodge Island, a 300 ft Split hull
Hopper Dredge. Thanks again! I'll spread the word about the page to some
other alums!

Brian LeBlanc

Jake Turgeon, '02, and his wife stopped by the Welding Lab Nov. 8, 2006, to say hello and look at what's new in the past four years. Jake was pleasantly surprised to find that we have just put in eight new Miller XMT 350 Inverters that look very much like the XMT305 he has on board the El Morro, a container ship. Jake hooked up a new Lincoln wirefeeder to the inverter, so now they can TIG, MIG, and Stick weld, all from the same machine. He says hello to everybody here, and says he'll be back soon for a Continuing Education session.

----- Original Message -----

From: Stephen Bursey

To: scoll@mma.edu

Sent: Friday, September 08, 2006 5:00 PM

Subject: Hello from the SS EL MORRO

The engineers on the El Morro have been doing alot of work in the past year and a half to upgrade the engine room.

Plenty of welding on this ship is being done, the Sea Star office is extremely pleased with the performance of the crew.  We have all have something in common here - we were all your students.  1A/E Patrick Manning, 2 A/E's Jacob Turgeon and Derek Nadeau, 3 A/E's Thomas Bishop and Steve Bursey.

We talk commonly about what we learned a few years back in your class about Stick, Mig, and Tig welding.  I have been doing alot of brazing lately too.

I brought out my book from your class "Welding, Principles and Applications" 4th edition by Larry Jeffus.  It is a well read book around here with all the different typed of welding and fabricating being done here.

The company has personlly thanked us for the hard  and skilled work being done here, and we would like to send thanks for teaching us these important skills that we are using everyday on this ship.

The Engine Room SS EL MORRO

Midshipman 2A/E
Stephen D. Bursey
United States Maritime Service
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Dear Sir,

How are you sir?
I hope evrything is going well with the classes this year. Just wanted to write an email to you and thank you for all you have tought me. I remember you once told me "dont weld on the ship and youl be fine". I am now a ship surveyor for DNV and every time I have to inspect welds I remember your saying and laugh, at least I know what a bad weld looks like. I Joined DNV a few months after graduating in Bahrain and joined the Internatonal trainee program My first assignment location was Dubai for six months inspecting ships in opperation and now I am in Yokohama inspecting components and machinery along with newbuilding untill August, next is Norway for One year.

Best regards,

Fawaz Kuwaiti

You may or may not remember me? Matt St.Cyr, I graduated in 1996. I bumped into one of your BIW cronies last seek at my shop in Cumberland ME. Jeff Jenkins.

I've got a coupe purple headed thermal arc welders here and Jeff picked them out immediately. We got to jawing about what they can and cannot do and he asked what I was besides a welder, because he didn't know more than a handful of them that actually knew what was going on inside the machine. . . bla bla bla. . . 1996. . . bla bla bla. . . you must know Stephen Collins. Sure I do.

I have taken an interest in the arcing and sparking trades. Mostly Stainless and Aluminum parts for pleasure boats. Electronics masts, bow rails, T-tops. All tig work. I run one 300 tsw (the new one) and one 185 tsw (ac/dc portable). Pretty fun stuff all told. I also do some weld inspection (not certified yet) on pressure vessels and petroleum tanks. (asme and api). But at the end of the day I really like building shiny parts for boats.

Check out the web site. (info at doesn't work yet) http://www.cumberlandironworks.com

How's going in Castine? Look forward to hearing from you.

Matt St. Cyr

3 A/E Stephen D. Bursey
 

Hello,

Me and my crew on board the MV Sugar Island have been trying to re-route
some water pipes.  We have been having trouble with stainless steel fittings
and pipe.  We are using stainless couplings to stainless pipes, using
stainless welding rod (SMAW).  When we finish a weld it cracks. We tried
welding spots around the fittings, then putting a bead around it, we tried
leaving the slag on to help hold the heat in before chipping it off.

My thoughts on this are, needs to be pre-heated, then welded the post
heated.  Im not sure what to do.  If you can help, it will be greatly
appreciated.

