Rachel Luis y Prado recalls the inspiration that led her husband to create the nonprofit Workshops for Warriors. Based in Barrio Logan, it’s the only adult vocational school in the country primarily aimed at teaching welding and machinery skills to veterans.
“My husband, Hernán, was a Navy Surface Warfare Officer for 13 years,” Rachel says. “But he’d enlisted as a corpsman and later was in Bethesda interning at the hospital.”
In 2006, Rachel and Hernan were casually strolling through a Bethesda mall when they heard a man holler, “Hey, doc!”
They turned to see a Marine gunnery sergeant who recognized Hernán from the hospital. This wounded warrior was in a wheelchair. Both his legs had been blown off in combat.
“It was a different time for service members coming back from war,” Rachel says. “In the past, men died in conflict. Then, more and more were starting to come back back missing limbs.”
The Marine looks up earnestly at Hernán. “Hey doc, will you be the best man at my wedding next week?”
After he wheeled away, Rachel says Hernán dropped to his knees and started to cry.
“This guy broke Hernán’s heart,” Rachel says. “My husband was like, ‘What is he going to do without legs? He won’t sit at a desk. That’s not why anybody joins the Marines.’ Hernán felt like he had to do something.”
A short time later, Hernán bought welding equipment and some drill presses and opened up his garage to military members who were recovering at the hospital.
They would come over and tinker in the garage,” Rachel says. “This is where the idea formed to open a school.”
Hernán did tons of research. Filed the appropriate papers. In 2009, the couple moved to San Diego, Hernán’s last duty station. He opened a small facility in Barrio Logan. Then moved to a bigger space in 2011. The operation is now on Main Street, with appropriate views of both Naval Base San Diego at 32nd Street and the General Dynamics NASSCO shipbuilding yard.
Rachel came on fulltime with Workshops for Warriors in 2014. She’s taken on multiple roles: CFO, COO, Chief Academic Officer, Director of Human Resources. Her title is now listed as Chief Impact Officer. She claims to have no mechanical aptitude.
“Hernán is very technical, always thinking about systems and spaces,” she says. “He built the programs, I built the organization. We complement each other. And we’ve been married for 20 years and worked together fulltime for 11.”
Exponential growth is happening for Workshops for Warriors. In 2012, Hernán had 18 students. That grew to 112 in 2023; and 260 this year. With a new facility set to open in 2026, the program could soon accommodate 960 students per year.
Students at Workshops for Warriors completely embrace the opportunity to learn a trade that can transition them out of the military, Rachel says.
Classes last four months. She recalls a student who worked at SpaceX in Los Angeles. He’d drive down for a daily class schedule that went from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., then turn back around and work the next night shift at SpaceX.
Another student phoned his instructor to tell him he’d just been in a motorcycle accident. “Before the ambulance arrives, he calls to say he probably broke his leg,” Rachel says. “He told his instructor he wouldn’t be in class today, but he’ll be there the next day. And he was.”
Joseph Pincolic is a machining student who hails from Milwaukee and currently lives with his wife in Orange County. He spent 13 years as a Marine and left as a reconnaissance operator focused on infantry and battle-related operations.
“That doesn’t really translate too well to skills that could be used in a civilian job,” Pincolic says.
So he commutes every day from Orange County. He’s learning to create code that will be a blueprint that runs through a machine operation to create a stock piece of aluminum.
Over the din of a working school lab, Pincolic is explaining this while standing in front of a large Haas CNC Vertical Milling Machine.
“I love this program because everything is hands-on,” he says. “Everything I need to learn for a job I’m already doing right here in person.”
McKebia Bray is getting hands-on experience in the welding program. The Georgia native spent eight years in the Army, mostly in special operations. He lives in nearby housing provided by Workshops for Warriors.
Bray says he wasn’t struggling financially, but because of red tape that held up his last paycheck from the Army he found himself homeless for a stretch of 118 days.
“My experience in getting acclimated to the civilian sector has been challenging,” he says. “A program like Workshops for Warriors is good because you come into contact with a lot of veterans. Collectively, everyone is trying to find their purpose.”
In a calm and direct, yet effusive way, Bray heaps praise on the vocational school.
“Workshops for Warriors is a great program for the nation,” he says. “More states should have it. It’s the perfect gateway for veterans trying to get on their feet.”
Rachel Luis y Prado says there is a real need all over the country for a bigger workforce for manufacturing companies. Workshops for Warriors graduates are courted by businesses in 49 states, she says.
Currently, there’s not enough space to cover the demand for classroom instruction at the school. In 2024, nearly 10,000 candidates applied for just 240 available spots.
Filling a brand new, 25,000-square-foot building on campus with equipment will enable the construction of new booths and lab space for students. If and when that happens, the school hopes to hire more instructors and teaching assistants. The plan pencils out.
“We’re moving toward efficiencies of scale,” Rachel says. “That will make us self-sufficient.”
After that, classroom expansion to other states is not out of the question, she says.
Veterans Day will take the national spotlight on November 11. Workshops for Warriors is currently fundraising for that new equipment and other student-related programs. It’s clear in Barrio Logan that getting the chance to add civilian job skills to their resume would also make a veteran’s day. SDSun
