Here are few of our latest Student Success Stories. There will be more added, but for now, check out Racheal Nyarko, Community Protector; Marc Snooks, Information Sponge; and David Yoder, Spark Enthusiast.

DAVID YODER:
SPARK ENTHUSIAST

Some young people take a gap year after graduation; David Yoder’s break was more like a gap weekend. Considering where he is two years later, it seems like it was the right call.

The 2022 Clare High School graduate walked the stage at commencement on a Friday, and by Monday, he was a full-time welder at StageRight in Clare. Today, he’s a shift leader. The pivotal moment came, he says now, in CTE’s Welding Technology program.

“When I joined CTE I had no idea what it was like,” Yoder said. “No one in my family, nor anyone I knew, had participated in the program. I still remember the first time I struck an arc. I had no idea what I was doing, and I drug the stick across the plate for half a second. It was not a minute later that (WT Instructor Phil Schafer) came in and stood right in the booth with me to help me get my speed down until I had a presentable weld.”

Spend two minutes discussing the benefits of CTE with any student and you’re bound to hear the term “hands-on.” Yoder’s enthusiasm for welding skyrocketed in the CTE lab that same day.

“After I had that one good weld, I was hooked,” he said. “I was so eager to get in that lab every day. I learned everything I could, and then learned some more.”

Beyond the standard areas of concentration that put Schafer’s students in position to earn all sorts of industry certifications, the program also leaves room for students’ creative side.

“I eventually got ahead of the rest of the class,” Yoder said. “A few of us who were ahead were allowed to make little projects and sculptures.”

Those projects became personal mementos of the experience; they also were entered in the statewide MITES competition. Yoder’s works of repurposed metalwork took the form of flowers, miniature tractors, bookends, a dog sculpture and much more. One project allowed Yoder to learn a welding trick that still surprises his colleagues.

“I learned how to anneal aluminum,” he said. “We had some tight bends to do around the edges and the aluminum was too hard to bend consistently. So we learned how to heat it up and then burn off the soot so we could bend it easier. I now use this trick quite often and have surprised my colleagues who have never heard of it.”

Yoder had a hand in several artistic endeavors around the area while he was in CTE. Along the way, while he was learning all the ins and outs of welding, he discovered what he wanted to do for a living.

“Those projects helped expand my mind to the possibilities in front of me,” he said. “But what really set my career on the right path was learning all the little things that make me a proficient welder, like how to read a blueprint, or the proper way to use a tri square.”

Beyond the skill set he developed, Yoder learned how to navigate the work force.

“I gained some of my instincts that saved me a lot of pain in the real world,” he said. “For example, I never use a tool that isn’t mine to use. I never work without proper PPE. I always check if something is hot before grabbing it with my bare hands.

“Learning how to weld is only half of what I learned working in the CTE lab,” he added. “The other half is what put me on track to be the employee I am today.”

If it’s coming across that Yoder’s belief in CTE is unwavering, that instinct is correct. He talks like a CTE lifer, and he’s not alone.

“Now that I find myself in a leadership role, I find myself reflecting on a lot of what my instructors taught me,” he said. “I try to embody my old teachers when I train my subordinates. I don’t think they get enough credit for the work they do for the students of the community.

“I have seen many former CTE students in the community, and even a few here at StageRight,” he added. “And I love seeing them excel far above those who did not have the same opportunity. But I also wish more people could have had access to a program like CTE. Without a program like this, I truly don’t know what I would be doing today. But I know I would not be a 20-year-old with a fiancé, a mortgage, a fast car and a career without it.”