Welder preparing for SkillsUSA competition

State champion welder Ryan Fincher, a Cedartown High School graduate, hopes to make it all the way to an international competition next year in the United Arab Emirates.

CEDARTOWN — Welding student and Cedartown High School graduate Ryan Fincher has a big task ahead of him this weekend in Huntsville, Alabama, as he strives to become one of three that can move onto international competition and a trip overseas.

Fincher, who has been going to Georgia Northwestern Technical College after he graduated in 2015, was invited as one of more than 60 from across the country to participate in the 2017 SkillsUSA World Team selection competition.

Earlier this week, Fincher headed to Huntsville to participate in the latest round of competition to see who would make it to the final three against other competitors from around the country.

He’s been busy welding up projects and sending off work to judges in preparation for getting through the latest round of cutting the field from six competitors to three.

Fincher’s most challenging and favorite project thus far has been a pressure vessel that can hold 1,000 pounds per square inch of compressed air. Kevin Myrick / Polk County Standard Journal

He’s had the help of teachers and friends along the way, and though he’s mostly had to pay for the competition out of pocket, some recent donations from Southeastern Hose Inc. out of Bremen, and an individual from Holston Gases in Rome have helped defray costs.

Fincher was a two-time state welding champion as a junior and senior in high school and is looking forward to the chance to make it all the way through to the international competition. There he will not only get a chance to work with past national and international competitors, who have mastered welding, but travel to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates in October 2017.

It also comes with a $40,000 scholarship from the American Welding Society if he wins the international competition, something he wants badly.

He will first have to make it to the TeamUSA finals in February after this weekend’s competition in Huntsville. polkstandardjournal.com