Article from Harbor Freight Tools for Schools LLC
In the 2019 Harbor Freight Tools for Schools Prize for Teaching Excellence, three $100,000 first-place prizes were awarded to Cesar Gutierrez, a manufacturing teacher at Desert View High School in Tucson, Arizona, Wendy Schepman, a landscape operations teacher at South Fork High School in Stuart, Florida, and Brent Trankler, a welding teacher at Sikeston Career and Technology Center in Sikeston, Missouri, with the prize winnings shared between the individual teacher or team and their high school skilled trades program. Gutierrez, Schepman and Trankler will each receive $100,000—$70,000 for the school’s skilled trades program and $30,000 for the teacher personally.
Fifteen second-place winners across the U.S. were also surprised with the news that they and their schools had won the cash award. One was a welding teacher who won second place in the 2019 Harbor Freight Tools for Schools Prize for Teaching Excellence, earning her high school skilled trades program $35,000 as part of $1 million awarded nationally. Jodi Lancaster, who teaches welding at Livingston Area Career Center in Pontiac, Illinois, was surprised in her classroom by a representative from Harbor Freight Tools for Schools with the news that she and her school will receive $50,000—$35,000 for the school’s skilled trades program and $15,000 for her personally.
“Skilled trades educators are crucial to helping students stay engaged and motivated in high school,” said Danny Corwin, executive director of Harbor Freight Tools for Schools. “These amazing teachers connect students to promising careers, show them how to apply academics to the real world and help them feel pride and accomplishment—something they might not experience in all their classes. We make these awards because we believe in these teachers, we believe in these students, and we believe this vital sector deserves more support and investment.”
Because of school, district or state policy regarding individual cash awards, the schools of three of the winners will receive the entire prize winnings. In addition to the more than $1 million in first- and second-place prizes awarded by Harbor Freight Tools for Schools, the company Harbor Freight Tools donated $32,000 to 32 semifinalists.
The prize was started in 2017 by Harbor Freight Tools Founder Eric Smidt to recognize extraordinary public high school skilled trades teachers and programs with a proven track record of dedication and performance. Prizes are awarded by Harbor Freight Tools for Schools, a program of The Smidt Foundation.
"All of our roads and bridges, our schools and homes, and our planes and automobiles are built and are maintained by tradespeople," Smidt said. "It is our dedicated skilled trades teachers, who inspire students to pursue these meaningful careers, that allow our economy to thrive and make so much of what we depend on possible. We are deeply honored to be able to shine a light on these extraordinary teachers today."
Lancaster sees her life as a series of obstacles that brought her unexpected opportunities. As a student, she was told she wasn’t college material due to her learning disabilities—so she went to trade school and became a cosmetologist. When she had to cut that career short after developing a chemical allergy, she tried working as a temp. When she was unable to earn enough money temping, she became the second woman to complete Midwest Technical Institute’s welding certification program. She decided to become a teacher so she could dedicate time to her family, earning a bachelor’s degree in special education, a master’s degree in administration and a welding teacher credential.
“My goal,” she said, “has always been to provide my students with as many pathways as I can, so they can get to where they want to be no matter what obstacles they may have in their way.”
Lancaster has taught at the Livingston Area Career Center for 12 years. She aligns her curriculum to the American Welding Society’s SENSE program, to Heartland Community College’s dual credit offerings—through which students can earn more than a dozen credits—and to the Common Core standards for career and technical education in English and math.
Lancaster works closely with local business through a roundtable she created—making sure that her students develop the skills businesses need from future employees—and coordinates with fellow welding teachers on curriculum, even across states.
“Some students need to go straight into the workforce but want a career, not just a job,” Lancaster said. “Many families can’t afford to send their child on to school or don’t know where to start the process. This is where I believe I make the most impact for my students and their families.”
The school’s prize winnings will support the skilled trades program being recognized, and the teacher’s or teacher team winnings can be used as they wish. The high schools of the remaining 32 semifinalists will each receive a $1,000 Harbor Freight Tools gift card to support their skilled trades programs.
The 2019 prize drew nearly 750 applications from 49 states and included three rounds of judging, each by a separate independent panel of experts from industry, education, trades, philanthropy and civic leadership. The field was narrowed this summer to 50 semifinalists. The application process, which included responses to questions and a series of online video learning modules, was designed to solicit each teacher’s experience, insights and creative ideas about their approach to teaching and success in helping their students achieve excellence in the skilled trades.
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