Welder Training and Testing Institute Information

Welder Training and Testing Institute (WTTI), was founded in 1968 in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and was originally called Breeden's School of Welding. The school's original owner, Ernie Breeden, was a Texas born pipeline welder and engineer, and a man of vision committed to training welders for the industry that served him all his life. During his career, oil rigs were being built in the Gulf of Mexico and the North Sea, pipelines were being laid across the country, construction was booming and manufacturers of ships, aircraft, automobiles and equipment were all striving to meet stringent quality and safety requirements. He recognized the need to train welders to fulfill these strong demands in the industry. Thus he founded the school. In 1973, the school was renamed Welder Training and Testing Institute. At that time Mr. Breeden retired and ownership of the company shifted to a small welding and management group headed by Robert Wiswesser, who had been an instructor, assistant director and eventually director of the school under the Breeden ownership. WTTI maintains a freestanding campus with a 10,000 square foot building located at 729 East Highland Street in Allentown, PA. The school is equipped for the specialized training of welding with sixty work stations available in the shop area for the training of gas welding/cutting, electric arc welding, and the semi-automatic processes. Fully equipped classrooms support in-shop training with lessons in theory. Theory is enhanced by the use of visual aids such as slides, videos and instructional handouts. Student/teacher ratio for the shop is 15:1. Student teacher ratio for the classroom is 25:1. The maximum number of students for the shop is 45 and for the classroom is 25. In addition to our student training programs, WTTI offers industrial services to corporate clients through our Industrial Services Division. WTTI provides its clients with highly qualified staff technicians who are capable of delivering efficient, thorough, and customized services– tailored to match an organization's individual needs. Through our Nondestructive Testing Institute (NDTI), we train inspectors in NDT and prepare them for the AWS Certified Welding Inspector (CWI) exam.