Maureen the Torchbearer:

How One Veteran Found Her Spark at Western

After the military, recovery, and an eviction, Maureen Howell discovered that some things—like her—are worth the work

Howell doesn’t do anything halfway. Not the military—she served as a combat medic in the Army and Air Force, shipped out to the Philippines, and learned to keep her head down in an era when women in service had to. Not recovery—she’s now 26 years clean and sober, a milestone she credits to her faith and a Bible her young son mailed her from Milwaukee when she was living in Florida. Not motherhood—she raised two children and now has five grandchildren, including twins who just started college and call her Granny, and she also has four godchildren who affectionately call her Gee-G. And certainly not welding. “I’m going to be a welder,” Howell says, her voice carrying the certainty of someone who has learned to bend without breaking. “No one can tell me I can’t do it.”

A House Becomes a Home
Howell’s path to Western’s welding program began with an eviction notice. In 2023, she was living at a La Crosse apartment complex when a letter arrived in her mailbox: her month-to-month lease would not be renewed. She had six weeks to move. “They wouldn’t tell me why,” Howell recalls. “Come to find out, the complex was being sold and the new owners were choosing who could stay. At the time, all I knew was that I had to be out.”

The stress was overwhelming. She dropped out of school. She leaned on her sister, her church, and eventually the PRRC—a Peer Resource Connection group for veterans with mental disabilities at the Tomah VA. And she leaned on God. The very next day, her sister showed her a house on the South Side. Howell put in a bid. She got it. “God turned that around,” she says. “But in the midst of it, I had to work through the hurt. That feeling of not knowing where you’re going to stay—that stays with you. This time, I’m making sure I have a place that’s mine.”

Why Welding?
The answer goes back further than 2023. In 2019, Howell completed 90 days of workforce training, hoping to join the pipefitters union. On the 90th day, she was pulled aside and told they had to let her go.

“Because of technology,” she explains. “They needed people who could use computers.”

Right then and there, she made a decision. “I said, I’m going to go to school and I’m going to learn how to weld. No one can tell me I can’t do it.”

So here she is. At 65—though she’ll laugh and tell you she’s “35 with 30 years of experience”—Howell is learning to weld. She’s also learning computers, asking a million questions, chasing down counselors, and showing up whenever they’ll let her so she can practice. “I have a learning disability and ADHD,” she shares openly. “Sometimes someone can say a sentence, and I hear one thing but they’re saying another. I have to ask questions several different times, several different ways, until I understand. And I’m not ashamed of that at all anymore. Not here.”

The Kind of Teacher Who Sees You

Howell credits Jon, her welding instructor, with creating a space where she feels seen.

“He lets me speak, even if I say the same thing three or four times,” she says. “And then he’ll stop and say, ‘Maureen, you just need to do this.’ He sees what I can’t see. I don’t feel ashamed. I feel like somebody.”

Jon sees it too. “Maureen is exactly the kind of student we need more of,” he says. “The welding industry is changing. It’s historically been male-dominated, and I’ve been pushing hard to bring in more underrepresented students. The women we get—they’re historically better in quality, better in attention to detail, better in the soft skills employers want. I never worry about a female student being late or not putting in extra time. Maureen is an example of that from day one.”

For Howell, it’s simpler: “I can do a job as well as any man. It’s not a man’s job—it’s just a job. And I look for quality, just like they do.”

The Art in the Arc

What Howell loves most is TIG welding—gas tungsten arc welding, a precise method that requires a torch in one hand, filler metal in the other, and a foot pedal controlling the amperage.

“You’re using three parts of your body for one specific outcome,” she says, eyes lighting up. “And you can do such beautiful things with it. The welds are just—they’re art.” Art has always been part of her. She’s won national awards for ceramics, though she’ll tell you she doesn’t know what she’s doing. “I’ll start with one idea, and by the time it’s done, it’s something else entirely. But it turns out beautiful.”

Her heart’s desire is to combine welding with that artistic vision. She envisions a business making mixed-media art—welding with ceramics, creating pieces that come from somewhere deep. Her house has a third floor, a beautiful, finished attic with a porch, and that’s going to be her studio. “From God’s heart to mine,” she says of the name she’s carried for 15 years. “He’s been pulling it all together.”

Purpose, Not Retirement

For Howell, Western is more than a place to learn a trade. It’s a place to belong and she feels it.

“I live alone,” she says. “I could sit in my house and watch TV. But this—this gives me a lift and a purpose. Something I enjoy and a place to be. People who help me. The women at financial aid; I love them. I go just to check on them. The Veterans group at the VA—they’re helping me get through college too. I tell them, ‘We’re going to college.’ Because nobody does anything alone.”

Her message to other adults considering Western is simple: “Pray about it, because it’s hard. But it’s not about how quick you finish. Make sure you’re understanding. And just—do something. Don’t let age stop you. I was afraid I couldn’t learn at a college level. I was wrong. If I can do this, you can too.”

Howell will be back next year to finish the welding program. After that, she plans to work part-time as a welder, enough to pay the mortgage on that South Side house, and spend the rest of her time upstairs in her studio, making art.

And maybe, someday, a 3D-printed bust of herself in full welding gear. “Granny in her helmet,” she says with a laugh.

But for now, she’s exactly where she needs to be: torch in hand, foot on the pedal, creating something beautiful and unexpected out of metal and fire and years of hard-won wisdom.

“I’m just thankful to be here,” Howell says. “Really thankful.”