Side Gig or Career: Why You Should Learn To Weld

Tyler: It’s actually Sasse.

Toby: You know what? I was thinking about it because I’ve talked to you a million times and I always just say Tyler. You get used to never really caring about somebody’s last name. Sasse, all right. 

Tell them a little about yourself. You’re one of my YouTube heroes. You got a huge following and you do a great job, but you’re not the typical guest that I bring on here.

Tyler’s cool because he runs a welding school. I’m just going to call this why everybody needs to learn to weld. Tell him about your school and how you got into it.

Tyler: I appreciate you having me on here, Toby. It’s really cool. My name’s Tyler Sasse. I’m the founder and CEO of Western Welding Academy. I’m probably not somebody that you normally have on here, but I dropped out of high school when I was 16 years old, and I just believe that if you believe in something, you should go after it with your whole heart.

Welding has been everything to me. I’ve been in this industry since I was 18 years old. It’s been a phenomenal career and I’ve made some really good money doing it.

Toby: I love the fact that you do that. How did you start your school? Anybody could just Google Tyler Sasse, just go out there, and take a look at all the videos and stuff. How’d you get going there? Because that’s not normal. 

Most people don’t just say, you know what? I’m going to be an internet star one day. What should I do? I should go out there and get tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands (in your case) of followers. How did you get there?

Tyler: It was actually my wife’s idea. She was getting frustrated with me traveling all over the place. I’m a hustler. I like to go where the work is, where the money is. We used to get laid off every winter, take a couple of months off, kick back, and do some work around the house. 

It was one winter. She said, hey, I think you ought to figure out a way to make a living that doesn’t involve going to the job everywhere where the job is. I’m like, well, this is all I know. I don’t have a master’s degree or doctorate degree. Unlike you, Toby, I’m not a lawyer. I don’t have anything I can fall back on. Welding’s all I know, and it’s all I really honestly want to do. She said, just figure out a way to bring the work to you instead of you going to the work. That’s where the idea of starting a welding school.

We moved back to Gillette, Wyoming. I wasn’t born here, but I love this place. It’s one of the least populated states in America. The weather and some of the terrains are a little harsh, but I really like this place. We started out here. 

It was a challenge definitely getting this thing off the ground. I didn’t know anything about running a school, so it was just a lot of research, start writing a curriculum, and building the marketing strategy. That’s basically what it took. 

We’ve been going for about four years now. I’ve had some just insane tremendous success—the marketing, podcasts, creating content, putting it out there, and just just showing people what we do. And it really touched a lot of people. It’s engaged. 

Just like anything, if you put out good stuff, a lot of people will follow you. Pretty soon, you got a big online following, I guess. I never really set out, never thought I’d be doing something like this, but it’s just part of the territory, I guess.

Toby: That’s probably why people see the authenticity in you and they realize that here’s a guy who loves his trade. You said it. It’s what you eat, sleep, and breathe. You know welding inside and out. And here it is, you are now teaching the new generation to do something with their hands. 

I say, everybody should learn welding, including me. We were talking before the show. I was like, I have really great property managers. I have really good contractors and stuff. But if I had a job on one of my properties and it required welding, I wouldn’t know the first thing. I should learn how to do it, too.

If I could learn how to do it, probably everybody out there could learn how to do it. But for those of you who are thinking about, hey, I got kids, nieces, nephews, whomever, and you’re trying to give them guidance, Tyler share some of the numbers with people. If they go through your school, what’s your typical amount of money that your graduates are making right out of school and then a few years later?

Tyler: Going back to that welding is such a skill because it comes in handy. If your wife wants a new lampshade, or you got a broken A-arm on your side-by-side or your four-wheeler or whatever, it’s such a skill that has come in so handy all over the place. 

What a lot of people don’t realize is that every product that we just totally take for granted, whether it’s a computer or a cell phone or even this Monster Energy drink I’m drinking, it’s all made possible through high-pressure process piping that makes these products available to us as humans. Welders put all that pipe together and make sure everything’s working right. So the welding skills are really critical. 

