With her Welding Women Syndicate, Tiffany Orff hopes to bring diversity to the shop.

Tiffany Orff is hard to locate. She is usually behind the closed gate leading to what the locals know as “the old Salinas shop” in the industrial part of town, right by the Salinas Municipal Airport.

There are several old trucks ready to be restored, and Eminem’s “Bitch Please 2” blasting from the speakers. Set your assumptions aside: This shop is being run by a mother of three.

“I was always into cars,” says Orff, who in April 2022 kicked off a project called Welding Women Syndicate, a welding school catering mostly, but not exclusively, to women and youth. Since then she has developed a few options to bring people into the fold, starting with events such as Welding then Wine, where participants get a hands-on demonstration in welding a wine rack or holder.

Orff provides hoods, safety glasses and gloves. Classes are $65 per person. She also offers The Exploratory Academy program, a multi-hour welding workshop – she recently had members of a car club in San Jose take part – as well as private classes.

Coming from a blue-collar family, Orff grew up in Southern California with her older brother and his friend as guides. There were always car parts around. But it was not until she got married and joined a car club that her interest in welding deepened.

Eventually, Orff divorced and met another man who had an auto shop with welding access. Soon, they moved to Arkansas and opened a shop, combining repair work and welding.

“I feel so powerful when working with fire,” Orff says, “like a superhuman.”

Orff earned her official credentials after studying welding in Texas. By then she already understood the industry’s unofficial “red tape” – women just not being let in.

“I was the only woman among the students,” she says. But that didn’t stop her from learning the trade thoroughly. “It takes time to get it even and structurally correct and according to the code,” Orff says about the art of welding. “It needs to be done right, because that’s someone else’s life. People don’t realize how many things welders put their hands on – elevators, bridges. You can’t just slap things together.”

Orff moved back to California and even taught college-level welding in San Diego. Then she met another man with another shop, this time in Salinas. She decided to open her welding school – much needed, she says – in this community.

“This is an agriculture center of the world and welding is needed to build it. They could be building machines instead of picking berries,” she says of her students. As for what they take away: “They can go to SpaceX or open their own shop.”

“I don’t even have to go far for my metal scraps,” Orff adds, pointing out to Valley Fabrication Inc. on the other side of the street, where custom harvesting machines are manufactured.

The first documented welder was Glaucus of Chios, described by Herodotus in the fifth century BCE. Welding was used in the construction of the iron pillar of Delhi, erected in India about 310 CE (it weighed 5.4 metric tons). Since the Middle Ages, welding has revolutionized the world, but the art has become niche, specialized and continues to be male-dominated. Orff would like to change that.

“So far the youngest person was 13, the oldest… maybe 55,” she says of her workshop participants.

Before opening the school, Orff set up space where her partner, Jeff Spence of Kustoms by Spence, is running a hotrod shop, building custom automotive projects. She has a bunch of work stations for students in back. Sponsors sent tools and Orff has all the personal protective equipment needed.

In addition to classes, she has been advocating online for welding women, gathering thousands of reviews on her videos and being interviewed.

“I would like for women to try it instead of a yoga class,” she says. “To learn a valuable trade in a mindful space.”

For more on the WELDING WOMEN SYNDICATE, visit weldingwomensyndicate.com.