Photo: (L-R) Brian Dempsey, Stan Vogelsang, Bob Chalfa, Steven Nuñez, Susan Josephson, WFW Founder and CEO Hernán Luis y Prado who is also a member of Rotary Club 33, Old Mission Rotary President Cesar Cervantes, Aryanna Edwards, Don Krupp who coordinated our excellent lunch, Gary John Collins, Art Pratt Foundation President Eric Benink and Matt Risi.
On Tuesday, August 25th members of Old Mission Rotary toured the three buildings that house Workshops for Warriors (WFW), a San Diego nonprofit school that prepares veterans and transitioning service members for careers in advanced manufacturing that make up the facility and learned about their accelerated training programs in welding and CNC machining.
CNC machining is an automated manufacturing process where pre-programmed computer software directs factory tools to remove material from a solid block. They enjoyed presentations by Development Coordinator Yolanda Lopez-Rettew and by Javier Aguirre who is a recent graduate and Welding Teaching Assistant.
In 2013, the late and great Old Mission Rotary Rotarian Bob James was doing a commercial real estate appraisal on a building on Main Street by the Naval Station and discovered that it housed a unique technical training school for veterans called Workshops for Warriors (WFW). Bob was so impressed that he urged the founder and CEO, Hernán Luis y Prado, to apply for an Art Pratt Foundation grant. The request for $20,000 was approved in record time and Old Mission Rotary has been a proud supporter of the organization ever since.
Workshops for Warriors was founded in 2008 and is a State-licensed, board governed, fully audited 501(c)(3) nonprofit school. Over the years WFW has graduated 1776 veterans, having received 720,057 hours of hands-on training and earned a total of 22,947 manufacturing credentials. 1459 graduates have been placed in full-time jobs.
The most recent grant from the Art Pratt Foundation of $10,000 supported the building of a new welding training workstation. By December 2026, WFW will have 50 new welding workstations allowing future cohorts the tools they need to turn hands on practice into industry certification during their 16-week semesters.
The mission of Workshops for Warriors is to provide accredited STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) educational programs and opportunities to earn third party nationally recognized credentials to enable veterans, transitioning service members and other students to be successfully trained and placed in their chosen advanced manufacturing career field.
WFW is different from typical vocation schools in that students are certified with invaluable industry credentials as part of the program. These credentials are so much in demand that employers frequently hire WFW students even before they graduate. Many manufacturing corporations hire from job fairs at the facility. Examples include BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Caterpillar, Tesla and even SPACEX.
Workshops for Warriors understand that most veterans are struggling after transitioning out of the military and need assistance if they are to participate in their demanding training programs. What is truly extraordinary is that WFW provides direct assistance to vets with scholarships, housing, food pantry, clothing closet, financial literacy instruction, resume building, mental health counseling and mentorship.
Workshops for Warriors can proudly boast that they are rebuilding American manufacturing one warrior at a time!