Jon Ward, CEO of Ward Vessel and Exchanger, on why welders quit in the first 90 days, how a "people first" culture actually gets built, and why your best welder is rarely your best mentor.

Jon asks a question most shop owners avoid: if a million young people raised their hands tomorrow and said they wanted to work in the skilled trades, would employers actually be ready for them? His answer is blunt. A lot of companies say they'd hire 20 or 40 people tomorrow if they could find them, but most have no system to actually bring that many people on without losing them in the first three months. Ward Vessel and Exchanger builds pressure vessels and heat exchangers that end up in everything from Gorilla Glue to GLP-1 drug manufacturing, and Jon's spent years rebuilding how his company onboards, mentors, and retains welders in two very different labor markets, Charlotte and Houston.

Jon Ward has run Ward Vessel and Exchanger, a family manufacturing business founded in 1982, since taking over leadership of the company. He's built a formal apprenticeship program with NC Works, runs the business on EOS (the Entrepreneurial Operating System), and was named to the UNC Charlotte Board of Trustees in 2026. He also hosts his own podcast, Forged in Focus.

This episode is for anyone building or fixing an onboarding process, any shop owner losing skilled people to bigger paychecks at data center jobs, and anyone who's ever wondered whether their most talented person should actually be the one training the new hires. Jon walks through his three core values, what a real apprenticeship partnership with a workforce agency looks like, and the mastery chart his team is rolling out to make skill progression visible to every welder on the floor.

IN THIS EPISODE

(00:00) – Why the First 90 Days Make or Break a New Hire: Jon explains why the old "pair them with a lead guy and let them figure it out" model fails, and what changes when leadership actually gets involved early.

(03:00) – The Three Core Values Behind a People-First Culture: Passionate, consistent, and selfless, Jon breaks down how Ward hires to these values, fires to them, and built a "people first" ethos around a line he heard on a stage years ago: culture over customers.

(05:00) – Building an Apprenticeship Program With NC Works: How a one-year, state-funded apprenticeship partnership in Mecklenburg County works in practice, and what Jon learned running it with his first apprentice.

(10:00) – What Ward Vessel and Exchanger Actually Builds (and Why Welders Matter): From hair care products to GLP-1 drug manufacturing equipment, Jon explains the products welders touch every day without anyone realizing it, and why 320,000 more welders are needed by 2029.

(19:00) – Why Your Best Welder Isn't Always Your Best Mentor: Jon tells the story of his most productive fabricator ever, a guy who could do a 1,000-hour project in 500 hours and still turned down every promotion to shop foreman.

(42:00) – Competing With the Data Center Boom for Tomorrow's Welders: Why data center construction is pulling skilled workers away with big money, and what a shop can offer that a relocation-required job can't.

Key Takeaways

New hires aren't going to be productive in the first 90 days, and treating that as a reality to plan around instead of a problem to rush through is what separates companies that retain people from ones that don't.

The best technical performer on a team is often the worst fit for mentoring someone new, patience and a genuine desire to take on someone else's problems matter more than raw skill.

A state-funded apprenticeship program can shift a meaningful chunk of a new hire's salary during training, but it only works with a real system behind it, not just goodwill and good intentions.

Shops competing for welders against data center construction jobs can win on stability (no travel, no relocation, steady hours) even when they can't win on raw pay.

About the Guest

Jon Ward is President and CEO of Ward Vessel and Exchanger, a Charlotte, North Carolina-based manufacturer of ASME Code pressure vessels and heat exchangers with a second facility in Houston, Texas. Founded in 1982 as a family business, the company builds equipment used across consumer products, industrial manufacturing, and pharmaceutical production. Jon is a 1994 UNC Charlotte engineering graduate, was appointed to the UNC Charlotte Board of Trustees in 2026, and was named among the Charlotte Business Journal's Most Admired CEOs the same year.

Jon has spent the last several years rebuilding Ward's onboarding, mentorship, and apprenticeship systems around a "people first" ethos built on three values: passionate, consistent, and selfless. He runs the company on EOS (the Entrepreneurial Operating System) and hosts his own podcast, Forged in Focus, where he talks with manufacturing leaders about the future of the industry.

Keywords

skilled trades, first 90 days onboarding, welder shortage, apprenticeship program, mentorship in the trades, employee retention, welding careers, manufacturing careers, NC Works apprenticeship, EOS Entrepreneurial Operating System, trade school vs college, data center construction jobs, Jon Ward, Ward Vessel and Exchanger, pressure vessels, heat exchangers, American Welding Society, Fabtech

RESOURCE LINKS

Jon Ward on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jongward

Ward Vessel and Exchanger Website: https://wardvesselandexchanger.com

Forged in Focus (Jon's podcast): available on Spotify and YouTube

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