Bonus Success Story: Jonathan Yount
Hanging upside down off of a 180-foot tall bridge
sounds daunting, but Jonathan Yount, 27, takes it all in stride.
Jonathan, of Alta Loma, CA, got interested in welding
when he was a boy. Early in his life, he learned the joy of working
with his hands from his father, Bill Yount, who was a junior-high
shop teacher. When Jonathan was only 9, his father took him to a
small foundry at the school, so his son could get acquainted with
welding.
 Motivated
to learn the trade, Jonathan he put himself through college while
working different jobs, primarily putting together high-performance
Ford cars and heavy machinery. He graduated from Mt. San Antonio
Junior College in Walnut, CA in 1999, after getting his Los Angeles
City licenses in structural stick welding and structural light gauge
welding. A year later, he joined the International Bridge and Structural
and Ornamental Iron Workers Union-or Iron Workers Union for short.
Jonathan credits the inspiration for getting his career in high
gear to his old instructors at Mt. San Antonio, Ben Eisley and Junior
Hernandez. The instructors offered moral support when Jonathan was
attending night school and working full-time simultaneously. "There
were times when I said to myself, 'I don't know if I can do this,'"
Jonathan confessed. "Ben and Junior kept telling me that I was doing
a good job. I would spend hours on a project, and they taught me
how to be patient."
Since joining the union, Jonathan has worked all over the southwest
region his local covers, going to Northern Arizona and Southern
Nevada, as well as his home area in Southern California. One of
the major projects he worked on soon after graduation was the Vincent
Thomas Bridge in Long Beach, CA. There he was strapped in with his
equipment, hanging from the bridge more than 180 feet in the air.
"It was a culture shock," Jonathan said. "It was kind of like boot
camp, with people yelling at you, telling you what to do."
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