Joshua Swain: NDT Instructor Who’s Been Teaching for 26 Years Without Realizing It
Joshua Swain didn’t plan to become a nondestructive testing instructor at The Ocean Corporation in Houston—he’s been one since 1996, just not officially. Look at his resume and you’ll see a pattern: nearly every position across 26 years includes the same phrase: “Point of contact for training all new employees.” At Grant Prideco, Tenaris, Dril-Quip, Detail Design, Loadmaster Universal Rig, and Celeros Flow Technologies, Josh was the inspector who taught the next wave of quality professionals how to read weld profiles, interpret radiographic film, and build databooks that passed Chevron’s scrutiny on billion-dollar deepwater projects. Teaching wasn’t an afterthought in his career—it was the through-line he finally recognized when his friend and colleague George White asked him to join TOC’s NDT program faculty.
Josh’s entry into the inspection industry wasn’t conventional. He started with zero NDT experience, walking into an entry-level inspector role at Grant Prideco in 1996 armed only with what he calls “a mind for inspection and record keeping.” Most people in that situation wash out. Josh thrived because he found mentors who understood that technical competence isn’t innate—it’s transferred from one generation of inspectors to the next through patient explanation, hands-on demonstration, and the willingness to answer the same question five different ways until it clicks. Those mentors—technicians whose names never appeared on project documentation but whose knowledge made the difference between acceptable welds and catastrophic failures—shaped Josh’s understanding that teaching isn’t about proving how much you know. It’s about meeting students where they are and building the confidence that they can master complex material through persistence and practice.
From Magnetic Testing Certification to Certified Welding Inspector
The first moment Josh knew he belonged in the inspection field came when he earned his Level II certification in Magnetic Testing. It wasn’t just the credential—it was the proof that someone with no industry background could, through mentorship and deliberate study, achieve professional recognition in a technically demanding discipline. That certification opened the door to Metco in 1998, where Josh managed the horizontal magnetic inspection unit and liquid penetrant inspection booth, and eventually to Tenaris Coiled Tubing from 2000 to 2008, where he served as lead inspector in the service department.
The inflection point in Josh’s career came in 2007 when he earned his Certified Welding Inspector (CWI) credential through the American Welding Society. The CWI is the industry’s gold standard for weld inspection professionals—it requires comprehensive knowledge of welding metallurgy, codes and standards (particularly AWS D1.1 and API 1104), and the ability to evaluate weld quality under production pressure. Josh passed on his first attempt and has maintained his certification continuously for eighteen years, a testament to his commitment to staying current with evolving standards and inspection methodologies.
The CWI credential positioned Josh for increasingly complex assignments on some of the Gulf Coast’s most technically challenging offshore projects. From 2010 to 2012, he served as resident inspector at a coiled tubing manufacturing facility in Tulsa, Oklahoma, working on subsea projects for Oceaneering and Technip including Medusa, Perdido, and Boomvang—deepwater developments requiring exacting quality standards and meticulous documentation. He returned to Houston for a series of projects from 2012 to 2015 that defined his reputation as a databook specialist: assembling quality assurance documentation for Chevron’s Jack St. Malo field, Anadarko’s Lucius platform, and ultimately serving as lead inspector for a 24-inch pipeline repair system on Jack St. Malo for Saipem.
Databook Mastery on Billion-Dollar Deepwater Projects
Building databooks for major operators like Chevron, Shell, and Anadarko is not glamorous work, but it’s where multi-billion-dollar projects succeed or fail regulatory review. A databook is the complete quality record for a subsea asset—weld maps, radiographic film, material certifications, hydrostatic test results, non-conformance reports and their resolutions, witness inspection points, and final acceptance testing documentation. If an inspector misses a required hold point, mislabels a weld, or fails to document a deviation properly, the entire fabrication can be rejected at the dock, costing millions in delays. Josh built databooks for some of the industry’s most scrutinized projects: Chevron’s Bigfoot tension-leg platform, BP’s Thunderhorse, and the Jack St. Malo and Lucius pipeline end manifolds and terminations.
The Jack St. Malo pipeline end manifold project, where Josh served as resident inspector for fabrication from 2013 to 2014, exemplifies the stakes involved in deepwater inspection. These manifolds—massive subsea structures that distribute hydrocarbons from multiple wells into a single export pipeline—operate in 7,000 feet of water under extreme pressure and corrosive conditions. Every weld must meet AWS D1.1 structural and API 1104 pipeline standards. Every material certificate must trace back to mill test reports. Every coating system must pass adhesion and thickness testing. Josh’s role was to witness critical inspection points, coordinate vendor surveillance for subcontracted components, generate and close non-conformance reports when fabrication deviated from specifications, and ultimately compile the evidence that this equipment was safe to install on the seafloor. Chevron and Anadarko don’t accept documentation errors on assets this expensive—they expect perfection, and Josh delivered it.
His work extended beyond traditional weld inspection into specialized destructive testing: Charpy V-notch impact tests for low-temperature toughness, crack tip open displacement (CTOD) testing for fracture mechanics, tensile pulls, and bend testing. He coordinated hydrostatic testing, final acceptance testing (FAT), and systems integration testing. At Detail Design from 2016 to 2019, he inspected tendon buoyancy modules—critical components that maintain tension in floating platforms—where a single inspection error could compromise platform stability. At Loadmaster Universal Rig from 2015 to 2016, he oversaw fabrication inspection for a self-erecting 3,000-horsepower modular drilling rig destined for Pemex operations in Mexico, managing quality documentation across drill floor support boxes, mud pump rooms, heli-decks, and associated structures for a 30-plus welder fabrication shop.
