Fergus Falls Vocational Program KSS Marks 30 Years During National Welding Month

The coincidence is striking: in 1996, the same year Kennedy Secondary School launched its welding program, the American Welding Society designated April as National Welding Month. Thirty years later, both milestones land in the same spring, and the alignment underscores just how much Otter Tail County has riding on that shop floor.

KSS, the combined middle and high school serving more than 2,000 students at 601 Randolph Ave. in Fergus Falls, has built its welding curriculum as part of a career and technical education track that treats the skilled trades as a legitimate post-secondary pathway alongside a four-year degree. The institution backs that commitment through a weighted grading system at Fergus Falls High School that recognizes industry-certified courses on par with advanced academics, a signal that welding credentials carry real institutional weight within the district.

The urgency behind the 30-year celebration shows up directly in the regional job market. Positions requiring MIG and TIG certifications have appeared across Otter Tail County, from fabrication roles at area manufacturers to skilled openings at Otter Tail Power Company and heavy equipment operations at firms like Mark Sand & Gravel in Fergus Falls. Nationally, the American Welding Society projects roughly 330,000 new welding professionals will be needed by 2028, with an estimated 80,000 positions going unfilled each year as experienced tradespeople retire. The Bureau of Labor Statistics places the median annual wage for welders at $51,000, with entry-level workers frequently starting above $45,000 — wages that compete directly with many four-year degree paths.

For a county where agriculture, construction, and manufacturing form the economic backbone, those unfilled positions carry tangible costs. Farm equipment that breaks down during planting season, fabrication orders that slow production floors, and infrastructure maintenance that overextends contractor schedules all trace back to the same shortage: not enough trained welders moving through the pipeline. KSS's annual career fair, which connects students with vocational training, apprenticeship programs, and skilled trades careers, has served as a front-line response to that gap. The event was suspended entirely in 2020 due to COVID-19 and offered in a modified format in 2021, losses that sharpened awareness of how much the fair contributes to the district's workforce development mission.

The American Welding Society set this year's National Welding Month theme as "Celebrating Welding Since 1996," a phrase that doubles as a summary of KSS's own arc. AWS created the April recognition to build awareness of the trade and the professionals whose work underpins bridges, energy infrastructure, and transportation systems. Three decades in, the KSS welding program functions as a direct answer to that mission: training students for jobs that exist now, in Otter Tail County, where the demand is real and every seat in the shop counts.