Friend of AWS, Robert J. Buhl was one of the first 500 people to earn the CWI qualification from the American Welding Society in 1976.

Mr Buhl (Bob) and AWS Director Neville Cornish became friends while working together for Perrys Engineering in the 1990s, and have stayed close ever since despite Bob moving back home to the U.S. He has sent his original certificate to join our collection of welding memorabilia here at the AWS office.

The CWI exam was offered for the first time in 1976. Bob remembers approximately 4,500 manufacturing managers, engineers and welding types sat that first exam, and only about 515 Certificates were issued (the original pink certificate pictured above was replaced soon after with a blue version). The high standards of the challenging exam have continued to this day.

“There were no study guidelines at the time, and we didn’t have a clue as to what they were going to ask, and they had referenced a bunch of specs.  We would ask AWS for some kind of hint and the only answer we ever got was, “If you know your welding, you will have no trouble”.

I realized later it was a good thing I was working at Boeing as we dealt with various materials and welding processes on a daily basis that most welding people had only read about!”

Bob was successful as a CWI and eventually became involved with the administration and supervision of other CWI exams. His illustrious career as an inspector helped to inspire Neville in his career, and the goal of AWS as a specialist consultancy.

Now an Agent for the American Welding Society, at AWS we continue this tradition of training and supervising Inspectors and Engineers in the next stages of their career.