I dropped out of high school at 16. It’s not something I really try to advocate or push to anybody because I feel like finishing high school is a pretty low bar. You know you should do it, so I tell my kids to just finish high school. It’s not that big of a deal.

Toby: But dad, you didn’t…

Tyler: I know. That’s what I hear from my oldest, especially. But it’s my best year ever. Now granted, I was working a lot of hours, but my best year I made $352,000. That’s just sweat, blood, and tears.

Toby: $352,000 as a welder.

Tyler: Yes, by the hour, W-2 employee. I feel like that’s pretty good.

Toby: I just want that to sink in for me because they always think, I need to become a lawyer. Well, the average lawyer might make $100,000 a year. The average. There’s a lot less. There are some people more.

Welders are right there with them. There are a lot of professions where we’re like, oh, I could be this, I could be that. $350,000. That’s still probably not the most common. Somebody graduates. What are they probably looking at? Not $350,000, but what are they probably looking at?

Tyler: I think $100,000–$150,000. It all comes back to that work ethic, like how hard are you going after it. We’ve got a guy—I don’t want to say his name—he’s from Reno, Nevada. He’s got the record here for Western Welding Academy graduates. His paycheck was over $10,000. I’ve got proof of it. Here’s a 21-year-old kid making over $10,000 a week. Now, granted he’s not making that every week.

Toby: Wait, $10,000 a week? So he made $10,000 after graduating in a week.

Tyler: Yes. Now, granted he’s not making that every single week, but there was a week that he made over $10,000. There are a lot of 21-year-old kids who are still running around trying to figure out what to do with their lives. 

I’m a huge history buff. I love history and I love understanding economics. When I look at the strength and health of a nation, it comes down to our economics. It’s our ability to produce things as a country as a whole, and that’s what our economics are based on. 

What stands in the way of our ability to quickly get things to market, innovation, and industry, welding is a huge piece of that. That’s why they pay so much money for guys and girls that are really talented. You have to have the skill, but you got to have that work ethic, accountability, and integrity. 

You got to show up when you say you’re going to show up, you got to work all day, you got to pass drug tests, you got to own your mistakes when you make them. Everybody makes mistakes and that’s one of the things we’re really focused on is teaching work ethic, accountability, and integrity, and welding skill.

Our mission here is to build a better generation. Start with that bottom layer, blue collar layer. Let’s have a society that can put a force of people out there, that can really accomplish at a high level. That’s what’s going to really strengthen our nation economically. That’s what I’m really driven to do. That’s what wakes me up everyday.

Toby: I tend to agree with you, Tyler. Without getting into the whole soapbox thing, I think there are a lot of folks that would be like I wish the schools taught you the basics of integrity, being exactly who you are, being true to yourself, instead of trying to get some sort of weird brainwashing thing where they’re going to try to make you believe certain things and all that. We’re seeing the ramifications of that. 

In the real world, I deal with a ton of investors. They need folks that they can depend on. It sounds to me like something that you teach is one of your core principles, is that idea of being reliable and being somebody that when they say they’re going to be somewhere at a certain time, they’re actually there. That’s what you teach at your school, along with teaching them how to weld as well, right? 

Tyler: Right. We got really good at teaching the welding portion very quickly. One of our core values is that we’re never satisfied. There’s no doubt we continually improve that curriculum as we learn more and more. 

What we really found is that the world and what these contractors and employers really want is work ethic, accountability, and integrity. When we really made that the cornerstone of what we were building, that was like putting gas on the fire. 

When you want to talk about employers that are just stacked and they’re happy to pay that money for people that really fundamentally understand those three traits.

Toby: Kind of a weird concept, huh? Give them what they want, you’ll be rewarded.

So your typical graduate, are they going to be right around $100,000 coming out? By the way, I know that your school—I just happen to know this because I work with Tyler all the time—has groups that will cover your tuition (I think), right? They’ll even loan your tuition out and then they’ll take it out of your pay in the future. 

