The production floor at Saints Manufacturing is in line with other entrepreneurial, small manufacturers: Along one wall are multiple welding stations, with three CNC mills on the other side. In between you’ll find numerous lathes, vertical mills, CNC plasma cutters, and other equipment. But this isn’t a scrappy startup that’s challenging larger manufacturers. In this workplace, the skilled operators scramble to grab their backpacks and books when the school bell rings.
That’s because Saints Manufacturing is a class that’s part of a workforce development program at St. Francis High School in St. Francis, Minn., a modest farm town with a population around 8,000 that sits 45 minutes north of Minneapolis. While the school offers traditional courses like welding and metal tech, the manufacturing program provides a breadth of skills that go far beyond how to use each machine properly.
“We learn how to run a manufacturing project from all angles, including how to talk to vendors about materials, what goes into an estimate, how to determine labor costs, and how to manage workflow with multiple orders,” says Maggie Grutkoski, 17, a senior. “Juggling so many components of manufacturing a product from start to finish can be stressful, but that shows us what it’s like to do this kind of job. I think that’s really valuable, because we’ll graduate knowing what to expect, not just if we go into manufacturing, but in whatever career we might choose. You learn to collaborate and be a problem solver.”
Building the program
Founded in 1914, St. Francis High School has had a metalworking shop for decades, similar to many high schools that teach welding, cutting, grinding, and other skills. It also had a chopper program that taught students how to disassemble and repair motorcycles, says Erik Trost, director of the manufacturing program at the school. But soon after he began teaching there in 2012, he felt there needed to be a major change.
“It didn’t seem like the skills being taught were very transferable to what students might need after graduation,” he says. “While some of it could be helpful for moving on to vocational and technical college afterward, it just seemed like a missed opportunity not to give these students more of a head start. They needed a comprehensive education that could open them up to more career paths.”
The St. Francis staff significantly reconfigured the overall program in 2016. Entry-level courses consist of general metals, metal tech, and welding. For those wishing to move on to the next level, there’s a machine tool class. Students who have completed all those classes can join Saints Manufacturing. About 300 students annually enroll in those entry-level courses and machine tooling, Trost says, but only about 17 to 24 students get to work for Saints each year.
The idea for such a high-level program came from the Eleva-Strum school district in Strum, Wis., which founded Cardinal Manufacturing in 2008. Operating as a company within a school, it offers custom manufacturing, machining, design, and repair. Cardinal runs workshops for other school districts to encourage the development of similar programs, and after Trost attended, he was immediately sold on the concept. The next year, students signed up for the chopper program were transferred to Saints, as the chopper course was shuttered.
“I knew we should jump in with both feet. I had a feeling the students would appreciate being able to make real products that were used in the community,” Trost says. The program kicked off with creating fire rings and custom signs that anyone in the area could order. But it wasn’t long before a casual conversation at a family gathering really fired up the production line.
On the growth track
Two years after Saints launched, Trost was grilling next to his brother-in-law, who had just started working for the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT), and they began discussing manufacturing.
At the time, MnDOT was in crisis mode because it had been sourcing manufacturing projects related to its vehicles to the Minnesota Correctional Facility-Stillwater in Bayport. Then a corrections officer was killed in the metal shop by an inmate who used one of the shop’s tools for the assault, leading to closure of the corrections manufacturing program. That left MnDOT so desperate for a replacement workforce that it asked new employees, such as Trost’s brother, for referrals to any programs that seemed suitable.
That’s how Trost got connected to Brian McDonald, MnDOT’s transportation materials supervisor, who appreciated the idea that this was a chance not just to get manufacturing services but also to contribute to training the next generation of manufacturing professionals.
“Unfortunately, we’ve seen many metal fabrication classes and woodshop classes taken out of a lot of high schools,” McDonald says. “That’s contributed to fewer students being interested in pursuing skilled trades. Saints Manufacturing is meeting that need — and that’s huge. We desperately need machinists, welders, and fabricators, and Saints is giving these students a chance to understand what those jobs are like.”
Over the past seven years, MnDOT and Saints have grown their relationship, and at this point, Trost says about 95% of Saints’ production is done for MnDOT in the form of parts for plow trucks, shop carts, push pulls, and more. For the 2023-24 school year, Saints did about $241,000 in business with MnDOT, and the next year was $181,000. Profits enable the program to acquire the most up-to-date machinery available, so students won’t be stepping into a career knowing only how to operate older equipment, Trost says.
“This program has definitely pushed me out of my comfort zone as an instructor,” he adds. “I never in my life thought I’d be looking at three CNC mills and watching students use them so well.”
More than manufacturing
Learning to weld, run machines, and program a CNC mill all positions students for manufacturing and machinist careers after they graduate — or give them foundational knowledge for transitioning into a vocational college program — but it’s not just the hands-on skills that students appreciate.