Throughout this progression, Josh maintained multiple Level II certifications in magnetic testing (MT), penetrant testing (PT), radiographic testing (RT), and ultrasonic testing (UT), along with knowledge of eddy current and automated ultrasonic inspection. He held a Texas Radiographer State Card and served as radiation safety officer, handling Iridium-192 and Cobalt-60 sources for field radiography. He hand-processed and automatically processed Fuji and Kodak industrial radiographic images, interpreted X-ray film for weld discontinuities, and performed mechanical hardness testing with Birnell hardness testers.
Teaching Philosophy: Patience, Compassion, and Practical Application
Josh’s teaching philosophy at The Ocean Corporation is grounded in the same principles that guided his mentors: hands-on engagement, recognition that students learn at different paces, and an unwavering commitment to ensuring every student believes they can not only grasp the material but apply it practically in the working world. He brings what he describes as “compassion for individuals’ learning strengths and weaknesses”—an approach shaped significantly by raising young daughters, which taught him patience and the importance of keeping emotions in check when frustration sets in.
His classroom approach emphasizes group participation and career insights drawn from two and a half decades of inspection work across fabrication shops, manufacturing facilities, and offshore project sites. He shares stories of databook assembly under deadline pressure, navigating non-conformance report politics when fabricators push back on inspection findings, and the critical thinking required when a weld passes visual inspection but shows subsurface indications on ultrasonic testing. These aren’t abstract scenarios—they’re the daily reality of inspection work, and Josh wants students to understand the decision-making frameworks they’ll need before they encounter their first ambiguous radiographic image or questionable weld profile in a production environment.
Josh measures success differently than many instructors. For himself, positive reviews from students and acknowledgment from peers and supervisors matter, but his real metric is whether students finish the program with confidence that they can continue learning as they progress in their careers. He doesn’t expect students to leave The Ocean Corporation knowing everything—he expects them to leave with the foundational knowledge and self-assurance that allows them to seek answers, ask questions without fear of judgment, and build competence through experience. That’s how he learned, and it’s the approach he models in every lecture and laboratory session.
He’s particularly focused on setting an example of professionalism and preparation. Students see Josh arrive early, review lesson plans, and make himself available outside scheduled class time to work through challenging concepts. That’s not performative—it’s his work ethic, refined across decades of being the point of contact when new inspectors joined fabrication shops and needed someone patient enough to explain why a particular weld profile violated AWS D1.1 acceptance criteria or how to properly interpret magnetic particle inspection indications under ultraviolet light.
Preparing Students for an AI-Transformed Industry
Josh sees artificial intelligence fundamentally reshaping the NDT industry, though he’s candid about needing more education on how AI tools will integrate into inspection workflows. Automated defect recognition systems are already analyzing ultrasonic testing data, identifying patterns human inspectors might miss in phased array scans. Machine learning algorithms are being trained on radiographic image libraries to flag potential discontinuities faster than traditional film interpretation. Digital twin technologies are creating virtual replicas of fabricated structures that integrate inspection data in real time, allowing engineers to monitor quality trends across entire projects.
For Josh, the challenge isn’t whether students should learn AI—it’s ensuring they understand that AI tools are supplements to foundational competence, not replacements for it. An algorithm can flag a suspicious radiographic indication, but it takes a trained inspector to determine whether that indication is a slag inclusion requiring weld repair or an acceptable artifact from the welding process. AI can accelerate data processing, but it can’t replace the judgment that comes from standing in a fabrication shop watching welders work and understanding how process variables affect final quality.
Josh is working to incorporate AI awareness into his NDT curriculum while expanding his own knowledge of these emerging technologies. He wants students to graduate with the technical fundamentals—weld metallurgy, code requirements, inspection procedures, calibration protocols—and the adaptability to integrate new tools as the industry evolves. That means teaching the “why” behind inspection methods, not just the procedural steps. Students who understand the physics of ultrasonic wave propagation can adapt when new phased array transducers enter the market. Students who grasp the metallurgical reasons for hydrogen cracking can evaluate whether AI-flagged indications represent actual defects or benign microstructural features.
Outside the classroom, Josh’s interests reflect the work-life balance he prioritizes: gaming, exercise, family walks, and camping trips. His family remains his highest priority, and he’s intentional about bringing that relatability into his teaching. Students aren’t training to become inspection robots—they’re building careers that will support families, require them to manage stress, and demand they maintain physical and mental health across decades of demanding work. Josh models what sustainable career success looks like: technical competence, continuous learning, professional relationships built on respect rather than ego, and the understanding that teaching the next generation isn’t a distraction from “real work”—it is the real work.
Josh Swain has spent 26 years training inspectors at Grant Prideco, Tenaris, Dril-Quip, Detail Design, Loadmaster, and Celeros Flow Technologies. Now, as a nondestructive testing instructor at The Ocean Corporation, he’s simply doing what he’s always done—meeting people where they are, building their confidence through patient explanation, and ensuring they have the foundational knowledge to succeed in an industry that tolerates no shortcuts and rewards professionals who combine technical mastery with genuine humility about how much there is still to learn.