Built from
inside the work.

There's a weld I'll never finish.

Six months after my son was born, I pushed too hard and ended up in the hospital. Recovery doesn't negotiate. It just takes the pen out of your hand and starts writing for you.

I came out of it with a CAWI, no money to retake the full exam, and a very immediate question — what do you do when the work that defined you isn't available anymore? You don't quit. You pivot. You build something out of what you have and you keep moving. I started Setpoint Advisors and figured the rest out as I went.

What I kept looking for and couldn't find was media that fit where I was standing. The trades have no shortage of content. Certification explainers. Beginner TIG tips. Think pieces about workforce pipelines. What they don't have is something genuinely worth reading — something with enough technical spine to satisfy the inspection crowd and enough grit to speak to the people who are still out there kicking up dust.

The Setpoint exists because that publication didn't. First person, unfiltered, built by someone who came up on second shift in a shop nobody respected and still carries that with him into every boardroom conversation.

This is the first edition. Let's see where it goes.