Hard (metal) work to academic excellence

Randee Wrobel’s curiosity fills her eyes with tears of protest as her dad, Randy, escorts her out of the garage and locks the door. At four years old, she loves being around while he works on mechanical projects. That day, Randee isn’t allowed to watch her father welding. She wants to ask why.
After finishing up in the garage, her dad shows Randee what he made. Finally, he answers her question, explaining the dangers of watching welding without proper safety equipment: “You’ll go blind,” Randy says.
Randee recalls this memory as the day that piqued her interest in welding. Her fascination with the craft grew over the years she spent working on small-engines, woodwork and, of course, welding with her dad in their garage.

Academic excellence
Sixteen years after her inciting incident, this past spring Randee’s passion for welding was recognized in the form of an Academic Excellence Award from Dunwoody College of Technology in St. Paul. She graduated with an associates degree in welding and metal fabrication.
Faculty members nominate students for this award who demonstrate hard work ethic, leadership qualities and professionalism while maintaining a minimum 3.0 GPA. One to two students from each department are awarded.
Becs Wells was one of the welding professors that nominated Randee. “She was always willing to help her classmates,” Wells said. “We like to uplift those students and show that by giving back to your community, you’re actually making the… place a better whole.”
Wells also emphasized Randee’s dedication to learning. “She’s so curious… and as she got more comfortable in the shop, I watched her gain this confidence of asking more questions, getting more involved,” Wells said. “She also wasn’t scared to be wrong. She’d be like ‘okay, show me.’”
Wells believes Randee’s soft skills will be a strength for her future career. “She’s really good at communicating, showing up on time,“ Wells said. “Things I can’t necessarily teach in the classroom.”
Every morning, Randee utilized bus and train transportation along with walking a few blocks in order to get to school. She traveled the same on her way home, but her passion for welding is what drove her effort to show up on time, no matter what time of year. “It could be negative 15 outside, and I’d still be waiting for the bus and the trains to get to school,” Randee said. “I woke up at like 5 and left the house by 5:30 to get there by 7:30.”

The tradeswoman’s experience
In 2021, Wells was the last welder before Randee to receive the Academic Excellence Award, when she was a Dunwoody student. She described mixed feelings about her achievement. “I remember male students being like, ‘Well, why do you get it?’” Wells said. “That was hard for me to hear because… even after I’d won this award, I had to justify why I was getting it.”
She attributes her classmates’ attitudes to her being a female welder. Wells added that it’s very common in the trades that “females have to justify why we deserve to be there.”
Like her professor, a big challenge Randee faced is being a woman in a male-dominated field. In high school, she received pushback against pursuing welding. “There’s a lot of people that told me that I would never make it… in a men’s field,” Randee said.
According to the US Census Bureau, women occupy 5% of welding occupations in America. In Randee’s first year at Dunwoody, there was one other woman in her class. By her final year, she was the only female in a class of 12.
Being the only woman in her class didn’t faze her. “I’m used to being the only girl. I have a lot of males in my family,” Randee said. “I’ve always been more friends with guys, I guess… so it really never bothered me.”

Pulling pranks
As a child, Randee’s curiosity met mischief as she would steal her dad’s tools and place them around the garage. “She would hide them in my engine hoist,” Randy said. “And I was wondering where all my tools went, until I went to move the engine hoist, and it was like Christmas.”
Randee continued her pranks with classmates at Dunwoody. “We would take each other’s welding helmets and hide [them] around the lab,” she said. “We would take one glove when [the professor] wasn’t looking and hide it somewhere… just to have fun and laugh and not take everything so seriously.”

Inspiration of a metal artist
Randee’s welding has always been fueled by her creativity. As a child, she attended craft shows, where she was introduced to metal art. From there, she found inspiration in the artistic side of welding. She loves making yard art out of horseshoes and gifts them on occasion.
In her final class project, Randee rallied a group of peers to put together a saw blade table with chain link legs. “Me and my teacher, Mark [Schwendeman], we brainstormed and designed it,” Randee said. “And I got the blade from my dad’s boss.” She also had Wells paint a mountain landscape across the saw blade tabletop and hired a classmate’s father to coat the blade in epoxy. “There’s a lot of people that came together to help me with that one,” Randee said.
The project Randee takes most pride in was creating a metal toolbox in her first year at Dunwoody. She said she cut out pieces of aluminum, welded them together and added locks and handles. After completion, she used it to hold her tools for the rest of her education. She feels a sense of accomplishment in having created something she could utilize so frequently and practically for the rest of her projects.
In the future, Randee hopes to begin her own women-owned welding business, and would like to use her metal skills to make custom yard signs.