Interview 5: Andrea, a Steelworker and Educator
Andrea was a steelworker for 20 years in East Chicago, IN, and is now a welding instructor in Southern California
Women Who Weld, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that teaches women how to weld and find employment in the welding industry, has launched a new program - Arclight - in which we showcase women who create, ideate, and collaborate across specializations and trades.
Andrea Havlin was a United Steelworker in Northwest Indiana for 20 years. She holds a bachelor’s degree in marketing communications from Columbia College in Chicago. Just over a year ago, Andrea relocated to Palm Desert, California, where she is now a lab technician at College of the Desert and an adjunct welding instructor at San Bernardino Valley College. Andrea is part of the ESAB Elite Team and is well-known on Instagram as @HotWork247. Below is an edited and condensed interview between Samantha Farrugia, the founder of Women Who Weld, and Andrea, a former Women Who Weld participant, in February 2021.
Where did you grow up?
I grew up in the suburbs just south of Chicago, and when I was around 10 years old, we moved back into the city limits – on the very far southeast side of Chicago – right next to the border of Indiana. I lived there until I was 18. And when I moved out on my own – I kind of wanted to get out of the neighborhood I was in, the first apartment I got was in northwest Indiana.
A few years ago, after attending FABTECH in Chicago – the largest welding conference in North America, I drove along Lake Michigan on my way back to Detroit and quickly went from densely populated neighborhoods in Chicago to a vast concentration of heavy industry in Northwest Indiana to beautiful, desolate sand dunes within the Indiana Dunes National Park – all in just under an hour. It was a wild transformation from one environment to another.
It’s very extreme. On my days off I would take my girls to the area you described: Michigan City, Chesterton, Beverly Shores, and just spend the day at the beach. And when you're sitting on the shores, looking out at the expanse, it almost feels like you're not on Lake Michigan, but somewhere totally different. And we’re talking a short drive from heavy industry, where I happened to work, to sandy beaches. It's very strange.
You have a bachelor’s degree in marketing communications from Columbia College in Chicago. Why did you not pursue this area as a career path?
As a teenager I was really undecided. I've always been on the artsy side; I'm kind of a dreamer, a wanderer. I like physical work. I like to work with my hands. I was always a very good writer. I thought about going into journalism, but I didn't want the high-stress lifestyle it entailed. I wanted a stable career and didn’t want to bounce around looking for work, and I decided on marketing communications because it was more of a general business degree with different creative outlets. I thought, “When I figure out what I want to do, this is something I can have under my belt.” And in my third year of college, I started working full-time, doing clerical-type work; but I was looking for stable work, and one of my neighbors, who worked in a steel mill, said to me, “Why don't you try and get into the mill?” As it turns out, they were hiring. So I applied and got hired as a laborer, an entry-level position, and that's what started my journey into steelworking.
From there I moved on to several operator jobs within the mill, but then experienced a shutdown and eight months of unemployment. When I got called back to my job, I decided I wanted to learn a trade and, in 2008, I took advantage of a program where we could test into maintenance positions. I specifically wanted to learn how to weld and pursue mechanical maintenance, because when I was looking for a job during the shutdown, there were no shortage of operators. And even though I could run equipment, there were a lot of people in the area who could do that as well. I figured by going into mechanical maintenance, if a shutdown happened again, I would have a skill to find employment. And that's where it all began. From the time I struck my first arc, I thought, “This is it.” It opened up so many doors for me, and really, it changed everything.
Did you go through the United Steelworkers’ apprenticeship training program?
My training program was known as a ‘shake and bake’ program, which was a streamlined, in-house, 6-month training program in which I learned mechanical maintenance and went through 10 weeks of welding training. I attended classes on-site – in the mill – during the day, and was able to work overtime in the afternoons or night, since the mill is a 24-hour operation.
You were a member of the United Steelworkers, but now you are a member of the Millwrights, which is part of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America. Why did you change unions?
As an in-house employee for ArcelorMittal, I was a member of the United Steelworkers, but since I stopped working for ArcelorMittal in 2019, I am no longer part of the United Steelworkers. But, because I was a member for so long, I have a pension and retirement plan with the Steelworkers.
