Geoff Cooper/Chinook

Darrin Miller, welding instructer at CC, is pictured in the welding shop on campus. 

By Geoff Cooper

Inflation and cost of living are two commonly discussed concepts, and they only ever seem to be going in one direction very quickly – a direction and a pace that wage growth is unable to match. The days of buying a new part to replace the old or the broken will soon be over, but there is still hope in the form of teachers like Darin Miller, one of the welding instructors here at Casper College. Miller’s early life on a farm in Torrington, Wyo echoes our world’s current predicament. 

“We couldn’t afford new stuff,” said Miller. “We had to fix the old stuff, and I think now we’re starting to see that again. In the last three or four years, and even before that, it turned into a throwaway world. And now with shipping lanes how they are and everything on back order it’s starting to be like it was before. People are going to have to learn how to rebuild stuff again.” 

Miller doesn’t necessarily see this as all bad because there’s a fair amount of merit in making do with what you have and being self-sufficient. Growing up on a farm with old equipment and irrigation that’s done by hand takes a bit of ingenuity after all, and it’s what set him on the path to where he is now. 

“I think one time, the planter broke, and dad welded on it three times,” Miller said. “He didn’t know what he was doing, and I dang sure didn’t know what I was doing, but he started throwing stuff so I asked if I could take a crack at it.”

After successfully fixing the planter, Miller said he became the farms resident handyman. This knack for fixing and rebuilding equipment led to a degree in diesel technology and in welding from Eastern Wyoming College. He was always fascinated with seeing how things tick and reverse engineering them with the goal of “building a better wheel.” Unfortunately, he got out of welding school in 1986, during an oil bust. 

“You couldn’t buy a job welding, even here in Casper,” Miller said. 

Miller got married the same year and needed a way to pay the bills. He enlisted in the US Army shortly thereafter and was stationed in Ft Hood, Texas. He later attended a Reserve Officer Training Corp program and commissioned as an officer before becoming the commander of the maintenance unit in Guernsey, Wyo. Leadership in the Army tends to involve a lot of meetings, logistics and paperwork, so whenever Miller needed a break from that he would go down to the shop and help the enlisted. 

“I tell you what, it was a lot of work, but I’d do it again in a heartbeat,” Miller said. 

Despite being in a leadership position for many years in Guernsey and completing his military service as a Major (Promotable), Miller said he never really saw himself as a teacher. It was a friend of his dad’s, who worked for the job service here in Casper, that got Miller to apply for the job here at CC. Right around that same time, Miller was working on a welding job down in Torrington. He was hired because the guy before him almost died on the project. He said teaching sounded better by comparison, so he’s been doing it ever since. 

In addition to welding, Miller saw to the development of the auto body shop and a fabrication shop at the college. Students rebuild classic cars and learn how to reverse engineer and produce older machine parts that aren’t made anymore. Miller also takes the students to assist in the Platte River Cleanup with the goal of giving back to the community and teaching team building. 

Between the military and teaching, Miller said that his proudest accomplishment is his students and the success they find in the welding program. Students like Marvin Aragon, whom Miller hired to teach with him after he went through CC’s program. 

“I taught him how to weld once. I know I don’t have to do it again,” Miller said. 

Aragon graduated in 2016 and went back to his hometown of Lander for a few months. He didn’t find any work, but luckily for him, Miller reached out to let him know there was a job at Pepper Tank here in Casper. He worked there up until a couple of years ago when Miller called him again and asked if he wanted to come teach at the college. 

“I had my concerns. I had my doubts, but he talked me out of them,” Aragon said. 

Like Miller, Aragon never saw himself teaching, but he’s glad he took the leap. For Aragon, working with Miller is a blast. He loves coming to work and seeing a new group of students every year. Despite being a teacher himself, he still learns a lot from Miller. 

“I don’t think I could ever get tired of working with him. He’s the best teacher I’ve ever had,” Aragon said. 

The two became friends when Aragon stopped by to visit during his time at Pepper Tank, and he said that other students come back from time to time to get advice from Miller or bounce ideas off of him. Despite having an old school teaching style, he said Miller is very approachable, and he believes the way Miller is running the program really works for their students. Welding, to Aragon, is foundational to society. Just about everything you see, every building you enter, needed a welder at some point. It’s just a matter of finding the people who want to do the work and training them. 

Both Owen Nielson and Zane Neville started in the welding program this semester. Nielson plans to go to work on an oil pipeline, and Neville plans to work in structural welding. Like Aragon, they describe Miller as old school. 

“He doesn’t go around the truth. He tells you what you need to do and how to figure it out,” Nielson said. 

Both students said they appreciate his old school attitude because they think it’s preparing them for the real-world in welding. They described welding as an old school profession, one that won’t treat them like glass. At the same time, they also described Miller as an open book. Someone they feel comfortable coming back to for advice. 

“He allows you to give your best shot,” Neville said. “I don’t think it’s ever good enough for him though. He wants you to keep getting better and better and better, which I think is needed in a teacher.” 

Miller has been teaching for over thirty years, and though his military days are far behind him, he believes that the patience and leadership qualities he learned in the Army are a large part of his success in teaching. The three attributes of a leader, and subsequently a teacher, according to the Army, are character, presence and intellect. All three of these attributes are clearly seen through the descriptions given by Miller’s students – students who are now more prepared for a world that can’t just throw things away.