Journeyman on the Right Track

In March 2015, Brandon Walker’s then-new employer, McKenney’s, Inc., sent him to represent the company at the Construction Ready CareerExpo. The massive two-day gathering is designed to introduce high school and college students to construction industry careers, and Walker was happy to answer questions and talk about his recent entry into the business.

“I was there to give the kids a positive outlook and tell them about what I do, and try to get them to go on the right track, because this is a good field to go into,” Walker says.

That Walker himself was on the right track is a testament to Construction Ready’s Pre-Apprenticeship training program at Westside Works. Just a year earlier he had been out of work after losing a job detailing cars at an Atlanta-area dealership. He had two young daughters to support, and he needed to catch a break.

Brandon enrolled during the program’s infancy, graduating with Westside Works Group 3 in September 2014. Now, a decade later, he’s a sheet metal journeyman, with a roll call of high-profile projects on his resume and a list of personal goals he’s checked off, one by one.

“It was the best thing to ever happen to me,” Brandon says of the training. “I wanted to buy a truck; I did that. I wanted to buy a house; I closed on my house last February. I wanted to get my credit up to over 700; I have my highest credit score ever now. It changed my life. I was getting in trouble, I was in and out of jail, I was on the wrong track. It’s been a real big blessing to me.”

Bandon started his new career in the McKenney’s sheet metal prefabrication shop, then graduated to field work, beginning with the Atlanta Braves’ Truist Park. He moved to a job with L & H Sheet Metal Company in 2016 and worked on an expansion at Plant Vogtle, a nuclear power facility in Waynesboro, Georgia, before returning to McKenney’s in March 2023.

“When I pass certain landmarks, I can tell my family, I worked there,” Brandon says. “It feels good to be a part of something and know that it’s going to be there forever. [Truist Park] is what broke me in. That was my first slab job. I actually saw it transform from dirt to become a whole stadium. I worked all over that place.”

Brandon began the sheet metal apprenticeship process in 2016, and he achieved journeyman status in 2020.

Having laid the foundation for his career with the help of Construction Ready and Westside Works, he is grateful for both organizations, and he returns on occasion to speak with current classes about his experiences.

“ [Westside Works] helped me work on my resume and taught me how to talk to people,” he says. “They had different modules – how to get along with people and things like that. I feel like now I can come in and talk to people because I remember when I was sitting in there. After what I’ve been through, I don’t mind telling others, because it really did change my life.”