And, because I had 20 years of field experience, specifically 10 years of experience as a mechanical maintenance technician, I joined Millwrights Local 1076 in 2019, and I was given journeyman status. I didn’t have to go through their multi-year apprenticeship training, because I had experience on the mechanical aspects of working on cranes, gearboxes, and motors – all of which is considered traditional millwright work.
But I also did a lot of work that was considered union ironwork – specifically the repair work I did in-house that required big, heavy structural welding – using stick welding, arc gouging, and torch cutting. So, specifically, the repair work I did was not considered millwright work but rather union ironwork.
Did you ever travel for work, or did you report to the same facility each day for 20 years?
As a steelworker for ArcelorMittal, I reported to the same place every day – Indiana Harbor West – and that was the advantage of that job. As a single mom, I don't have the luxury to pick up and travel for work, I need something close to home.
Is Indiana Harbor West an integrated steel mill in that it has all the functions for primary steel production?
Yes, we made steel from scratch. We used the blast furnaces to melt the raw iron, and the basic oxygen furnaces to combine the raw iron with scrap metal and different alloys to produce specific grades of steel. Then we treated it in the ladle metallurgy facility, molded it in the caster, and streamlined the steel slabs in the slab dimensioning facility; we even rolled the steel into coils in our hot strip facility.
But over time, as the steel market in the US started to decline, we had to do a lot of consolidation. And since ArcelorMittal essentially bought up almost every steel mill in the area, we consolidated our plants. At Indiana Harbor West, our hot strip mill was eventually shut down and those employees were distributed among other departments in the plant. And I see more and more of that coming. When one entity owns several plants, they start to close off departments and whole divisions and spread out work among the plants they own.
Which areas of the steel mill did you work in?
I hired into the steel producing department which housed our basic oxygen furnace, the ladle metallurgy facility, caster, and slab dimensioning facility. Basically, I worked in one big department that had several different subgroups. And I spent a majority of my career in the basic oxygen furnace area.
Were you handling molten pools of metal in the basic oxygen furnace?
We were very much dealing with molten metal in the basic oxygen furnace. That's where the molten iron is poured into the scrap. We melt the scrap down and then add different alloys tailored to our different customers. Where I worked, our big customer was pipe. We also made a lot of steel for the automotive industry and other specialty steels for appliances and things of that nature. We always had some kind of product mix going on. Indiana Harbor West seemed to be a specialty shop where we made a lot of high-dollar complex grades of steel.
Has anyone ever asked you so many questions about your career?
Probably not as in depth. I think a lot of people are fascinated by the steelmaking process. And I have to agree. I lived it and I loved it. And to this day, I still do. The process never got old for me. And part of what was really unique, and what I really appreciate, is how I started at the bottom as a laborer actually sweeping the floors. I learned the entire process from start to finish. As a mobile equipment operator, I fed the production line by stacking the alloys. As a bricklayer, I lined our steel ladles with refractory. As a vesselman, I worked on the furnace floor and learned how to make specific grades of steel by adding different alloys and controlling the heat; I got to stand in front of the furnace at 3,000 degrees and stick a probe in it to test where our chemistry was. As a separator, I got to physically control those furnaces. I had done almost everything out there – I poured the steel into ladles, I ran overhead cranes – and I eventually got to keep the place running and fix our machinery.
And when I got involved with ladle repair, that just felt like home. It is where I did all of the structural work on the 23 ladles we had at the time. It was my job to take care of all of those ladles. And it was really fun work. And knowing it from top to bottom, you would think it would get old and boring and uninteresting, but to me, that was never the case; and still to this day, I get butterflies when I think about it. It’s something that a very small percentage of our population gets to see and experience. It’s fascinating.
Did you work with any other women in the steel mill?
When I was hired in 1999, I had just turned 22 years old. And the whole experience, the whole environment, was brand new to me. I was the only female in my department. However, there were a few women in other departments. But it seems like they sent most of the women to the finishing side instead of the primary side. A lot of the women I worked with were crane operators or mobile equipment operators. Over my career span, over 20 years, I've seen more and more women hired and performing more diverse work. Women were no longer only running overhead cranes or driving forklifts around – the ‘female friendly’ positions – they were out there getting dirty and doing the hard work as well.
