Spotlight on Super – Phyllip Pope, Welder, SRC Minnesota

Our Spotlight on Super series highlights the SRC team members who help keep SRC a great a place to work and grow. For this installment, we sat down with Phyllip Pope, a recent hire in the welding department to learn more about who he is, what he does, and his experience at Super Radiator.

Q: First off, where are you from? Where’s home

PP: I’m from Waterville, Minnesota originally. It’s a small town in southern central Minnesota.

Q: What’s your title at SRC?

PP: I’m a welder on second shift. I’m new to the company – I was brought on a few months ago.

Q: And how did you hear about SRC? What’s the story of how you came to work here?

PP: I was contacted by a recruiter who saw my resume online and noticed that I had TIG welding experience as a specialty welder at a previous job. They brought me in for some tests, and I was able to pass those, and had the certifications they were looking for, so they told me “We’d love to give you a shot.” And, for me, it was just a great opportunity for a better position than I was in prior. I didn’t mind what I was doing but it was repetitive, the pay wasn’t great, and there weren’t really any opportunities to advance within the company, so I started looking for something new and that’s when I was contacted about this role.

Q: How have you enjoyed working here so far?

PP: I’ve loved it here so far, honestly. I’ve had a great experience. In my old role, I was doing mostly MIG welding, which is fine, but what I really like is TIG welding. I like doing it and I feel I’m good at it, so it’s been great to be in a spot where I can do more of that. At SRC, the pay is good. There’s a defined way to move up on the pay scale, which isn’t something you always get. And having the ability to actually talk to my supervisor is great. Tim (Schumacher) does a great job – it’s not a situation where you feel like you can’t talk to him or anything like that. I truly feel like I can talk to people around here and actually have my needs, if not met, I know that they’re considered. That’s been a big improvement from my last job.

Q: Have you always worked as a welder?

PP: I’ve kind of bounced around. For the last decade or so I’ve been doing all sorts of different things. I worked at my family’s campground in Waterville for the first decade or so of my life – everything from helping take care of the place to concrete and landscaping. But I realized that managing a campground wasn’t the kind of work I wanted to do for my career. So, I got out of that, went to school for welding and decided that it was something I wanted to do.

Q: What is something about SRC that you would tell someone who is considering working here?

PP: If you come here, you’re heard. It might sound cliché, but if you’re looking to feel like you’re more than just a number in a corporate hivemind, this is a great place to be. It’s still a job, there’s still hard work to do, but it’s a lot better here than other places I’ve worked. On top of that, the work is interesting. At my old job, I’d get a work order for, like, 200 of the same part and just do that over and over again for my whole shift. But here, there’s variety and the opportunity to work on some neat stuff.

Q: What about when you’re not at work? How do you like to spend your time?

PP: Well, for me – as someone who is in recovery, I spend my time working on that platform and making it more solid. It’s pretty solid right now and I don’t have any complaints. I just work on staying sober and trying to make my life as fulfilling as I can. Staying connected with my family and being involved in my recovery groups is big. I’ve got a lot of nieces and nephews around, too, and I enjoy seeing them when I can.

If you’d like to know more about working at SRC, be sure to stop by our Careers Homepage to learn more about who we are, what we make, and where we work. And stop by our job listings page to see our open positions. Manufacturing experience is preferred, but not required. If you’ve got a positive attitude and a good work ethic, we’d love to hear from you. Thanks for reading.