Totally Tubular

Pipe and tube fabrication emerging as a leading growth industry in northeast Wisconsin

Story by Jeff Potts

In a land best known for paper and Packers, it may come as a surprise that northeast Wisconsin is also considered a breading ground for one of the most important and fastest growing manufacturing technologies of the 21st century – pipe fabrication.

An industry devoted to the creation, installation and repair of tubing systems that convey everything from liquid and gas to solid materials, pipe fabrication is the catalyst for many different pipe fitting trades including plumbing, HVAC, manufacturing, fire prevention and every aspect of construction. It’s also one of the most sought after talents in the manufacturing industry.

The Fox Valley is a “hotbed” for the industry, described Mark Buss, business manager for United Association Local 400 of the Plumbers and Steamfitters Union.

He traces the current roots back to the strong work ethic of the region and the long tradition of local mechanical contractors with a “can-do” attitude.

“It’s been a long progression,” said the 20-plus year veteran of the pipe fitting industry who points to Wisconsin contractors in the late 1950s and early 1960s as the forefathers of the industry.

“They needed pipe assemblies for their own construction projects – so they built them,” said Buss. “It just evolved from there. As long as I’ve been around, they’ve been selling fabrication as a vendor to other companies. In many cases they don’t even do install – strictly selling it to other businesses who do the install themselves.”

Among the top piping contractors in the nation, the 2007 Pipe Trades Giants listing published annually by Plumbing & Mechanical magazine ranked J. F. Ahern Co. of Fond du Lac No 17 and Azco Inc. of Menasha at No. 39.

Kaukauna-based Team Industries – which strictly fabricates industrial tanks and pipes, and manufactures welding positioners and grippers for pipe fabrication – is by far the largest pipe fabricator in the region and among the largest in the country.

Building a workforce
Whether it’s the creation, installation or repair of these delivery systems, pipe fabrication requires a highly skilled workforce to ensure success on a project as there are countless variables. Not only do skilled pipe fitters work in a variety of environments – from hospitals to manufacturing facilities to municipal wastewater treatment plants – but they also work with a large number of materials. And often, each different type of material requires special care and consideration, whether it’s one of several types of plastic, copper, steel, iron, aluminum, clay or lead.

To ensure a sustainable workforce from which to fill jobs, northeast Wisconsin mechanical contractors can’t simply hope to uncover talented pipe fabricators. Instead, they invest a considerable amount of time, energy and private funds into cultivating a new generation of worker.

With a 41,000-sq. ft. training facility in Kaukauna and a smaller, 5,600-sq. ft. training shop in Fond du Lac, Local 400 provides a one-of-a-kind apprenticeship program where the organization is producing new leaders for its own industry.
A little more than 10 years ago, Local 400 began working with its parent organization – the United Association – and signatory contractors to develop a state-of-the-art training program. Today the program is considered the most intense in the country.

In conjunction with a steamfitter program, potential new pipe fabricators are required to have at least 8,000 hours of job experience, 300 hours of night school, and 500 hours of related day school.

“It’s a program geared strictly towards needs in the fabrication industry,” said Buss. “We teach 11 different welding procedures. One education system qualifies them to be proficient in all of these processes. We don’t just teach the welding process – we teach them code applications, math, layout, science, and we’re also a construction-orientated trade.”

This hybrid apprenticeship program is geared towards manufacturing, so students are also exposed to different tools of the trade such as heat treatments not normally used in the construction field. They focus on alloys, wall thickness and procedures needed for every type of welding as projects are as diverse as the materials they will be working with. Once they complete the program, students will be able to handle any work environment from food or brewery grade piping to powerhouses and refineries, said Buss.

Tony Ahern, executive vice president of pipe fabrication for Fond du Lac’s J. F. Ahern Co., not only understands the value of the Local 400 training program, but said the industry wouldn’t be flourishing without it.

“It’s easy to build buildings and buy equipment, but if you don’t have the good skill set – particularly welding – you’re not going anywhere,” said Ahern. “The general public will rarely see our work – but they know about it on a daily basis when they flush a toilet or get water, and in a lot of cases when they turn on a light switch.”

Industry growth
Ahern – which has become one of the largest pipe fabrication contractors in the Midwest – has seen the size of its pipe fabrication department double in the last three years. Tony Ahern himself said he expects the market to remain profitable in years to come, thus requiring an even larger workforce to keep up with demand.

Today, Ahern employs about 90 pipe fitters altogether, but its already planning to take advantage of the industry’s growth if the skilled workers become available. That’s where the educational partnership with the Local 400 becomes even more important to sustaining this industry.

About 10 apprentices a year have been admitted into the pipe fabrication program since its inception a decade ago, said Buss. In 2007, Local 400 was able to increase that number to more than two dozen apprentices, in part to meet the predicted industry demand.

