Lisa Legohn Teaches more than Welding at Los Angeles Trade Technical College

Lisa Legohn is in her 28th year of teaching ~ she melds her knowledge, toughness and wisdom to instruct her students in welding skills and career success.

A woman who teaches men to weld provides other life lessons too

By Matt Stevens
Los Angeles Times

An associate professor at Los Angeles Trade Technical College, Lisa Legohn relies on candor and toughness to reach her students.

Just after 6 one recent morning, Los Angeles Trade Technical College appeared abandoned but for a light shining through an open door on the northwest side of the downtown campus.

Inside, several dozen students, all men, leaned against their lockers and shot the breeze, welding helmets in hand.

At 6:50 a.m. sharp, the door at the front of the room swung open, and Lisa Legohn appeared, hair tied back, thick plastic glasses over her eyes, her name stitched in gold across her jacket.

“All right, you guys!” she bellowed, waving a can of welding rods. “Those of you who showed up yesterday, you get first choice. The rest of you, you get the leftovers.”

She smiled.

“Except Gerald,” she said. “He was in the hospital. We thank God he’s OK.”

The class laughed, then slipped on helmets and fired up the welding guns.

“I love this woman and I barely know her,” said student Josh Hidalgo, 40, a former terminal operations supervisor at Los Angeles International Airport who hopes to launch a new career as a welder. “I would go to war with this woman…. And now, I know how to weld.”

A veteran in a field with relatively few women, Legohn, 50, is a nontraditional teacher at a community college filled with nontraditional students. A Trade Tech alum, she is known for her candor, toughness and an uncompromising approach to her trade as she pushes her students along, then cheers their success.

Her welding skills have been displayed on the TV show “Monster Garage,” and she helped build giant toasters, blenders and other objects on the Discovery Channel’s “BIG” show.

“She really is a remarkable human being, and she’s completely part of our fabric,” said Leticia Barajas, a Trade Tech vice president who oversees Legohn’s department.

More than half of Trade Tech’s students come from families with annual incomes of less than $25,000. Only 37% complete certificate programs, earn their associate degrees or transfer to four-year universities, according to the 2009 accountability report for California’s community colleges.

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