“My industry background keeps what I teach relevant. My own experience as a struggling learner keeps me human about how I teach it. High school students need someone who sees the whole person first, the welder second.“
Chad Donahue teaches welding at Des Moines Public Schools Central Campus in Des Moines, Iowa. A veteran trades educator and former apprentice competitor who won his local welding contest in three consecutive years, Donahue brings two decades of field and shop experience with Sheet Metal Workers Local 45. His industrial background spans precision work on food-grade stainless and structural steel for major companies like Firestone, Cargill, and Tone’s Spices. Alongside his Iowa teaching license, he holds an American Welding Society Certified Associate Welding Inspector credential, multiple structural and sheet metal certifications, and a decade of experience as an apprenticeship instructor. Remembering his own early difficulties as a student who was transformed by an empathetic teacher, Donahue approaches every learner with patience, meeting them where they are and guiding diverse students, including English language learners and students with IEPs, toward high-level craftsmanship.
In Donahue’s welding lab, peer accountability thrives and lab time runs two-to-one over lecture to maximize hands-on booth experience. His students progress sequentially through SMAW, GMAW, TIG, and OFC processes on industry-standard equipment. Learners master a rigorous foundational project, welding a metal X across all four positions, gauged from quarter-inch to one-inch fillets, and complete destructive guided bend tests that mirror professional certification standards. This relentless focus on arc time and high expectations yields impressive results for his students. In 2025, his program’s all-girls team captured the overall state championship, and in 2026, a Central Campus student won the Missouri Welding Institute national competition against top trade schools across the country.
Notes of Excellence
- Business & Industry Alignment: Central Campus partners closely with Plumbers and Steamfitters Local 33 and John Deere Des Moines Works, where rigorous preparation enabled one student to skip a full year of apprenticeship training.
- Key Program Impact: In the most recent John Deere 2,000-hour paid apprenticeship cohort, Central Campus students secured five out of seven available slots across seven metro high schools based on demonstrated skill.
- Outstanding Student Project: In the summer of 2026, he hired four students to design and build eight additional welding bays in their lab. These students fabricated the infrastructure that future students will use to learn to weld.