In a lot of ways, welding is in Jacob Elliott’s genes. His grandfather, Bob Elliott, was a welder for a long time at Dresser-Rand in Olean and still teaches the craft to students at SUNY Jamestown Community College. Elliott’s father also welded.

‘My grandpa always had stuff lying around the house,’ Elliott said. ‘I was always questioning what it was. The idea of welding kind of intrigued me. So I went and I took it at BOCES for my junior and senior year, and then it brought me here.’

Here is JCC’s Cattaraugus County Campus, where Elliott is in his second semester in the Welding Technology program.

Though Elliott debated whether to pursue an associate’s degree or jump right into the field full-time after graduating from Hinsdale Central School, he’s happy with his decision to go to college.

‘I decided that an associate would be good and look good when I would go to put it on any sort of formal application that I would submit to any companies,’ Elliott said. ‘And, in the long run, if I ever decided to do a fouryear degree program, I’m already halfway there.’

While taking classes at JCC, Elliott works part-time as a steel fabricator at Billings Steel Manufacturing in Olean.

He recently passed American Welding Society Dl.l certification for structural steel work.

‘We do everything from bending small plates to building structural steels for buildings,’ Elliott said. ‘I started there as an intern senior year of BOCES. I gradually worked my way up into just being part-time and then eventually fulltime over the summer.’

Thanks to his welding experience, Elliott’s first semester classes at JCC ‘were pretty simple for me,’ he said.

The spring semester has been different.

‘Now we’re getting to the advanced classes, which is welding on a really small-diameter pipe, which makes it more difficult,’ he said. ‘It’s the challenge for me. I enjoy the challenge.’

Elliott’s favorite class is advanced stick welding, where students are required to weld around a two-inch pipe.

‘It’s nothing easy,’ he said. ‘Not everyone can do it, but my goal is I want to be that low percentile, to be able to do something that other people can’t say that they can do.’

Thanks to BOCES, JCC, and his work experience, Elliott knows that he will have a variety of different job options in the future.

‘Long-term, there’s many different places I could go to,’ he said. ‘I could go to be a pipeline welder out somewhere, or I could stay local. There’s plenty of places around here, local fab shops doing small things, big things. If I really wanted to, I could. Right now, they’re working on the (new Buffalo) Bills Stadium. I can go be an iron worker doing all those miscellaneous things.

‘It’s nice getting into the blue-collar trades because they all kind of can work with each other,’ he added. ‘Sometimes it’s rugged and gets messy, but I prefer to be put in an unusual situation and find a solution to it.’

There’s a calmness that comes over Elliott when he pulls the welding hood over his face and begins to work.

‘Some people, their mind goes blank,’ he said. ‘Other people, they get to think about what they’re going to be doing after work, how the weld’s turning out, things like that. And it’s nice and calming. You learn how to take your base material, just a regular piece of steel, and then you can make a building out of it. There are lots of other things that go into it, but having a part in that, it’s nice to know.’

It’s also nice to have strong family support. Naturally, Elliott’s favorite JCC instructor thus far is his grandfather, Bob.

‘He’d never seen me weld or do anything of that nature until I started classes here,’ Elliott said. ‘But he’s really good at working with different things as far as different positions and different viewpoints on how to do different things. It really helps.’

Elliott is also thankful to other mentors he’s encountered at JCC.

‘There’s lots of people here with lots of experience,’ he said. ‘The instructors here are great, relatively low people in the classes. It gives you more of that one-on-one time where they can really help you figure out the process you’re doing and how to do it to the best of your ability.’

JCC student Jacob Elliott is following in his family’s footsteps, pursuing a career in welding.

JCC