“We learn to approach a job in a professional way,” says Dean Glissmeyer. “We do quality inspections, pricing, and workflow. It’s an incredible feeling to know that a part I made isn’t just affecting my grade, it’s being used on a truck by MnDOT.”
Glissmeyer is also an example of the program’s reach in the community. The 17-year-old isn’t a regular student at St. Francis; he’s homeschooled and is able to take the program as an elective — it’s actually the only class he attends at the school. Two of his siblings also took the program and are now working in manufacturing. Glissmeyer is gearing up to become an underwater welder and has already become a certified SCUBA diver in addition to taking three years of manufacturing classes at St. Francis. “Based on what I’ve learned here, I feel confident going into that work,” he says.
Another student, 16-year-old Jesse Deschenes, is also following in his siblings’ path with Saints Manufacturing. All four of his older brothers have been in the program and the oldest is now a machinist, he says.
“I heard about this program for years before I was able to take it, so I needed to try it out for myself to see if it was as enjoyable as others made it sound,” he says. “It wasn’t long into my first year that I knew I wanted to come back; there’s so much to learn. There’s a reason kids talk about it the way they do.”
What both students appreciate most is similar to what Grutkoski praised: a well-rounded strategy that makes all aspects of manufacturing transparent. A whiteboard in the main classroom area displays the dollar amount of their current purchase orders — in early September, that was $163,978 — and they know every penny will go back into the program to buy more equipment to keep Saints Manufacturing going strong.
When they graduate, they’ll know how to operate every machine, but they’ll also have insight into being a foreman, as well as estimating, deadlines, common production problems, labor costs, and delivery.
“This is project-based learning, and the beautiful thing is that we never know what’s coming next, so it feels real in terms of work experience,” Trost says. “The students don’t know what to expect. Every project has its own needs, timeline, materials, and workflow. Because of that, they need to learn how to handle as much of that as possible, and that’s what we provide.”
A unique aspect of production is that they don’t have contracts with MnDOT, he adds, they have purchase orders. That’s an important distinction because a contract usually stipulates a deadline. While Saints does deliver work promptly, imposing a timeframe wouldn’t be in keeping with the instructional nature of the program.
“If something unexpected happens, we stop the class and talk about it so the students can understand and work through the issue,” Trost says. “At the end of the day, this is a class and these are students, and their education is the most important priority.”
Next steps
In the same way that Trost envisioned a larger and more comprehensive manufacturing program at a high school, he also hopes the legislature will change laws to allow schools to award scholarships or grants to students from the money the program generates.
“Right now, in Minnesota, you can’t pay a student for the type of work we’re doing because the revenue is coming in through the district,” he says. “My goal since day one is to get students paid in the form of a scholarship or grant, but that will require getting the laws changed.” Trost made some headway last year by meeting with some state representatives, but the legislative session ended before that proposal could get enough traction.
He’s still hopeful to continue those conversations and get a new law passed this year, because he believes the ability to tie a scholarship or grant to a manufacturing program like this will continue to spur interest not just in the program itself but also in manufacturing and skilled trades. Also, it will provide a reward for students who are already putting in the work and go beyond just academic credit.
“My focus is to get kids into this program and create other programs,” he says. “When they hear about the potential of a grant or scholarship, maybe they’ll see that this is worth looking at. At the very least, it might lead someone to consider machining and manufacturing who may not have thought about it before.”
Another step might be for Trost to offer workshops similar to the one he attended at Cardinal Manufacturing — bringing in other schools in Minnesota that might benefit from starting a similar program. That would provide more opportunities for getting young people into the skilled trades and help with workforce development, says McDonald.
“Saints Manufacturing is a model that should be followed by more schools because the skills these students learn aren’t just applicable to one type of job,” he adds. “These students are learning problem solving, project management, collaboration, and communication. They’re seeing that it pays to be detail oriented and aware of budgets.”
A 2023 report called “Minnesota’s Vanishing Workforce” by analytics firm Lightcast, in partnership with the Minnesota Business Partnership, concluded that the state is experiencing profound demographic changes that will alter the composition of its workforce in the years ahead. Most notably, Minnesota’s population will age more rapidly between 2020 and 2030 than during any other period, emphasizing the need for younger, skilled workers to come in as they retire.
The report suggests that increasing the opportunities to learn new skills will be crucial, and Saints Manufacturing is showing what that looks like, one graduating class at a time.
“This program is as much about fostering employability as it is about fundamentals in machining or welding,” Trost says. “We’re proud and excited to keep this going because it represents the next generation of skilled professionals.”
Return to the Winter 2025 issue of Enterprise Minnesota® magazine.
