“Within moments of striking my first arc, I loved it,” Samantha Farrugia told Untapped New York about her first welding experience. While pursuing her Masters in City Planning and Design at the University of Michigan, Farrugia joined a 2-hour intro to welding workshop where she found a passion for the craft. But she also found that something was missing. “I wondered why there weren’t women welding in the fabrication lab with me,” she observed. Combining her love of teaching with her previous experience in business development, she founded Women Who Weld, a non-profit organization that teaches women how to weld and find employment in the industry.
Women Who Weld was founded in Detroit in 2014. “Before my master’s program, I had worked in business development, marketing, and advertising at a technology startup in New York City. And, the…