Nicole Huelsman

I grew up in the structural steel industry as a third-generation member of my family's business. My path into welding actually started in an unexpected way - I was in art school getting my Associates of Fine Arts in Photography, and one of my classes was a sculpture class. I was broke, so I decided to go to my family's business and teach myself how to weld to make a sculpture out of carbon steel. I had asked my father forever because I wanted to work with the boys, and he told me I was going to get hurt, but then he told me to sit down and figure out how to weld. So I taught myself how to do 5 different weld processes. I spent 12 years in the field welding and hanging iron, and became one of three DOT-certified women welders in the state of Connecticut. I'm a pretty decorated welder now with 12 certifications for different weld processes, which is more than half of the guys in the shop put together. For the last 5 years, I've been in the office working as a project estimator, project manager, and safety officer. I'm either in the office looking at potential jobs and putting together estimates, or I'm on the road helping with safety, or I'm actually hands-on welding in the field with the field crews. I'm now a partner in the company, carrying the torch as the third generation and holding my grandparents' share. Our business is more specialty - we're more industrial and on a world of our own. We're different than most ironwork companies because other ironwork companies just want to get in and hang the iron and get out, but we do things differently.