Steve Bursey

Engineer Sugar Island

(I guessed that the pipe or fittings might not be stainless, that they might be copper nickel, which is more suitable for saltwater pipe service, and when Steve stopped by later he told me the pipe was CuNi which had been incorrectly marked on board - S. Collins)

Dave Paquet stopped by the Welding Lab during Christmas break, 2002.  He was visiting here from Seattle, where he works on an Army Corps of Engineers vessel.  He says he welds almost every day, and would like to learn more.  He promised to send an e-mail with more information....
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Do you remember Craig Murray, Systems 1996?  Well, long time no see!  Surfing around tonight, I have run
across your link in the MMA site.  Very impressive.

I have been in Korea for 2 years now, and have not been home since last summer.  I hope to be in Surry most of
July this year, where we still rent the house we lived in while I was in school.  How are you doing?  I hope all is
well.

I am a new construction surveyor with ABS, and am involved daily with welding inspection of course, as well
as all other shipbuilding aspects.  I am working in here in Korea at the Daewoo yard, with some other
recent MMA graduates that you may remember:  Dennis Cessna, John McDonald (Both '93), and John Yeary
('97).

Interestingly, about 5 miles down the road is the Samsung shipyard, where I have heard Mike Young is
preparing to take delivery of a drillship, though I have not seen him.

Well, enough for now.  ... it was nice to be
reminded of you and your excellent instruction and company again.  If there is anything I can do for you from
here, please let me know.

Craig

Justin Thone took on summer employment with the Mass. Highway Dept.,where he qualified on their all-position SMAW and flat&hor.GMAW. Here he is with his certifications.  Justin came back and took the Advanced Welding course, where he practiced pipe welding.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Hello Steve,

My name is Bob Gilman and I graduated class of '87. I came across the Weld Lab homepage and had a good laugh of all the pictures. I worked for Tom Churchill in the Weld Lab for 3 years as part of my work-study program. I'm glad to see you are keeping up the special projects at the weld lab. I became a pretty good welder by the time I left and it came in handy sometimes. Are my stainless steel sinks still being used as cooling troths? I dragged those off the old 'State Of Maine'. I also painted all the welding machines red and stenciled numbers on all of them. I have been working for ABS for the past 7 years and I am currently living in Singapore. I spent the last 4 years as a field Surveyor in South Korea at Hyundai Heavy Industries. Needless to say I have qualified alot of welders and looked at thousands of miles of welding on ships. The shipyard is the largest in the world and would consume more than 90 tons of FCAW wire per day. That doesn't include SAW and SMAW wire. The yard also has their own welding research lab which was very impressive.

Best of Luck

Bob

Nice Pic!  I am really glad that you felt free to print the truth...that I
was supervising the whole operation!

I am getting ready to leave for work (on a drill ship in the Gulf of
Mexico)
in three days, so it was really nice to see, and reflect on a little bit of
good ol' MMA.

Have a great Semester!

Kevin Cross

Kevin's picture <click here

Hey Professor Collins

Its Jeff Briggs.  How are things going?  I was just going through my email list and figured I would check to see how you like being back teaching!  Well thing are going good here.  I am working out of New York City taking #6 oil to power plants all over the east coast.  We might even get to go up to Bucksport!  well I hope things are going well,  How Did that cutting table hold up? Anyway I might be back up at MMA to take the  Tankerman school thats if my company will foot the bill, most likely I'll have to go to one in NYC.  Well hope things are going well,  talk to you soon

Jeff Briggs

Picture of Jeff Briggs

Hi my name is Joe Scharf and I took your welding class two years ago.
This
summer I am employed as a Co-op student at Bomar a manufacturer that
makes
hatches and portligts for sail and power boats. We make a lot of things
out of
aluminum here but we have always struggled with one problem. When we weld
6061
and 6063 aluminum and then anodize it the welds show up as a grey or
black
color. This problem limits where we can put welds on certain products. We
would
really like to figure out a way around this. My supervisor informs me
that they
have tried a variety of filler metals to no end. If you know anything
about this
please let me know. Thank you very much for your help in this matter.

Sincerely,

Joseph Scharf

Professor Collins,

Thanks for replying to my email. You are right I have done some more
reasearch
into the problem and there dosen't seem to be a simple solution available
at the
time. We have decided to go around the problem by not anodizing the part.
This
is because we want the "look" of milled aluminum. Feel free to put my
question
on the web page.

Thnaks,

Joe Scharf