How much is it to go to the welding school? If I was going to go and I was going to get competent enough to get certifications where I could start working, what does that look like for me?

Tyler: We’re one of the best, but we’re not one of the cheapest. It’s a six month program. There are seven certifications that you get and it’s $30,000. It’s just a shade under $29,000 and some change. 

Toby: Hold on for a second. You’re comparing yourself. That’s not expensive. $30,000 to get seven certifications? Is that room and board, or is that just the tuition? 

Tyler: That’s just the tuition. And thanks to you, we were able to put together a deal where now we offer student housing. I’m pretty proud of that. Thank you. Hats off to you, Toby.

Ninety-eight percent of our students come from out-of-state. They’ve all got to have a place to stay and live while they’re here, so that was a big barrier that we were just able to recently remove. We’re pretty proud of that.

Toby: It sounds like plug-and-play. If I spend $30,000 plus I’m already going to have room and board, but whatever the case, you guys have that available for them, there’s actually a group that will cover the $30,000 and then you pay them back as you work. So you’re that confident. 

Can you imagine a regular university? They charge you $200,000 for an English degree, and then they say, by the way, pay me out of your profits as an English teacher. Is that what they do with your group?

Tyler: There are a couple of things that I think you might be talking about. One, we’ve got employers that have put these programs together because they’re so desperate for these people. They put these programs together where if you front the tuition and then you come to work for them, they do a tuition reimbursement program. They’re reimbursing your tuition every month that you work for them. So if you get with the right employer, they’re going to totally pay you out that tuition over a two-year period is what most of them are doing. 

Then there’s another group that is a financial aid company called Mia Share that we work with. It’s called the income share agreement. They’ll front the tuition money—

Toby: That’s what I was referring to. Somebody who doesn’t have a ton of money, or let’s just say me and my kid don’t know what to do. Go here, they’ll cover the tuition, and then you’re going to be working it off. Is that what they’re doing? 

Tyler: Exactly. It’s an agreement to share your future income. Basically, every paycheck they take a little sliver of that until the tuition is paid back. It’s a way for somebody who doesn’t have a lot of money or somebody who doesn’t come from a great family or a bunch of support but they really want to do this, they’re committed, and they’re all in. They can sign up with Mia Share and get an ISA (income share agreement) to share your future income.

One of the things that’s really really popular about that program is it’s not like a standard student loan where you’ve got to pay it no matter what. It doesn’t matter whether you’re working or not. You got to pay the note. This is, if there’s no income you don’t pay. 

They’ve got really into the economics of our model and they’re like, these guys go to work. You only pay when you’re working, which works out really well. If you break your leg or you miss a job or whatever it is, you take a little time off for the holidays and you’re not working, then you don’t pay because there’s no income. It’s something that works really well. It’s been a really successful program.

Toby: How many students have you graduated at this point?

Tyler: This year, we’ll do just over 500. We’ve been in business for four years.

Toby: The market, though, needs how many welders? I know that the trades, everywhere I look they’re saying there’s not enough people. How bad is it in welding? Because there’s going to be demand going in for quite a while, right?

Tyler: There’s a report out. The American Welding Society puts out a report every year. Last year, they had a deficit of $500,000 or $600,000. The number is so high that we’re not doing enough yet to where we’re making a dent in that, but it was in the hundreds of thousands. 

The thing is, every year when I look at that report, it just gets worse. It doesn’t get any better. A lot of people go into welding as a career—it’s a great career—but there are so many avenues to it. It’s such a massive industry that they end up finding some little niche or some place that they really like to work, especially in the piping industry. 

Everything from a quarter inch little tube, a stainless steel tube that ties in some acid to a machine that makes a computer chip, to a big 30-inch main steam on a powerhouse. It covers so many different industries. They’ll end up getting in these little niche markets where they’re not out like hustling these shutdowns or working these long days short nights, they’re working close to home. The need for guys and girls that are out there doing these power plant shutdowns and working these refineries, there’s just a massive gap. 

