The Welding Bay Nobody Told Her About
At sixteen, Aiyana Reyes runs a MIG welder on Denholm Fabrication's small-parts line. Her school never mentioned the job existed.
The welding bay at Denholm Fabrication runs two shifts, and on a good day you can hear it from the car park. Sixteen-year-old Aiyana Reyes started as a sweeping-up job two summers ago; she now runs a MIG welder on the small-parts line and is saving for her first certification.
"Nobody in my school talked about this as a real job," she says. "It is a real job. It pays better than half of what they did talk about." Denholm's owner, Frank Osei, says the plant hired four apprentices this year against a target of one, mostly because they finally started visiting schools instead of waiting for applications.
The floor is loud, hot, and — on the day we visited — short-staffed in exactly the way every small manufacturer in the country currently is. Reyes says she isn't worried about job security.
