Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16U.S. Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, San Diego, CA, (since 2009) Program focus: Welding VIP Training Site: BLDG 1279 Camp Pendleton, CA 92055 Instructors: Sonny Castillo and Danny Cornejo Contact for applications: Marine and Family Programs Career Center, BLDG 13150 Skills Development Program Phone: (760) 725-6517 Find Your Future: 14 My goal when working with apprentices is for them to have my job one day. I want them to be field leaders. e VIP graduates oen have a lot of leadership qualities, so it’s a natural fit for them. I was in an apprentice class of ’79. I’ve always been in the Denver area. I still jump up every morning and am excited to go to work. What I love about this job is, of course, the pay and benefits, espe- cially as I get older, but I also love mentoring the younger generation—the apprentices. I am an in- structor as well. It’s my passion. “I’ve done some pretty cool stuff during my time as a pipefitter. I’ve built flight simulators. It was all hydraulic piping, some of which came from Great Britain, so we had to integrate it with our pipe. e best part of that job was they let us try the simulator. We were terrible! I did a job at Lockeed Martin in ’92. It was really fast paced, and I feel like that was my defining job. It was a data facility, and we still do work for them there. It’s not that there was anything particu- larly special about that job, but we were a small crew, and we just ripped it up, and I made life- long friends on that job—that was one we were all proud of. Looking back, this has been a great career. I’ve raised a family and it’s just such a vast trade that you can go in a million different direc- tions with it. I’m a third-generation pipefitter and it was always my plan to follow in those footsteps and I’m very glad I did.” CAREERops Tim Richter Field Operations Superintendent, Braconier Mechanical & Plumbing, Local 208, Denver, CO Mentoring VIPs is an Important Part of the Program