Business View Magazine | April 2019

22 the world into a collaborative force, built on a foundation of higher standards, advanced learning, and rewarding growth. “We have three levels of membership,” ex- plains AWS Vice President, Richard Polanin, “and we have members throughout the world - individual, student, and company. Currently, we have about 70,000 individual members and about 2,500 corporate members. The individ- ual 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 mem- bership 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