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A group that provides practical job training is assembling the centerpiece of public art for the U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials.
The Latinas Welding Guild, a not-for-profit based in a 10,000-square-foot workshop near the Indianapolis International Airport, is designing and building a replica of the Eiffel Tower to be installed at the intersection of Georgia Street and Capitol Avenue for the swim trials scheduled June 15-23 at Lucas Oil Stadium.
Guild founder Consuelo Lockhart said the 66-foot version of the Eiffel Tower is the largest project to date for the organization she founded in 2017 to offer affordable or free education to unemployed and underemployed community members.
Women make up just 5% of the welding workforce, according to the American Welding Society. The Latinas Welding Guild was established to train women, but the group expanded to educate men and adolescents to be eligible for grants, Lockhart said.
In 2023, the Latinas Welding Guild became the parent organization of Project Azul—a not-for-profit that offers training in forklift operation, blueprint reading and other trade skills.
Jessica Hernandez, the guild’s deputy director, said the Eiffel Tower replica project is a significant opportunity for welding trainees.
“It’s an awesome project for the students to get real-life experience in learning how welding can be used outside of production welding,” Hernandez said. “It also gives them a lot of exposure for the work they’re doing on this big project.”
The Eiffel Tower replica might become a rival of downtown’s iconic Soldiers and Sailors Monument as a photo backdrop during the swim competition that will determine the 52 athletes who will represent the United States later this summer at the Olympics in Paris.
The replica also is a lock to receive airtime when NBC devotes nine consecutive nights of prime-time telecasts to the trials.
Jenny Cash, co-chair of the “Indy Experience” division of the swim trials’ local organizing committee, invited the Latinas Welding Guild to be part of the festivities.
“Indy will be sending athletes to Paris, so we wanted to bring Paris to Indy,” Cash said. “What’s more iconic than the Eiffel Tower?”
Cash was an executive at the Parks Alliance of Indianapolis when she first met Lockhart, who had the role of director of Ruckus Makerspace at Circle City Industrial Complex, 1125 Brookside Ave., nearly a decade ago.
“She had such a passion for empowering women, particularly empowering Latina women,” Cash said of Lockhart. “She utilized her skills and abilities in welding to do that.”
Lockhart, a native of Guatemala, grew up in Michigan with adoptive parents. She moved to Indianapolis in 2016.
“When I was growing up, I never heard about the trades,” she said. “I never heard about welding. I didn’t know that was a career path.”
Before she became a welder, Lockhart studied visual art and specialized in woodworking. Once she tried working with metal, it became her preferred artistic medium.
After college, she decided to build upon what she had learned about welding.
“Welding happened to be one of those high-demand career paths,” Lockhart said.
Cash thought of Lockhart when the organizing committee’s thoughts turned to paying tribute to the Eiffel Tower, a 1,083-foot iron tower completed in 1889.
“It didn’t take too long for us to figure out we needed a giant Eiffel Tower, and the Latinas Welding Guild was the group to make it happen,” said Cash, who’s now director of business development for playground equipment supplier Midstates Recreation. “You never know who you know and how it’s going to come back around in life.”
For comparison’s sake, the height of the Soldiers and Sailors Monument is 284 feet, 6 inches.
The Paris Las Vegas casino hotel is home to a half-scale replica (540 feet) of the Eiffel Tower, while replicas at amusement parks Kings Island in Ohio and Kings Dominion in Virginia are each one-third the height (314 feet) of the original.
The temporary replica in Indianapolis will be 1/16th scale, or comparable to permanent Eiffel Tower replicas displayed in Paris, Texas, and Paris, Tennessee.
Lockhart said four downtown locations were considered—three in White River State Park and the south side of Monument Circle—for placement of the Eiffel Tower replica before the intersection of Georgia and Capitol was selected.
Material for the tower is being sourced from Alro Steel, and R.A.D. Fabrication is cutting pieces of steel for the project. Rush Powder Coatings is giving the pieces a smooth finish, while AES Indiana will make the Eiffel Tower replica glow at night.
Lockhart said the tower will be transported from the Latinas Welding Guild shop to downtown in four pieces. The total weight of concrete and steel when the tower is installed will be nearly 60,000 pounds, she said.
Hernandez said she’s happy the Latinas Welding Guild is receiving exposure for its custom fabrication work.
“That side of our business is important because it helps create revenue for scholarships for our students,” Hernandez said.
More than 500 students are expected to attend Latinas Welding Guild classes this year.
Adult classes include 70% male students and 30% female students, Hernandez said. Classes for adolescents feature 50% boys and 50% girls.
Jomar Molina, a 19-year-old graduate of Arsenal Tech High School, teaches a two-week course in metal inert gas welding. The class ends with a certification test.
“Once they get certified, they can go out into the welding workforce and find a job,” Molina said.
If students have a job before enrolling in a welding class, they typically earn less than $12 an hour. Lockhart said the guild’s goal is to help students improve their finances.
“They’re seeing this certification as a way to elevate,” Lockhart said “Certification opens a lot more doors to jobs that are paying upwards of $20 to start.”
Lockhart and Hernandez said it was somewhat disappointing to change course from the guild’s original mission to exclusively break barriers for women.
But that doesn’t mean the group doesn’t support women welders.
“We realize that if 95% of the industry is male, it’s important for them to also understand what it takes to work alongside people,” Hernandez said. “We’re building a lot of allies. The male welders coming through our programs are learning to work alongside women and respect and know they are just as good as them.”
Lockhart said it’s important to note that the leadership team of the Latinas Welding Group is made up of Latinas.
“That’s why we still hold our name strong,” she said.•
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