Fincher’s future burns bright as SkillsUSA state champion welder

The Latest Local News from the Cedartown Standard

One local student is looking ahead to a bright future as he gets ready to show off his skills on a national stage.

Ryan Fincher, a senior at Cedartown High School, is the state champion in the SkillsUSA competition for welding. He says he hopes his hand will remain steady as he prepares to compete in the National Championship.

Fincher said he is excited about the opportunity and that using his talents to win has shown him that “when there’s a will, there’s a way.”

“When I first started, I was getting the hang of it and I had previous state winners helping me along the way,” he said. “I got better at it, and I wanted to see how far I could go.”

Fincher, the son of Chad and April Fincher, graduates this spring and will continue on with his education in the Georgia Northwestern Technical College welding program. In addition to his high school diploma and even some college courses under his belt, he gained valuable experience working as a welder at Miura in Rockmart as part of the boiler manufacturer’s internship program.

He said the hours are sometimes long, but he enjoys donning the visor and pulling on gloves for his work in the welding booth at the Career, Technical and Agriculture Education’s temporary home down the road from Cedartown High School.

He said the experience he’s gaining now, and attaining his degree and certifications, will pay big dividends in the future when he starts his career. He said his skills will give him a choice of working in any part of the country he chooses.

“My family have always been in roofing, and my dad wanted me to get out of it,” Fincher said. “When I got into Mr. (Matt) Hayden’s class, I got to start welding and see the possibilities in life, and see where it could take me.”

Though working with a torch in hand might look easy to some, Fincher said there’s nothing easy about bonding the various metals together as he is required to do in competition. It takes practice and years of developing a steady hand to become a good welder, Fincher said.

“You’ve got to understand how the different processes react with each other, and how to control them to get the end product you’re looking for,” he said.

Fincher will go on to face off against other state champions at the SkillsUSA competition this summer.

Source: Cedartown Standard

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