Our Story

WELD began as a dream that was transformed by heartache. In the summer of 2016, after spending ten years practicing counseling, eight years operating businesses, and five years pastoring at a church, Ly Tran began WELD (then called Watershed). His experience serving as pastor of care for a church revealed the tremendous and often overwhelming needs for quality mental health within the church. As a pastor and trained therapist, his vision was to build an organization that could address real mental health needs in the community and passionately serve the local church.

But that winter, on December 16, everything changed. Ly’s 4-month-old son died during his afternoon nap. Suddenly, nothing else mattered. Ly and his wife were devastated. Intense heartache marked the next several months and years. But Ly began to understand an invaluable lesson: incredible pain yields incredible clarity.

That experience redefined Ly’s sense of purpose in life. If he must stay on this earth, awaiting his heavenly reunion with his son, then he resolved to give everything he had to make a difference in this life.

“When you’ve already felt like you’ve lost so much, there’s not much to hold you back from risking everything in order to gain whatever meaning and joy you can muster from this world. There is no room left in my heart to hold anything back. No fear, no worldly gain, no concerns of failure. So that is what has gotten me here today. Today, the best way I know how to make a difference is to go all-in on the vision...”

Today, the WELD Group is made up of therapists passionate about making a difference in this world using the tools of mental health.

Quote taken from interview published on Oct 25, 2018.