We do this thing called the blue collar tour. I don’t know if I’ve actually even told you about this, but we travel all across the country. We meet with high schools and we talk about the trades, because obviously welding is such a need. There’s a big deficit there. But in all the trades—plumbing, electrical, machining, carpentry—all these trades are just massively suffering. 

We actually caught the attention of the DoD and we work with a group over there. Really, really good people. One of the things that they’ve told us over and over is that one of the biggest national security threats that we’re facing right now as a nation is the lack of a blue-collar workforce.

They’re super excited on our blue-collar tour because we’re just conveying. And we use social media. We’re creating content all along the way. This year we went to 27 different high schools, literally from West Coast to East Coast. A big tour bus kind of like a rock band. It’s a pretty cool deal. And the kids are ecstatic. We show up and put these events on for them. 

We’ll kick this off again. Blue collar tour in 2024 will kick off in January, so a herculean effort.

Toby: How do you find out more about that? Do you just go to your YouTube or do they need to go to your web page? 

Tyler: Any of our social media. If you click the link in the bio, @westernweldingacademy, any of our social channels. Or you can go to our website, which is applytoweld.com.

Toby: And how long is it? So if six months, is this eight hours a day? Is this 12 hours a day? Is this something where you’re leaving home and you’re going and doing an intensive? How intrusive is this going to be? Is it you have to go here and you’re going to spend six months learning how to well day-in and day-out?

Tyler: Yup. We run it just like a job site. Basically, it’s baby steps to the big leagues, is what we say. We run three eight-hour shifts. If you go to our website, you fill out an application, the student selection team will reach out to you and they’ll walk through your application. If you’re accepted, they’ll start working you through financial aid, housing, what it takes to get on campus, and what you should expect. 

Then right before you get on campus, they assign your shift. The school runs 24 hours a day, 5 days a week. First shift starts at six o’clock in the morning. It’s an eight hour shift, going until two o’clock in the afternoon. And then 2:00 PM to 10:00 PM a second shift. We do a whole shift hand-off just like on an industrial job site where you got day shift, night shift. And then the third shift is from 10:00 PM to 6:00 AM. 

We keep the shifts very well-balanced, and the entire school’s setup just like an industrial job site with a tool room. I could go on for days, honestly.

Toby: It sounds cool, actually.

Tyler: You should come tour it.

Toby: Now I want to learn how to weld, too.

Tyler: You’d love it, Toby. I’ll tell you what. As they go through that experience, when they hit their first job, the shock factor is no longer there because they’ve been doing it every day at Western Welding Academy. So it works really, really well.

Toby: So your grads immediately walk in, they’re making money, time well spent, something they can always fall back on no matter what they’re doing. Six months out of your life. You learn how to do this. 

I get it. I’m just talking to everybody out there. I know people, and they’re always saying I don’t know what to do. You have two choices. Either you’re going to go into the military or you’re going to learn to trade. If you don’t know, don’t go to college please if you don’t have an objective to achieve. 

Here’s something that they could immediately go out there and start generating income instead of being in a $100,000–$200,000 hole with a four-year degree that they’re not going to use. We’re joking about that. 

My brother-in-law has a master’s degree. He’s suffering a little bit and he keeps going, but I have a master’s. I’m like, yeah, a buck might get you a cup of coffee. It doesn’t open the door for you. You don’t have a skill. It’s not like a lawyer, doctor, dentist, pharmacist, or something where there’s a licensing. Heard all those things tend to have great value, but you just have a regular degree and you realize you may never use it.

It’s frustrating for a lot of people, but here you’re going to get something that you’re going to be able to immediately use. And even if you’re an investor, you’re just a business owner, you are learning a skill set that has value to you, period, no matter what because you’re going to be a better investor at a minimum.

Tyler: For three generations now, we’ve been telling our kids, as a society, if you want to be successful in life, you must go to college. Maybe you go to a two-year, but most people are going to a four- or a six-year. If the average is four years, that’s four years that maybe you work at Taco Bell or you’re stocking shelves at Walmart or something. But you’re not making any money. You’re just barely getting by. With this, it’s a committed six months, but then, you got 3½ more years. 

