Down memory lane with welder Joseph

By ZEDAIAH KANAU
AS he prepares to celebrate his 80th birthday next month, Joseph Aisi is proud that he has contributed to national development as a welder working in various companies.
The granddad from Niokura village in Kairuku, Central, who only reached Standard Four in school during the colonial days, believes that being a tradesman is a rewarding career for those who choose it.

“ One of the expatriate managers asked me why I was here. I told him that I wanted to learn welding.”

Joseph has been a welder for more than 40 years. He worked for various companies around the country, plying the trade he learnt at Badili in Port Moresby.
After leaving school in 1963, Joseph worked for an Australian petroleum company called Explosion Enterprises. He was the only local working there.
He was stationed at Baimuru for five months, before his transfer to Kikori.
When he returned to Port Moresby in 1965, he was told that Hornibrook’s Badili branch was conducting training for welders.
“One of my relatives at Koki market told me to go to the Hornibrook office. One of the expatriate managers asked me why I was there. I told him that I wanted to learn welding.”
It all started there for Joseph.
One of his first tasks at Hornibrook was to design the University of PNG entrance sculptor and signboard in 1966.

In 1977, he was sent to Madang by Hornibrook to work on ships. The next year he went to Kieta for six weeks.
In 1979, Joseph joined Steel Industries and became its first local foreman.
In 1981, he helped put up the body of a plane at Seven-Mile, near the Jackson airport. He had a picture of it, which unfortunately was destroyed when his house at Sabama caught fire in 1989, destroying his personal memorabilia.
“This was my proudest work because prior to that, I had seen on film how the natives in Goroka reacted when they saw that plane for the first time.
Some were scared, some were cheering. There were mixed emotions everywhere.”
He left Steel Industries in 1983, returning to Hornibrook in Port Moresby where he worked until 1986.
He left to work at the Rouna Quarry outside Port Moresby until 1999, when he started at Airlines PNG. He however did not last long there and returned to Rouna Quarry in 2003.
He was called back to work at Airlines PNG in 2005 until he left in 2009 to work with a private firm, Spectrum Holdings Limited, until he retired in 2014.

When his wife passed away, Joseph had to look after their six children and today, plus 15 grandchildren.
Joseph lives with his daughter at Taora Street in Pari.
He is proud that monuments and boards erected around Port Moresby and elsewhere in the country are mostly done by tradesmen such as himself.
He hopes people with various trade skills will always take pride in their work because it is satisfying and rewarding.
He never once regretted becoming a tradesman himself.