Bassett Mechanical of Kaukauna experienced similar demand for newly qualified pipe fabricators, nearly doubling its workforce in that discipline during the past five years. Growth in the energy and bio-fuels markets – fueling more demand for products like Bassett’s signature pressure vessel deep sea dive bells – has increased the number of specialty pipe fabrication orders the company produces for outside clients.

“I would say that over the last five years, we have at least doubled our capacity for fabricating,” said Danny McCarthy, the piping operations manager at Bassett, and himself a pipe fitter for the past 35 years.

That growth in capacity is both in terms of physical production space and its workforce. Bassett currently employs between 65 to 70 pipe fitters on a regular basis. But when special projects require a greater force of skilled expertise – as was the case during a large-scale project this past spring – Bassett was employing as many as 105 certified pipe fitters.

Like Ahern, the pipe fabrication work Bassett initially did decades ago was strictly out in the field for installation on its own projects, McCarthy said. Over time, it became more efficient to centralize pipe assembly work for many projects, and much of the pre-fabrication was brought into the shop. As the specialized capabilities of its pipe fabricators evolved, more and more outside customers would turn to Bassett or J. F. Ahern for customized design and manufacturing of complex piping assemblies.

Team Industries in Kaukauna has gone one step further in developing the industry by developing its own line of welding positioners and grippers used in pipe fabricating. Since 2002, the company has been selling its specialty equipment worldwide.

“They’re used in every major pipe shop in the country,” said John Panetti, president and chairman for Team Industries and a former chair of the board of directors for the Pipe Fabrication Institute.

Panetti’s said the firm has found its niche in pipe welding, and its recent growth illustrates the truth of that statement. Team has doubled its capacity during the past two years, as well as increased its engineering capacity by about 40 percent during that period, Panetti estimates.

 With about 155 pipe fitters at its three facilities in northeast Wisconsin, the company is shipping about 90 percent of its industrial piping and tank fabrications to customers and projects outside of Wisconsin. Panetti said the training coming out of Local 400 has allowed Team Industries to offer top-quality craftsmanship to the growing demands of its customers.
“It’s really been a great relationship that we’ve had with the union,” he said.

Developing new talent
Much like any traditional educational program, the five-year pipe fabrication apprenticeship at UA400 is broken up into semesters, each requiring an exam to pass for skills certification, as well as annual reviews. At the end of the five-year program, participants are required to pass a practical and written test. Like more traditional apprenticeship programs, participants do receive an hourly wage for much of their training.

Most new trainees are hired directly by a contractor and then enrolled in the program to further their career path. Buss said the parameters for entering the program are a high school education, good physical health, and good math skills, including algebra.

Currently, 13 different mechanical contractors from Fond du Lac to Oconto Falls have signed an agreement to participate in the pipe fabrication apprenticeship program.

“It’s a very good way for people to earn a living,” said Ahern.

He points to young people who many not choose to go to a four-year college or prefer to work with metals and welding, describing the career as a “silent gem.”

He also said it’s a great opportunity for workers in other manufacturing climates that are declining to learn a new craft.
“This industry is growing very quickly,” he said. “We need lots of talented people to keep up with the demand.”

Once through the apprentice program, a journeyman can begin earning more than $30 an hour, said Buss.

“Plus benefits, pension, health care and as part of the collective bargaining agreement – all continuing education is covered – so not only do they get paid for the apprentice program, but also the membership as a whole takes a portion of their wage to put into an education fund for all the programs,” Buss said.

As Buss points out, industry growth and demand for skilled workers isn’t the only factor driving this education program – it’s also a formal agreement between contractors in the area who underwrite the costs of training new workers.

The training facilities of Local 400 operate on a $1.3 million annual budget, yet that does not include costs to maintain facilities. That amount only applies to educational materials and staff salaries, including a fulltime training coordinator and fulltime welding coordinator on staff at the training facility, as well as 50 night school instructors. Those instructors are also working in the field at their day jobs, so they see the latest technology and have a pulse on emerging trends in the industry.

And the training isn’t just geared toward rookie pipe fabricators, either. Bassett’s McCarthy said the training facility and training grants from the national United Association organization benefit seasoned pipe fitters to brush up on old skills and to learn new technologies and processes.

Another point of pride for the educational program is the fact that it’s entirely funded by member companies.

“There’s no government money involved in this, it’s all paid for through our collective bargaining process,” said Buss.
“In today’s world, with all the talk of shrinking workforces, where are we going to get our workforce of the future from? People that use our contractors are automatically funding today’s and tomorrow’s workforce.”

Jeff Potts is a freelance writer from Oshkosh.
B2B publisher Sean Fitzgerald contributed to this article.