The American Welding Society

the world into a collaborative force, built on a foundation of higher standards, advanced learning, and rewarding growth. “We have three levels of membership,” explains AWS Vice President, Richard Polanin, “and we have members throughout the world - individ- ual, student, and company. Currently, we have about 70,000 individual members and about 2,500 corporate members. The individual membership is up over the last couple of years and we’ve been gaining 1.5 – 2 percent over the last five or six years; corporate member- ship is up a little higher than that – maybe 10- 12 percent over the last five years. That’s been one of the more rapidly growing areas.” Benefits of membership in the Society are manifold. In addition to the networking pos- sibilities available at the AWS co-sponsored FABTECH, North America’s largest metal form- THE AMERICANWELDING SOCIETY