What was it like inside the steel mill? What does it look like? What does it feel like? How big is it? Is it hot or cold, or both?
This is a long answer. I got to see the steel mill after the heydays had passed. So, from the inside, it looks like the skeletal remains of a company. You would almost not know it's still functioning, because where there used to be 15,000 - 20,000 employees, there are now only 3,000 employees. Granted, the steelmaking process has changed a lot since the ’70s; with the introduction of continuous casters and the basic oxygen furnace, open hearth furnaces were no longer needed, and functions were streamlined over time. You’re left with an expanse of emptiness, shells of buildings and facilities, an industrial tumbleweed kind of look. It’s as bare industrial as you can get. When I think about what my department was like, I recall my first time traveling on a crane repair trolley. So, I'm basically in the rafters of the building looking down over the production area where molten iron was being poured into ladles and gondolas were being filled with scrap metal to load into the basic oxygen furnace, and there’s noise and smoke and fire, and looking down on all of that, I felt like I was on a carnival ride in hell.
And a byproduct of making steel is dirt. Everything is completely covered in dirt – even new metal, it's brown like everything else. If it's not glowing orange, it's brown. And when you're walking, you're walking through layers – probably inches – of dust and dirt, even though it's swept daily. And if you go up to higher levels, you come into contact with different alloys on different floors. We had conveyors that brought up lime because lime was a big addition to the basic oxygen furnace. The white lime powder then mixed with all of the ash. It was everywhere.
Naturally, there's a lot of heat from molten metal, and spring through fall, everything was really hot, especially because of the PPE we had to wear – layers of flame-retardant clothing. Those of us who dealt with molten metal, or were anywhere near it, had to wear a base layer of non-flammable CarbonX. So, you had pants and a shirt, the CarbonX layer, then our flame-retardant welding jackets. And if you dealt with the molten metal on the furnace floor, you had to also put on a big silver jacket. We were constantly in layers of clothing, no matter what the temperature was.
Our building was at least 200 feet tall and made of corrugated steel, so it retained the cold, the wind, the frigid conditions of winter on Lake Michigan. And you might think, “How could you be cold if there's hot steel that’s 3,000 degrees right next to you?” But it's very much a reality.
Wow. It sounds like you were regularly exposed to particulate matter. How did you remain safe in this environment?
It was not a healthy environment. I think about when I was hired in and signed those papers as a 22-year-old, I was elated. To get that job, I felt like I was set for life. I knew that as long as I worked there, I was going to have good pay and good benefits. And I would provide a good life for my family. I knew I was setting up my future.
At the same time, I also realized I was going into a very unhealthy environment and that I was trading the quality of life of my later years for a quality of life that I could provide in the moment. I knew there was a give and take here, but it was one I was willing to make. And I think everyone who hired in had the same expectations. You heard stories of people retiring and not living six months to a year after retirement because they died of cancer or lung conditions. You kind of knew that could be in your future. But in the meantime, you knew you were going to live very well and your family was going to be taken care of. So yes, I would say over 20 years, my health has declined. At the age of 40, I was diagnosed with work-related asthma. I've had two sinus surgeries in the past seven years, and lots of respiratory and sinus issues. There are a lot of particulates, you’re breathing in a lot of things. Almost everything consumable-wise in the steelmaking process has silica in it, which has been directly linked to cancer. So, I think I won’t know for some time about the damage that might have been done.
What did you like most about being a steelworker?
I had a lot of pride as a United Steelworker, I really did. I enjoyed my job. I like physical work, and it was like multitasking for me: I would go to work, sweat and get a workout. And I was getting paid and loving what I did. And I felt this enormous sense of pride that I'm helping manufacture American steel, hopefully for American products, and I’m helping keep manufacturing alive in this country. I really enjoyed it.
What did you like least about it?
It’s a 24/7 operation, so you would have to work holidays and sometimes miss out on Christmas morning with your kids. Because of the schedule, you had a bit of give and take with your family life.
Did you ever work nights?
I did. During my first few years I worked what was called the Timken schedule – day, afternoon, and night shifts on rotation, and every three months your rotation gave you a consecutive Saturday and Sunday off. I felt like I never had any time off. It was very hard to live a normal life. Then, after some time, they went to an alternative working schedule where we worked 12-hour rotating shifts, which was a more family-friendly schedule, but you were still scheduled on holidays and still working a lot of weekends.
