First female welder joins exclusive club

FLEMINGSBURG — The Kentucky Welding Institute announced its first-ever female student to become a part of the $100K club.

Rhiannon Howard graduated in October 2021, and did not realize until this year that she made $100,000 in her first year of work, she said.

This club is already exclusive and to be a part of it you must earn $100,000 your first year out of KWI. Howard explained she showed her pay stubs as proof to KWI and joined the club.

When joining the $100K Club, your old welder hood gets hung in a place of honor on the wall at KWI and the new club member receives a new hood.

Director of the KWI welding program, Ashley Applegate, said Howard is now part of the ‘golden arms’ and made a special mention of Howard as the first female to be a part of the $100K Club when addressing students at a recent event.

“The $100K Club is something we implemented in our first year. That welding trade school graduates can make $100,000 in their first year is like a myth to some people but when we had our first student make $108,000 in their first year we decided that we wanted to do something special, that’s why we retire their old hood and give them a new hood to make their next $100,ooo with,” Applegate said.

Howard said to make the $100K Club she had to work continuously through her first year.

“Luckily, I was given the opportunity by a couple of people to be with the right company and I was able to make it,” Howard said.

According to Howard many high-school graduates who have chosen welding as their career path generally go straight into a welding program after graduating but Howard said she waited a few years after graduating before enrolling in KWI.

“I didn’t know what I wanted to do for a couple of years. I knew I liked working with my hands and that I would probably excel in the trade rather than going to college and finding something else I was interested in. After some research, and a few opportunities to try welding, I fell in love with it and ended up going that route and enrolled in the school and I have loved it ever since,” she said.

An interesting aspect of her job is the many types of projects she gets to be involved in, Howard said she has been working in the nuclear world recently.

“I really enjoy it. There are a lot of nuclear power plants around the country and I have traveled to four or five of them and just done maintenance work or made repairs and I really like it,” Howard said.

Other than the pay other perks to welding are being able to travel and since she mainly works contracts (certain time period until the job is done) she can choose when to take the next job rather than have an inflexible schedule, Howard said she feels like she has a little more freedom with contract jobs. Howard said she has new goals moving forward in her career.

“In the nuclear world, it is a little slower paced and I feel it would challenge me more if I was working somewhere where it is a little more of a fast pace and the quality and standard for it is a little higher. I would like to broaden my work into maybe refineries or something different. I want to keep making money and saving so that eventually maybe I can retire and open my own business and settle down somewhere,” she said.

Howard said she is excited to be the first female welder to become a part of the $100K club and encourages other women to weld if they are interested.

“If there are any women or young girls out there interested in the field, do not let stereotypes or gender bias or anything steer you away from it. I think when I was first interested in the trades I felt it was not very women-friendly and it’s not but it definitely is a great opportunity to make good money doing something that you love. I would encourage anyone who is interested in it to at least try and see if you like it,” she said.

She said women may have to work twice as hard as men in this career field as women are simply built differently than men and it is highly demanding physically but if you love it then the work is worth it.

“In my opinion, it still isn’t anything a woman cannot do, you just have to try a little harder,”she said. “There aren’t a lot of female welders in general so there probably has not been many with the opportunity to become a part of the $100K club. It’s a little hard to look at it and be proud of yourself because you do not want to be to prideful but it is really awesome that I am the first female in the school to ever do that. It’s sometimes hard for me to pat myself on the back but this one is kind of deserving of it,” she said.