We put this little diagram together on a poster, and we put it in these high schools because we want to convey to them that this is 3½ years of earning potential that you got. It’s a leg up you got on everybody else. 

Economically, when I look at all these people going to college getting these degrees, like you said English degrees, if I’m a person, I go out and get this English degree, and I realized that now I don’t have necessarily skills, I’m still going into entry-level jobs.

Maybe the marketplace says the entry level job pays $18 an hour. Well, when everybody, when the whole society’s got $100,000 for the debt that they’re paying on, I can’t work for $18 an hour. So it raises the entry-level wages, which increases the cost of everything else, all the products, goods, services that we use. 

You know more about this probably than I do, but it just makes everything expensive. All we’re doing is shifting all this debt onto our kids and they’re not getting anything out of it. As a whole nation it’s holding us back, honestly.

Toby: You should be a politician, my friend. I don’t want to bang on all the English majors. I’m just saying that there are certain degrees that are being subsidized by other degrees. 

I used to always say that you go to a major university and the engineering degree is the same as the English degree but they’re not the same value when it comes down to what you’re going to get done in the workforce. That’s just reality. It’s not to denigrate any degree, but you should be looking at that stuff when you’re deciding whether it’s valuable or not.

Again, a medical degree is worth a lot, so you maybe pay more for it. But certain degrees are not going to come with a financial reward. That’s not knocking the degree. It’s just being real. Here, you’re going to get a financial reward immediately—boom—by learning to weld, which is what I’m going to call this now.

Tyler’s going to be one of my favorite videos. It’s going to be called why you should learn to weld. Maybe we’ll call it a side gig, but reality-wise everybody should learn how to do some of the trades. You should go learn how to go out there.

Last thing I’m going to ask you because you mentioned guys and girls. Are you fairly equally represented or you’re seeing mostly men or you’re seeing a lot of women coming into the welding?

Tyler: Obviously, we’re equal opportunity. We consider every application equally. But 95% men, 5% women, I would say, and that’s just based on the—

Toby: Be more women […].

Tyler: Yeah. And they make incredible welders, to be honest. I think us men, when we go to learn something, we have testosterone, so immediately we’re like well, I know how to do that. The women you’re like, we’ll do it like this. You show them and they’re like oh, okay, and then they just do it. It’s hilarious watching. And they learn faster. 

Welding takes a lot of finesse, too, and I think women are better at it. But yeah, about 95%

Toby: Well, we need more women welders and women should be welders, too. We’ll do that. Maybe that could be your next thing. Really go out there and make a transformation in society. Probably better welders. They’re better investors, statistically.

Tyler: Are they?

Toby: It’s like, hey guys, you tend to get beat up when you’re a trader. The women do better. Sorry.

Tyler: They do.

Toby: Because they’re not chasing, they’re not trying to…

Tyler: Interesting. 

Toby: It’s just reality. Let’s just be straight up. Not going to hide anything. Let’s just put it all out there. So I’ll put your links in the show notes and make sure that people can find you and get people to go over to your YouTube channel. I just want to say thank you for coming on. You certainly made a good case for why people should be considering welding, even if it’s not a career choice. 

I would say yes for young people, especially. This is a great way to have money coming in. It doesn’t mean that you abandon your other degrees and things like that, but now you have an income source coming in. You’re not completely dependent on borrowing money, which could put you in a bad situation. Then also you always have a fallback, right?

Tyler: That’s right, especially with a lot of the things coming out with artificial intelligence. These trades aren’t going anywhere. They’re the bedrock of society. My last thing, I would say.

Toby: Think about that. AI takes over everybody else’s job, and the welders are like, try to do this, machine. 

Tyler: Right. Any of the trades. The thing that I tell everybody is look at the ROI. Look at the return on investment, and just run it simply by the numbers. You won’t be disappointed. 

Toby: I love it. All right. I’m going to send them your way, Tyler. This is awesome. I really appreciate you coming on.

Tyler: Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.