Have you ever wanted to shadow a job you were interested in? What about a school year long shop class where you, the student, take lead in the production? With Saints Manufacturing this becomes a reality.

Saints Manufacturing is a student lead shop class that focuses on the students making the “big decisions” and having the teacher there for little involvement in the actual role of an instructor, and more of a fellow classmate with guidance and equal say. The class is meant to have the students be exposed to a real life shop environment and chain of command.

Teacher Erik Trost lays it out like this “Saints Manufacturing is a class that is run like a business, so we’ve got the opportunity to work through all the different aspects of businesses.”

In earlier days of the Saints Manufacturing program, the class had the sole focus of giving back to their direct community. Such as things like making picnic tables and firepits for the local people and businesses that needed them, but now that the class grew in demand they got partnered up with a state agency called Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDot). They are responsible for maintaining state highways, local road projects, and planning for the future of Minnesota’s roads.

“One of our biggest customers, which occupies roughly 90-95% of our class, is MnDot, so we make a lot of plow parts” said Trost.

Within the class students take on roles like categorized foreman and production managers, to make production organized and run smoothly. Landon Allen took on the role of this year’s class welding foreman.

Landon was asked what the hardest part of taking a lead role in the class was, to this he responded “Tasking all the welders with different projects before I task myself with anything.”

 “So far so good, we got off to a little bit of a slow start but currently we are sitting at just short of a $170,000 in purchase orders” Trost’s remarks on this year’s beginning.

This shop class isn’t just a class everyone can join right away, you have to have prerequisite classes done before applying for the class. It takes true dedication to apply. 

“There are three prerequisites to get into saints manufacturing, one of which is Metal Tech. The second would be General Metals. Then once you successfully completed those classes then you have to register for Machine Tool.” Says Trost.