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Gas Tungsten Arc Welding Handbook
About the Authors
William H. Minnick, realizing the need for a specialized type of welding text for instructors and students,
has drawn upon his many years of experience as a welder, welding engineer, and community college instructor
to develop this text for training future welders.
The author’s career in industry includes experience welding on jet engines, missiles, pressure vessels, and
nuclear reactors. He developed the welding procedures for, and welded, the fi rst titanium pressure vessel for the
Atlas missile program. He has written many technical papers, including articles on the research and development
of procedures for welding exotic materials and on the modifi cation of existing welding processes for automatic
and robotic applications.
Mr. Minnick has developed welding certifi cate and degree programs, and taught all phases of welding and
metallurgy in community colleges for more than twenty years. In addition to this Gas Tungsten Arc Welding
Handbook, he is also the author of the Gas Metal Arc Welding Handbook and the Flux Cored Arc Welding
Handbook.
Mark Prosser grew up in Michigan and learned how to weld in his father’s collision/restoration business. As
a teenager, Mark attended a local vocational school and competed in SkillsUSA welding competitions, becoming
one of the six fi nalists for the world competition in the early 1990s.
Mark earned his associate’s degree in welding technology from Ferris State University. He then transferred
to Central Michigan University, where he obtained his bachelor’s degree in Industrial Education. Mark has also
earned a Master’s degree in Adult Education and is a CWI/CWE through the American Welding Society.
Mark has taught professionally for nine years in high schools, private colleges, and public technical colleges.
He has worked in the automotive industry, done governmental contract work, and welded structural steel and
high-pressure piping for the chemical industry. Mark is also the author of Full-Bore Sheet Metal, a sheet metal
fabrication book for custom car and bike builders.
Mark is currently a welding/fabrication instructor at Blackhawk Technical College in Janesville, Wisconsin.
In addition to writing and teaching, he runs a small custom paint business and welds every day. Mark continually
strives to inspire young people to become excited about the welding trade.