Virtual Welder Used by Outstanding Councilor to Train Shipbuilders

The task of training thousands but with meager funding, TOCP needed to come up with the solution of imparting the all important skill in welding: the eye – hand coordination. Virtual Welding Trainor

The city councilor who introduced an innovative approach using the “virtual welder trainor” and who created www.sangunian.com with its full listings of City Ordinances and Sanggunian Resolutions starting from 1959 up to the present, both first in the Philippines, is nominated in the 2009 Search for the Outstanding Councilors of the Philippines.

With the task of training thousands of youths but with meager funding, Coun. Piano needed to come up with the solution of imparting the all important skill in welding: the eye – hand coordination. A steady hand is an ultimate necessity if a worker intends to produce high quality welds. But the prohibitive cost of consumable welding electrodes, mild steel plates for practice and the cost of electricity could drain funding and eventually stop the training program, a situation more costly and will deprive those who wish to learn the trade and thus, making their dreams of becoming a shipbuilder unrealized.

The opportunity is within reach but the stumbling block appears insurmountable that as a leader, Coun. Piano must think fast and come up with an effective yet cost-efficient solution to the problem.

He utilized today’s latest tool to look for solution… the internet, and learned that advanced nations are now using a VIRTUAL WELDER TRAINOR. An offshoots of flight simulators which already saved hundreds of lives not to mention immeasurable cost savings to both the airline industry and the military.

But the Virtual Welding Trainor invented in the U.S.A. was so expensive that only the U.S. Navy and U.S. Army were able to afford it.

Ed Piano studied the concept behind the US invented virtual welder trainor and using his long years of experience in the trade (himself started as a welder in the Ship Repair Facilities (SRF) of the former US Naval Base), adopted a local version at minimal cost but with the same effectiveness as proven by the more than eight thousand trainees who have used it.

As Chairman of the Committee on Labor and Employment, he crafted ordinances to establish skills training centers and personally provided welding skills training to 9,712 unemployed and out-of-school youth at minimal cost to the government. He helped find employment for 8,802 of them, thereby providing economic security and enhancing the lives of thousands of families not only in the city but nationwide as well.

The search for The Outstanding Councilors of the Philippines (TOCP) emphasizes the vital role that local governance plays in nation building. It is a joint project of the Junior Chamber International-Philippines, the Philippine Councilors League and the Office of Senator Edgardo Angara.

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FULL SUPPORT: Olongapo City Mayor James Gordon, Jr., Zambales Vice-Governor Anne Marie Gordon, the Sangguniang Panlungsod, NGOs and local Jaycees represented by Atty. Lito Orozco for JCI-Olongapo and JC Senator Rudy Dalluay for JCI-Subic gives a "thumbs-up" sign showing support to Councilor Edwin J. Piano on his nomination to the 2009 Search for the Outstanding Councilors of the Philippines