Your trusted source for community news
At an age when most of his classmates were preparing for dorm rooms and debt, Brendan Curran was welding pipe and building his business network. He had already custom-built a truck bed designed for pipeline work and was chasing jobs by the side of the road, flagging down foremen and offering his number.
“I guess I’ve always had a little problem with authority,” he said, laughing. “I just like the freedom of choosing my own path.”
The 18-year-old R.L. Turner High School graduate now runs his own welding business, specializing in combo pipe welding. From repairing a fence at a Boy Scout camp to installing infrastructure at an aquatics facility, Curran is learning to build both structures and a livelihood in a country that often overlooks the value of skilled labor.
“I’ve always liked doing things with my hands,” he said. “Once I got into welding, I just fell in love with the work.”
His entry into the trade world came through a fluke of curiosity. As a freshman in Turner’s engineering class, Curran was designing ramps for remote-controlled cars when welding instructor Amanda Potter invited him to fabricate them in her shop. Instead of slapping something together, he fired up CAD software and drafted a full design. That initiative won her over and hooked Curran.
“I wasn’t even in the class yet,” he said. “But every time I finished my work early, they let me go back to the shop.”
By sophomore year, he enrolled full time in the welding program and never looked back.
Curran specializes in combo welding, which involves multiple techniques to fuse pipe in various positions, which demands a high degree of precision and skill.
Now certified and mobile, Curran travels to job sites, taking on contracted work wherever he can find it. His truck is more than just a vehicle; it’s a self-made platform for his future.
“I feel very grateful that I had Boy Scouts and school programs like this,” he said. “But I always want things to move faster than they do.”
Curran doesn’t appear impatient. He comes off as driven. He spent years as a youth leader in the Boy Scouts welding merit badge program and still volunteers to teach. When he saw a damaged fence at a Scout camp, he offered to fix it for free. That pro bono work led to his first real contract job.
“It was good publicity,” he admitted. “But I also just like helping out.”
That spirit has helped him land more work through word-of-mouth, including projects at other Scout properties. He’s currently reaching out to pipeline crews and traveling worksites, hoping to build a reputation one weld at a time.
And yet, his story stands out precisely because it is now so rare.
America faces a growing skilled labor shortage. According to the National Association of Home Builders, 80 percent of construction firms report difficulty finding qualified workers. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that more than 1.9 million job openings in the skilled trades will emerge annually over the next decade due to retirements and demand.
Meanwhile, high school programs that once funneled students into trades, from woodshop to welding, have been slashed in favor of college preparatory paths. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the number of schools offering CTE courses has declined significantly since the 1990s.
R.L. Turner High School had an exception, thanks to teachers like Potter and Leo Garcia, both of whom came from industry, not academia.
“They taught us real-world application stuff,” Curran said. “They didn’t just teach us to pass a test. They pushed us.”
But Curran is keenly aware that this kind of education is increasingly rare.
“I mean, our school motto was ‘College, Career, and Military Ready,’” he said. “But there’s no trade in there. Trades got left out.”
It’s not just institutional neglect. It’s cultural. As anthropologist David Graeber wrote in his 2018 book “Bullshit Jobs,” modern economies have manufactured vast sectors of work that serve no real purpose other than to perpetuate bureaucratic structures and extract value. In contrast, Graeber argued, manual and care labor is often underpaid and socially undervalued despite being essential.
“The moral and spiritual damage that comes from this situation is profound,” Graeber wrote. “It is a scar across our collective soul.”
Curran feels that divide every day.
“All the infrastructure in the world, it’s there because of tradespeople,” he said. “But people push that aside nowadays.”
Curran is grateful for what he learned in the welding shop, but he said his most important lessons came from outside the classroom.
“Boy Scouts taught me how to talk to people, how to lead, how to be responsible,” he said. “School didn’t really teach me that.”
He noted that extracurriculars, not academics, prepared him for the real world. “It was all the other stuff. School gave me some of the skills, but it was the leadership roles, the camps, the merit badges, that made me ready to talk business.”
But leaving high school also meant losing the structure and support of mentors. That’s a challenge he hadn’t fully anticipated.
“I said I wanted to choose my own path,” he said. “I just didn’t know how hard that would be. Now I’ve got to figure it all out on my own.”
For Curran, success isn’t about prestige or flashy titles. His dreams are simple and hard-earned.
“I’d feel successful if I could support a family,” he said. “That’s what matters most. That and land. I want land. Horses. A range. Freedom.”
When he’s not working, Curran is usually outdoors with his dog, Novel, a German shepherd mix he adopted from his welding instructor. He trains her off-leash and takes her to hardware stores and campgrounds. He also enjoys camping with his girlfriend, who recently joined him on a trip to the Wichita Mountains.
He hopes to one day work pipeline jobs in Alaska or rural Texas. “I like being on the road,” he said. “I like the idea of going where the work is.”
Until then, he’s hustling for contracts, showing up at sites, shaking hands and offering to help. Sometimes that means volunteering. Sometimes that means knocking on truck windows on the side of the highway.
“You never know where it’ll lead,” he said.
Asked what advice he would give other students unsure of their future, Curran kept it simple.
“Find something real. Something that builds. That lasts.”
Local News Matters.
