Chris Cook working on a welding project at Cochise College. (Submitted photo)
SIERRA VISTA — If Chris Cook isn’t eating or sleeping, there’s a good chance you’ll find him somewhere welding.
The Cochise College student won the Arizona SkillsUSA welding competition on March 27 and will go on to compete in Kansas City, Mo., at the National Leadership and Skills Conference in June. It was his second straight state championship, a feat accomplished by a Cochise student one other time about 10 years ago, according to instructor Scott Brown.
“Chris will have been the eighth or ninth Cochise student that’s won it since I’ve been here, and that’s not counting seconds and thirds,” said Brown, who came to the college 15 years ago. “That definitely speaks about the quality of our program.”
Cook’s father, Rick, was also a state champion welder for Cochise College in 1990. The all-day contest includes written tests, welding tests and a cutting test. Cook said the hardest part for him was the written portion, while his favorite parts of the competition were mig and tig welding.
“Mig is one of the easiest, and tig is one of the hardest, but it’s my favorite,” he said. “The appearance of the weld is much cleaner, and it’s really satisfying to get a nice weld out of that.”
Cook will finish up his welding courses at Cochise College at the end of this semester and already has a full-time position as a welder fabricator lined up with TWI in Tombstone. The company offered him a job last summer, and he’s been working there part-time ever since.
Cook goes to work in the early morning, and typically makes it back over to the Sierra Vista Campus welding lab in the Career and Technical Education Building before noon. Last year at the national competition, Cook finished in the middle of the pack out of about 38 other students. This year, he expects better.
“This guy thinks about welding all day,” Brown said. “He’s researching online, telling me things I didn’t know. Not many guys his age dedicate themselves like that.”