Notice to Members of Rio Grande Valley Section

To: Members of the Rio Grande Valley Section of the American Welding Society,

Good afternoon all. My name is Reynaldo Rivera, past section chairman and current interim chairman. I have volunteered to temporarily head our section and make it a more active section. For those of you who know me and my method of operations, you will remember I focus more on the future up and coming sector of welders. My focus has not changed and I will work with schools to promote our organization by organizing meetings with speakers who will hopefully stimulate the interest in welding and hopefully in our organization so they may perhaps join us in the future.

That being said I am always open to suggestions for topics for meetings, fund raising ideas, and in general any topic you would like to discuss. I apologize for my late start in getting things going and it will be a quick four months before elections will be held in May. The following is the schedule of meetings that are planned in our section. I hope you will find the time to attend one or all of these meetings and help get this going.

February 19 at 6:30 at South Texas College. This will be at tech campus 3700 W Military McAllen building B room 117. Guest speaker will be Cole Vanselli with a presentation on Submerged Arc Welding

March 25 at 6:30 at Texas State Technical College Harlingen more info on speaker to come

April 23rd at 6:30 at South Texas Vo-Tech Weslaco, Guest speaker will be Wesley Morton from Miller Electric with a presentation on Weld Fume Protection.

May 6 at 6:30 at McAllen Careers. We will hold elections and have end of the season barbecue.

One of the events I am planning is an All Valley Welding Competition and Career Expo. I have many vendors lined up who will be doing demos on equipment. I am working on local businesses and Workforce to hopefully bring in local companies for recruiting and to pass along information. I would like to have a section booth and am looking for volunteers to help pass out information and recruit new members. If you can spare a few hours at any of the events, please let me know the dates and times are as follows.

Upper valley qualifier for schools west of hwy 1015, April 21 at South Texas College. The time of The event will be from 8:00 a.m. until 4 p.m.
Lower valley qualifier for schools east of hwy 1015, April 22 at Texas Southmost College in Brownsville.
Finals to be held at South Texas Vo-Tech Weslaco on April 23rd.

We are hoping to make this an annual event with a rotating schedule of facilities to host them. I am looking forward to getting the section going again and look forward to feedback. If you will be attending any of the meeting please let me know. It will help for planning on the refreshments.

Best Regards,
Reynaldo Rivera
956-867-1331