Testing Company Honors VGCC Welding Head
The Welding Technology program at Vance-Granville Community College is highly successful, having turned out more than 500 certified welders.
The company that tested those student-welders and certified them has honored the program head for his 31 years of training welders and his service to the vocation.
Richard B. Crew of Professional Services Inc. (PSI) visited the VGCC campus and presented a plaque and letter of commendation from his company to Bill Jones, Welding Technology program head and instructor at the school.
Crew is based in Greensboro with PSI, a national engineering and testing company. In 1976, PSI certified Jones to conduct qualification testing for certification, and he began to have his students undergo the test welds. These are then sent to Greensboro, where PSI lab personnel X-ray the tests to see if there are any flaws in their welds.
“This is not a graded test,” Crew pointed out. “It is only pass or fail for the students. The fact that 501Vance-Granville students passed on the first try is proof of how well Bill Jones and his fellow instructors have prepared them. It is quite an achievement.”
Crew said that sometimes when he or other PSI testers have been out in the field, testing on a construction site in the Vance-Granville area, they sometimes visit the VGCC welding class to do demonstrations for students and show them what to expect from the certification test.
Jones told a story of when Crew came by the Vance-Granville welding shop one day when the students were performing their test welds. Jones pointed out one student who was discouraged and had tossed his test in the garbage can.
Crew took the student into Jones’ office and talked privately with him for a while. Upon emerging from the office, the student retrieved his test, cut loose the old welds and started over, completing the test. He received his certification and has his own successful welding business in Franklin County today, Jones said.
The PSI commendation, signed by four company executives, lauds Jones for 31 years of instruction of welding students and for establishing one of the leading welding programs in the state. In fact, the VGCC program has turned out more certified welders than any program at any of the state’s 58 community colleges.
“The knowledge students obtain in this program is fantastic and is the first step toward a successful career,” Crew said. “I never hesitate to recommend a Vance-Granville Community College graduate to a potential employer.”
Jones was selected to receive the Excellence in Teaching Award at Vance-Granville in 2000. He lives north of Oxford in Granville County with his wife, Phyllis. His three sons are all welders who graduated from the VGCC program.
Bill Jones, center, program head/instructor for Welding Technology at Vance-Granville Community College, holds the plaque and letter of commendation given him by Professional Services Inc. representative Richard Crew, right. VGCC President Robert A. Miller, left, was on hand to congratulate Jones on his achievement.