When I went into maintenance, I had enough seniority to get a daytime maintenance job without a rotating shift. So, the last 12 years of my career I was on a daytime schedule but I did work occasional night shifts for emergency call outs, or for overtime. Some people love working nights, but I never did. I never was able to adjust to the sleeping pattern.
What were you earning as a steelworker?
I made just over $26 an hour. We also had a production bonus of typically 20% or more, which put me right in the low $30s per hour.
Steelworkers have always had really good healthcare because of the quality of life we give up to do the job. Our wages may not be as high as other union scale, but our healthcare was wonderful. We didn't pay out of pocket premiums, and we actually sacrificed some of our raises on contracts to keep our healthcare.
What did your income as a steelworker afford you?
I considered it a mediocre income, because the other craft trades made around $10 or more per hour. They may have to pay a little more for healthcare, but their wages were significantly higher than ours. What made our job more lucrative was the availability of overtime, it seems that we were more and more short-handed as the years progressed. And the opportunity to work overtime was readily available most of the year. It's very easy to make six-figures. There were people making over $200,000 a year by basically living at work and working overtime every day. That kind of scale in Indiana provided you the ability to drive a nice car, buy a nice home, have nice clothes, take vacations, have toys, boats, motorcycles, whatever your interest or hobby, but you also needed time off to enjoy it. So there had to be some kind of balance.
How many hours, on average, were you working per week?
I always think of myself as a mother before anything, so my children always come first. I raised my kids hands-on, I didn’t have people raising them for me. My ability to work overtime was affected by my daughters’ schedules: what kind of activities they were in, when they were going to be with their dad. I typically worked Monday through Friday between 7 a.m. - 3 p.m. Then I would come home, drive the girls to their after-school activities for about three hours, and then make dinner, go grocery shopping, or whatever else before going to bed, getting up, and doing it all over. And I would work double shifts on the weekends as my girls were typically with their dad. I averaged anywhere from 55 to 70+ hours a week. I would only take one day off a month, usually a Saturday, to do something specifically with my girls. I called them adventure days where we would do something we never did before, go somewhere we never went before, or do something we all really like to do together.
Why did you choose to leave Northwest Indiana for Southern California in early 2020?
Things changed substantially for me. I left the steel mill as an in-house employee in 2018, though I continued to work in the steel mill in 2019 as a journeyman Millwright contractor. Then in Summer 2019, I came out to California to test the job market. I had been contacted by San Bernardino Valley College and they kind of recruited me and opened my eyes to the prospect of becoming an instructor, which was a role I never saw myself in. The closest exposure I had to it was attending the single-day workshops you held for Women Who Weld in California and it really intrigued me. So, I came out to explore opportunities and I was getting phone calls left and right, whereas I was applying for jobs in Indiana and nothing happened. I was physically knocking on doors and it just wasn't happening. But in California, companies were offering to fly me out for interviews, the climate was very different.
Also, my experiences at FABTECH – working the booths with ESAB and meeting students – it really changed my whole thought process. I always thought of myself as just the worker, the minion, the one who does the dirty work and gets things done until I started meeting the younger generation, especially females, and seeing how they were experiencing a lot of the same challenges and hardships I faced. And as a female with experience under my belt, it's kind of my duty to look out for the younger generation and help them come up. And if I can make their path a little bit easier than mine was, I would like to do that.
You will make a great welding instructor as you're knowledgeable and personable and you have so much experience in the industry. I think it's a really good path for you.
I appreciate that. And, I want you to understand that you are a big influence of mine; I find the work you do so inspiring. And it helps me starting out on this path to have wonderful connections, such as yourself, but also throughout the welding community: all the amazing educators, such as Jody Collier, Bob Moffatt, Jason Becker, and Scott Raabe.
Are you happy you moved to Southern California?
