Apprentice brings international award to Henderson

By Jeff Pope

Saturday, April 25, 2009 | 1 a.m.

It’s the mantra of coaches everywhere – practice, practice, practice.

It proved to be the right approach for Evan Goldberg as the fifth-year apprentice for Sheet Metal Local No. 88 won the 2009 International Sheet Metal Apprentice Competition.

Goldberg, 26, of Henderson, is the first valley resident ever to win the highest award in the industry for an apprentice.

He competed against the top-ranked welders from 12 regions in the United States and Canada in Minneapolis over several days in late March.

After finishing the competition in seventh place last year, Goldberg set his sights on the top ranking this year, spending nearly every day for three months studying and practicing during every free moment.

Goldberg practiced at the union’s training facility in North Las Vegas on his own time when he wasn’t reading a library of books on the subject at home, he said.

“I went through all our curriculum front to back, rewriting all the notes, using a voice recorder and listening to it while I was at lunch,” he said. “I basically lived sheet metal for three months straight.”

Instructors at the training facility gave Goldberg advice and tests he could do to practice.

He finished first at the Jan. 17 regional competition in San Diego against hundreds of apprentices but was unopposed in the local area competition, in part because his skills are renowned in the local industry.

“Mr. Goldberg has quite the welding reputation down here,” said Dan Rose, training director for Sheet Metal Local 88. “I don’t think anybody wanted to battle the big buck.”

At the international level, competitors were judged on plan inspections, a written test of sheet metal knowledge, sketching and a hands-on welding test.

Going into the international competition, Goldberg said he felt his book knowledge was his strength and the physical project would challenge him the most.

It turned out the opposite was true.

“The written was the one thing I knew, the answers were there,” he said. “It’s kind of deceiving because it’s a welding competition. I have no idea what they’re going to make me build. The written I knew was going to be coming out of the books.”

The welding portion was typical on an industrial worksite but Goldberg mainly works on stainless steel found in restaurant kitchens, he said.

The first day of the event was shop work. Goldberg said he could see the others' work and felt he did well, even though he finished with just 10 seconds to spare.

During the next two days, he said he was stumped on a few of the written questions and started doubting himself.

He even woke up at 2 a.m. on the last day realizing he made a mistake on his sketching project. While reviewing his notes, he realized he had answered some questions incorrectly.

“My project was on display (at the awards banquet) but my sketching project wasn’t on display. I thought at that time I’d get third,” Goldberg said. “They called third. It wasn’t me. They called second. People said I looked like I was going to pass out.”

But then, his name was called and Goldberg breathed a sigh of relief while his wife, sitting next to him, screamed.

Goldberg won the event by a slim two points. One more wrong question on the exam could have lost him the top spot.

The way the competition is scored, there’s no way to know who is ahead or will win until the last day, Rose said.

“You can’t cheat this competition. You can’t put somebody into first place that shouldn’t be in first place,” he said.

The award helps make Goldberg a household name in the industry, which could open more career doors for him when he graduates in July.

“I don’t know how big of a part it plays in your career. What it does is it makes you better because you put in all that extra time,” he said. “I probably put in enough hours to come to a whole other sixth year of schooling.”

Rose said whatever path Goldberg chooses he will succeed at because he is driven.

“Evan being Evan, he’s just going to be a leader in this industry down the road,” Rose said.

The victory also sheds a positive spotlight on the local union, Rose said, but it’s really more of an individual accomplishment.

“If everybody who went through this training center was at Evan’s level, then we’ve got some unbelievable training going on,” he said. “This was on Evan.”

Rose said the union has had a few second-place finishers before.

It has a chance to repeat its title next year with Peter Proctor, a fourth-year apprentice who placed fourth in the international event.

“You can’t understand how to prepare for it until you go through it once,” Goldberg said. “And the guys who won it had come back from the year prior.”