I have changed jobs a few times over the last 16 years since I started posting to Newsgroups in 1996. That was just before I started as a welding instructor at South Seattle Community College. I was transitioning out of the Stagehands Union where I built Opera, Ballet, Theatre, TV and Movies. I taught at SSCC from Fall of 1997 to Summer of 2006 (~9 years). At that time I was doing architectural metal fab during the day and teaching at night. In 2005 I started teaching at the Divers Institute of Technology. For 9 months I taught at both, but it was too exhausting to teach days and nights. I took the job at DIT so I could get away from contracting and build a welder training program from nothing. I got to learn all about the commercial marine industry, above and below the surface. I was at DIT until last year. I left on my schedule and left a fully functioning weld training program for the next guy. After leaving DIT I spent a month building a reverse osmosis water purifier for the American Seafoods Ship "Triumph" for a company called Alfatec, and spent the last week on the ship pretending to be a pipefitter. A really interesting and lucrative job involving 192 TIG pipe welds primarily on 3" sch.80 316SS pipe, a little bit of 8" sch.80 steel, and some 4" copper/nickel. All open root full penetration, back purged. The shop welding was interesting, but the work on the ship was too exhausting for these old bones. I then spent a month teaching an intro to manufacturing course to Aerospace Apprentices. Fun, but not a long term job.
At the end of that teaching gig I was offered a job at M9 Defense. An odd little Defense Contractor that makes 3D aerospace composites using huge hydraulic hydro-forming presses. I spent a year there learning lots of new stuff about urethanes, silicones, epoxies, fiberglass, Dynema, kevlar, and other ballistic materials. I made really good money, but it was an extremely stressful place to work. I left M9 in mid July, and was happy to go on unemployment for a few weeks to have a breather. Last week I took a new job. I am now a Welding Inspector for Otto Rosenau and Associates, in Seattle. I have been a Certified Weld Inspector since 2005, but I have always been on the education side certifying welders. Now I am on the other side of the fence. Today was my first shop inspection, and it felt a bit weird to walk into another guy's shop and know that I can make him re-weld a part if it doesn't match the signed drawings.
This is my new world, and it looks fascinating. Plus now I get to play with Ultrasound and Magnetic Particle inspections.