Yes, absolutely. The weather here is unbeatable, sunshine 365 days a year. After dealing with the harsh winters in the Midwest, that part alone is worth the move. But I miss the industry we have in the Midwest; we are the hub of the country. I miss that hard, heavy work. It's not as readily available here. California is a green state, so there are obviously no gas furnaces and primary steel operations. But there is work in the mines if one feels the need to get really dirty again. And I believe there's a lot of opportunity, a lot of growth, and so many different avenues for welding here, though a lot of them involve traveling instead of being in one place like in the Midwest.
But what I really like about Southern California, especially here in Coachella Valley, is how the arts are embraced. Metal art in particular, you see it in the entry gates and doorways of homes. You see it in public, in the streets. There's art everywhere you look.
What are your hobbies outside of welding?
Since I moved to Southern California, hiking. I absolutely love getting out into these beautiful mountains and being able to explore the environment and just appreciate the beauty of where I live.
ESAB is a large welding equipment manufacturer and you’re a member of their ‘Elite Team’ – what does this membership entail?
The ESAB marketing team picked each member because each of us use ESAB products and have a diversity of skill sets. Everyone on the team is very close; we learn from one another and support each other. We also provide a lot of input and feedback to ESAB about their products. And we represent ESAB at industry events like FABTECH, where we answer questions about the products and demonstrate them on the floor.
What process of welding do you primarily engage in?
I enjoy stick welding the most, it’s the process I started with. It was a skill that took me a while to master but I really enjoy it, more so than MIG welding. I feel like I need more time with MIG to get it as aesthetically pleasing as I'd like it to be. I want to learn TIG welding because I think it's an art in itself and it's so beautiful.
You have been a welder for 13 years, when was the first time you welded alongside other women?
Your workshop in California in 2019 was the first time I actually welded with other women.
That’s amazing. How did it feel to weld alongside other women for the first time?
There are a lot of female welders out there, but when you talk to us individually, we never really get the chance to experience what working side-by-side with another female welder feels like. It's rare when it happens. So, when we get to do that for the first time, there's a feeling of elation. It feels like progress, like we're going somewhere. And there is a feeling of camaraderie; because it's something we're comfortable doing alongside men, but when you get together with other women, there's just a whole different feel to it. It's definitely a happy feeling.
Most participants in our introductory and intensive welding training programs have never welded before. What was it like to participate in one of our introductory workshops as an experienced welder?
My interest in attending the workshop was to support what you do because I cannot stress enough how thankful I am for the work that you do. I think it's amazing how you help change the course of lives for so many women. I really have so much faith and so much support in Women Who Weld, I think it's just an amazing organization; and, I got to weld around other women for the first time! I also don't have a lot of experience with MIG welding so it was fun to do that, because what I've done was big, heavy flux-core welding with 0.125” wire, which is basically like welding with a coat hanger. There were so many new things going on for me!
I was also interested in seeing what it was like for women who were trying welding for the first time; to see someone potentially change their life by learning a new skill, and the energy and positivity it brings to the workshops. Whether someone is at the workshop considering welding as a career, a hobby, or for no other reason than to just try welding – there is so much good in it.
Do you have advice for women who may be interested in pursuing a career in steelwork or welding?
Don’t let anything get in your way. You may have trepidation or doubts in the back of your mind, but don’t let those little voices get to you – go out and do it and have confidence in what you do. If there's anything in your mind that could possibly hold you back from what you want to do, reach out to somebody for support, because we're here to help.
“From the time I struck my first arc, I thought, ‘This is it.’ It opened up so many doors for me, and really, it changed everything.”
What are your future career aspirations?
I see myself almost where I'm at right now; I would like to continue to teach and bring welding education here to Coachella Valley. It’s a fundamental and necessary skill that a lot of people are interested in learning, but they currently have to travel outside of the Coachella Valley for it.
I also really want to create; I have a lot of creative metalwork ideas that I want to make happen. I have these big projects that I plan and visualize in my head, and I want to bring them to life.
If you weren't a welder, which career path may you have chosen?
I really don't know where I would be without welding, because not only was it my career, it became my passion. And it still is to this day. It's like a therapy for me, I can get lost in what I'm doing. Similar to hiking, I can get out of my head and look at the bigger picture and escape. The same thing happens when I'm welding something: I have total focus on what I'm doing and I escape any worries or problems I'm having. Without that release, I really don't know. I've had a lot of personal obstacles over the years and welding helped me through them.