Shop Class Podcast

This week's guest is Tiffany VonOrff, welding instructor extraordinaire! As you may know Tiffany started as car customizer which led her to become an entrepreneur. Seeing a need for a women's advocate in the trades, she created the Welding Women's Syndicate... a podcast and networks that support women in welding. Building on that momentum, and looking for a physical space to weld, she...

Student Workshop Projects (End of school year 2022) Originally published on May, 26, 2022

Connor Malloy talks BEAM Estimator and Wall Assembly contest Tonight was just a round table talk about how to make Shop Class better and support Shop Teachers. Originally published on May 21, 2022

This week's guest is Matthew Barbercheck!!! Mr. Barbercheck is the other original creator of the Shop Class Podcast along with Mr. G. This week he will be jumping on as the special guest to give us and update and collect feedback on Capable Maker, a very special project he has been working on. Capable Maker will be a building project database for shop teachers, and he is looking for help on ho...

This week's guest is Sam Myers is a building scientist and trainer for Retrotec where he teaches building performance concepts at conferences and training events, conducts field studies, and assists Retrotec with new product designs. During the COVID-19 pandemic, most of the industry’s conferences and tradeshows have been moved to online platforms. To keep providing the industry with quality e...

Tonight was just a round table talk about how to make Shop Class better and support Shop Teachers. Originally published on May 5, 2022

This week's guest is Greg Quirin, is a Career Technical Education coordinator for the San Diego district. Besides supporting SD shop teachers... Greg has made a great YouTube channels documenting a local hotter legend, Peter Aardema. Peter Aardema builds hand made engines in his garage with Keven Braun. These engines have made records at the famous land speed event "Speed Week" at th...

This week we're talking return guest Tae Kang!!! He's the program manager for Harbor Freight Tools for Schools. If you haven't started your application YOU NEED TO!!! CLICK HERE!!! You have a chance to win $100k and $30k may go directly to you!!! Tae will be joining us to go over the ins and outs of the application process and give us all tips on how to set yourself apart from the comp...

This week we're talking Trade Shows & Conventions. Ron is back from checking out JLC (Journal of Light Construction) Live. The big questions are, Do you attend trade shows? and Should we as shop/trades teachers? Ron plus some extra special guest will help us recap JLC Live as we dive into these professional development and in-person networking opportunities. Originally published on March 3...

This week's guest is Joe Konopacki. Joe is the President & CEO, Insight Property Services, Inc. With his BS in General Engineering from UIUC and over 30 years of experience in residential construction, remodeling, maintenance, and management, Joe became an Illinois licensed Home Inspector in 2008. After realizing the limitations of traditional home inspections, Joe became BPI & RESNET...

This week's special guest is Connor Malloy and Travis Brungardt and they will be LAUNCHING the the 2022 Wall Assembly Competition (Student Edition). This is a great opportunity to have your students participate and be involved with some of the residential construction industry's best of the best professionals. Jump over to the Wall Assembly website for more details, but first jump on to th...

This week's guest is Outlaw Drums, they use old time craftsmanship with modern tools to bring ancient wood back to life as stave and segment drums. They specialize in building showcase drums from 200-600 year old reclaimed wood from barns, gymnasiums, historical houses, decommissioned bridges, and fallen trees. Every custom drum is a unique work of art and they are impressive, and old! Origina...

This week's special guest is Thomas Nichols a former student of Matt Blomquist and the house building program at Taylorville High School. Thomas now has the opportunity to return to THS and teach the other trade classes in the fall. He will also be a future graduate of the Construction Occupations course at the local community college. After high school he performed many side jobs in carpentry...

This week's special guest is Chris Giffrow of Cow Dog Craft Works!! Chris is a hobbyist woodworker and YouTuber with a strong focus on hand tool woodworking and Japanese tools. A self proclaimed joinery junkie, Chris enjoys utilizing traditional Japanese timber frame joinery and scaling it down for application in fine furniture. As a primarily self taught woodworker, he values experimenting wi...

This week it's not so much about a special guest, rather a simple question. If you could receive any kind of support from your corresponding industry, what would it be? We want to hear from you and see what can be done to get that support or learn how you have been able to gain support for your program. Matt Blomquist will be filling everyone in on his time spent at the International Build Sho...

This week's guest is Brittany Farrow! Brittany joins us all the way from Ontario, Canada to talk about girls in the trades. Many shop/trades teachers agree they enjoy having girls in their classes and are often the most talented students, but how do we translate that into professional careers? Joins us Wednesday night as we talk with one badass girl who is making it happen on the jobsite every...

This week's guest is Frank Caccavale and if you haven't been following Frank and his students work, you should!! His class has teamed up with Habitat for Humanity and the students are building an entire house, at the school!!! Sometimes all you need is a parking lot. Frank and his students have been getting a lot of media attention and it's well deserved. Jump on the show Wednesday nig...

"It's not about being the best. It's about making everyone better. " #apprenticeshipisanobligation bigdogconstruction.gm Aron Jones @blakladerna Ambassador @jobber Ambassador Special guest is Aron Jones!! Aron is a carpenter in Canada and is amazing at sharing his knowledge of the trades. Whether it's tips and techniques or breaking down the math for building stair risers, Ar...

Well it doesn't get much BIGGER than this!!! Jimmy Diresta will be our special guest this Wednesday!!! If you aren't familiar with Jimmy Diresta, you are in a small group. He's an artist, maker, craftsman, woodworker, metalworker, creator, YouTuber, entrepreneur, etc., etc. Jimmy does it all and he's a fan of shop class and shop teachers! So jump on this week to say "Hi"...

Wood Shop Teacher Chris Davis joins us tomorrow!! If you don't know Chris and what his students are capable of making then you are in for a treat!!! A little insider secret all the celebrities know about his class... To name a few, Kenny Chesney, Ty Pennington, Amy Smart & Sir Richard Branson. Yeah, they're that good!!! Chris is a good friend of the Shop Class Podcast and will be our s...

Our 1st guest of 2022, is Chris "Rocky" Hernandez, an aerospace engineer, who is starting a small shop class program for his kids and neighbors kids. We'll be kicking off the new year in a BIG way tomorrow night!!! Rocky is an experienced Mechanical Engineer working in the Defense & Aerospace industry on both full rate production and development programs. His responsibilities inc...

This week's guest is Bob Kelly from Wick Right. He's a long time contractor in Chicago and thanks to his never ending experience dealing with older buildings he has added product designer to his repertoire. Bob is a big fan of shop class and shop teachers, because when else in school do students get to have hands-on, real world problems to solve. These are skills Bob uses on the daily and...

This week's guest is Kevin Baas. Who wouldn't want to be taught STEM from a teacher who loves vintage motorcycles and trucks?! Kevin is joining us to show off is awesome hobbies as well as being an awesome teacher. He's a great guy, a great teacher and loves to get students involved doing awesome stuff!! He'll fit right in on the Shop Class Podcast. You don't want to miss this...

This week's guest is Michael Anschel and we are PUMPED to have him on the show!!! Mike has a background in art, design, architecture, teaching, building and he can speak Mandarin. His design-build firm builds beautiful, healthy and sustainable homes that people love to live in and he is joining us to talk all about it!! You don't want to miss this one!!! Originally published on December 2,...

This week's guest comes to us all the way from Alaska!!! It's Mike Knoche from The Contracting Handbook Podcast Mike is gonna fill us in on what his podcast is all about (hint: it's a REALLY GOOD one) as well as talk about the opportunities general contracting can bring to our students and what knowledge we should be passing on to them for this career path. https://linktr.ee/thecontrac...