About Columbus Section

About Columbus Section

The Columbus Section of the American Welding Society is an active group with regular technical meetings, an annual golf outing, and an endowed scholarship. There are about 400 individual members, 16 corporate members, and 7 educational institution members within the 22 Ohio counties that comprise the section’s boundaries. The Columbus Section is within AWS District 7 which covers more than half of Ohio, eastern Indiana, northern Kentucky, most of West Virginia, and southwestern Pennsylvania.

The Columbus Section is a founding member of the Columbus Technical Societies (CTS), a cooperative affiliation of technical organizations in the central-Ohio area. Within CTS there are eight organizations: American Welding Society, ASME International, Society of Women Engineers, ASM International, American Society of Nondestructive Testing, Association of Women in the Metal Industries, The American Ceramic Society, and SME. Each member organization take turns putting on monthly meetings from September through April. There are many benefits to the arrangement including larger audiences that make it feasible to attract higher-caliber speakers, diverse networking opportunities across multiple disciplines, and exposure to new fields. It’s also efficient, saves time and effort for the volunteers who plan meetings, and reduces costs for all member organizations.

The Columbus Section holds a business meeting in May of each year in conformance with the section’s bylaws. The final event of the year is the annual golf outing and social in early June that is always a fun day with good camaraderie.

The Columbus Section Scholarship is the culmination of fiscal discipline by the section’s leadership over the years, a concerted effort in recent years to raise funds for the scholarship, and the leadership’s willingness to go through the endowment process. The scholarship is endowed with the AWS Foundation and will give out over ten thousand dollars in scholarships each year. The scholarships will be awarded to students who demonstrate a focused interest in the field of welding or welding engineering and whose home is within the section’s boundaries.

The AWS Columbus Section is, more than anything else, a great collection of fun and interesting people with a love of welding in all of its forms. The meetings offer information on technical topics and a chance for networking with your peers in the welding, manufacturing, engineering, and related fields. Members, guests and students are always welcome. If you’re not active and engaged, please try coming out to an event or two to see if it’s a good match for you.