ESAB Sponsors 2026 “Blue Collar Tour” to Support Skilled Trade Careers
As part of the ESAB Future Fabricators program, ESAB announced that it will again sponsor the “Blue Collar Tour,” featuring Western Welding Academy, continuing their shared mission to increase the interest and awareness of high school students in the skilled trades. The 2026 tour starts January in Stratton, Colorado, and includes 31 total stops in 21 states before concluding in mid-March.
More than 4,000 students directly participated in 31 Blue Collar Tour events last year, and social media content generated during the tour earned millions of views, further spreading the tour’s impact. The Blue Collar Tour stops at high schools across the country and engages students through welding demonstrations, product and swag giveaways, Q&A sessions with professional welders about their careers and “best bead” student welding contests.
ESAB supports the tour with application engineers and sales representatives who share their own career experiences and support welding demonstrations. Student engagement activities on each stop include the opportunity to TIG or Stick weld with ESAB’s Renegade VOLT ES 200i battery-powered welder. In addition, ESAB provides more than $50,000 of products and swag (t-shirts, hoodies, stickers, welding posters and more) as part of the giveaways that are key to engaging students. Every school on the stop gets a Victor oxy-acetylene outfit, and winners of student welding contests can win an automatic helmet.
The Blue Collar Tour will feature an expanded celebration of the skilled trades on February 13 at ESAB’s manufacturing and distribution facility in Denton, Texas. The event will bring together students and instructors from high schools in the Denton and greater Dallas – Ft. Worth area, additional welding influencers, tours of the ESAB facility, and food and entertainment.
For five years, the Blue Collar Tour has traveled around the country with representatives from Western Welding Academy, one of the industry’s most popular trade schools located in Gillette, Wyoming. Founded by pipe welders, the school offers a 960-hour pipe welding course. In 2025, the tour generated more than 3.3 million social media impressions in just 60 days. In addition, 56 media outlets and news stations provided coverage (see story in the Chicago Tribune). ESAB reached an additional 500,000 viewers through its own social media channels.
Visit https://www.bluecollarrevolution.com and https://www.westernweldingacademy.com/ for more information on the Blue Collar Tour.
