Sprinkler Fitters Local 483 Training Center
Organized Labor
Wayne Vinther, Instructor
When I first started I had long hair and all the old fitters would take one look at me and say, "My God, this new generation is really going to hell." Now I get these guys coming in here with the baggy pants down to here, and all I can think of is, "My God, the trade is really going to hell." But as long as these guys show up on time, ready to learn everything they can, and work as hard as they can, then everything turns out all right. So the one thing that's true is everything has changed and everything is the same.
The hardest thing about teaching these guys is staying ahead of them. They are always asking questions, and you have to really do your homework to know the answers. When I started there were only a handful of sprinkler heads, and they were either uprights or pendants. Now we have hundreds of different types and all the other parts of the system are changing as well. It's a lot more technical, and a lot more to learn.
When I first started, the apprenticeship program was a mail order correspondence course from Penn State. You really didn't learn much. You'd fill out a lesson and send it in and wait for the results. You'd hope the next lesson would explain what you needed to know on the job. My father was a shop foreman at a sprinkler fitter company and my older brother was a designer and my other brother was a sprinkler fitter. I graduated from high school on Friday and went to work in a shop on Saturday.