| Patrick
Burrington, Owner of Rapid Creek Cutters, has 17 years of
welding/fabrication experience and been in business just for about 4 years. He was born and raised in Iowa where he became fascinated with
creating things out of metal even when he was a child. He took a lot of
interest in school, graduated as class Salutatorian, and then pursued a welding
career in the US Army in 1988 where he served with pride and received numerous awards and
honors for his skills and achievements. He was injured in an accident in
1992 at Ft. Polk, LA and later Honorably Discharged. He then attended Southeast Community
College, Milford NE where he graduated 1st in his class in Welding &
Metallurgy Technology only to skip seeking employment, but re-register in
college and obtain a 2nd degree in Nondestructive Testing/Quality Control which
really expanded his knowledge of the welding trades.
 During college and right of military service, Patrick contracted a strange illness in which he ended up having
heart
surgery to correct the condition in1993. It was caused by a viral
infection that was thought to be linked to the Gulf War. It
changed his life a lot after that, but he continued on with his
education. He then received his Certified Welding Inspector (AWS
CWI) certification and at the age of 25, he moved to Colorado where he worked as a
stainless steel pipe welder and part-time welding inspector for Micro-Motion,
Inc. Pat then became interested in moving to Idaho and that is when
he relocated to his present home in Inkom. He bought a small piece of
land, and worked as a welder/fitter for a Frazier Industrial, Atlas Mechanical,
& North Star Fabricators, gaining good work experience.
In 2000, he got on as a plant maintenance mechanic at the FMC-Astaris
plant in Pocatello, ID. In just shy of 2 years, the plant closed after 50
years due to cheap imports & economic reasons and he along with about 400 of
his fellow workers, were left without jobs. He got his withdrawal card from the Machinists' Union (I A M) and
decided to run his own business instead of finding another job. He converted a huge garage into a
fabrication shop, built an office, financed a waterjet machine, and jumped in
with both feet. It was quite a struggle to learn the waterjet technology
from scratch at first, but he has since become comfortable with his equipment
and sees the computerized cutting being the wave of the future for his shop and
has now branched out into CNC plasma cutting, basic powder coating, mill/lathe
work, and his
original calling of welding and fabrication.
As of this writing,
Pat has been offered a full-time position with the Dept. of Energy
working as a maintenance mechanic/outside machinist at the INL site
near Idaho Falls, Idaho. Pat accepted this job in April of 2006,
and is still doing some of his home business, but on a much smaller
scale, mainly focusing on his line of hitch covers. He still
works 7 days a week by using his "off" days at work to run the metal
fab business.. He enjoys working for himself, likes the artistic part of creating signs, silhouettes,
and metal fabrication. He hopes to someday have his
own CD library of artwork available for sale and spend his time drawing &
creating new pieces. |
