The room lights up as sparks fly, and the last bead of the weld is complete. Welding combines form and function, bonding two pieces of metal together to create something completely new.
Northern Tool’s Tools for the Trades program offers professional expertise, monetary support, and professional-grade tools to schools across the United States to encourage students and instructors in career and technical fields to continue their pursuits.
Northern Tool, which recently opened a store in Bryan, partnered with Monster Jam for this year’s project and chose to work with the Bryan High School welding department, providing the students with $30,000 worth of tools from the company. The students will build a ⅓ scale model of a monster truck throughout the year leading up to their big reveal at Monster Jam in June at the Moody Center in Austin.
“When we first found out that we were going to be working with Northern Tool, I wondered what we would be building,” senior Carson Giese said. “I wondered what challenges we would face and if our build was going to be big or small. When I found out what our challenge actually was, my jaw dropped.”
In the weeks leading up to the big reveal, the team watched videos of last year’s Tools for the Trades project, in which students built Rat Rods with Richard Petty, building excitement for the challenge ahead.
“When our teacher told us about the project, he told us it wasn’t going to be a Rat Rod like last year’s project, so I started thinking maybe it would be a go-kart or something,” junior Peyton Stone said. “I was getting really excited and started thinking about everything, but then our teacher talked about bass boats, and I started wondering if we were building one, but I’m so excited to be building a monster truck.”
Northern Tool, which boasts 140 stores in 23 states and over 100,000 products, has always prioritized supporting workers in skilled trades.
“We are proud to serve people who work with their hands and people who hand build stuff on job sites and in their garages,” Northern Tool co-owner Wade Kotula said. “We take pride in offering products needed to do the tough jobs. Working with your hands runs in our DNA, which is why we created Tools for the Trades.”
One of Tools for the Trades’ many goals is to help counteract the welding shortage, which is predicted to be 40,000 welders by 2027.
“We serve people in the trades every single day, and with this project, it’s the next generation of students who are going to fill the pipeline of the trades and the career and technical education,” Northern Tool co-owner Ryan Kotula said. “We are excited to support the high schools and build the next generation of our customers, teach kids the trades, and get them into the workforce; a four-year college isn’t for everybody.”
Career and Technical Education programs are intended to provide a path for students to learn and become skilled at a trade they couldn’t learn in a traditional academic setting.
“The ultimate goal is to get kids interested in career and technical education,” Ryan Kotula said. “We want to get them interested in using their hands and exploring all the different fields available to them.”
For the students involved in the project, welding is just that – a chance to do something different and more exciting than what they experience in a standard set of classes.
“Welding class is the highlight of my day,” Carson Giese said. “I want to get through my classes, and then as soon as fourth period comes around, I’m ready to go to welding, have some fun, and build something.”
Students like welding class because it gives them hands-on experience in the shop.
“When I joined welding my sophomore year, Lehde had also just started,” Peyton said. “I initially thought it wasn’t going to be super fun, and we were just going to do a lot of bookwork. But during the second six weeks, Lehde had us go to the shop to weld. We struggled, but it was a lot of fun. Welding is hard to learn, but hanging out with friends and learning from Lehde makes it fun.”
Welding teacher Christopher Lehde transitioned from the public industry, where he worked in refineries, pipelines, and the oil field, to the classroom last year. The move has proven beneficial for the school and the students, as Lehde was named “Rookie Teacher of the Year” for 2024.
“I enjoy taking metal that was nothing and making it something,” Lehde said. “Every weld is different. Every time there’s something different, and there’s always another challenge.”
Welding requires both technical skill and creativity, which makes the process unique. Because of this, the executives from Northern Tool are excited to see how the students approach the project from start to finish.
“It’s wonderful to see students’ progress, some of their struggles, and how they overcome them.” Ryan Kotula said. “It’s interesting to see how they engineer and learn and their thought process in this real-world experience.”
Lehde believes the ability to problem-solve will be one of the key determinants of the monster truck project’s success.
“They’re going to run into things that they don’t know, and they’re going to have to figure it out,” Lehde said. “There’s going to be a lot of trial and error.”
Though the students are well versed in welding, the idea of being on camera and a part of something so public can be intimidating.
“Working on this project already has been out of our comfort zones,” Peyton said. “Most of us welding kids just keep to ourselves and stay out of trouble and don’t cause problems, but now people will be coming in and looking at what we are doing and examining our finished product.”
Learning to build a monster truck will be a more complex challenge than anything the students have done before.
“This isn’t just going to be a piece of metal standing straight up,” Peyton said. “We’re going to be welding pipe. We may even have to learn how to use a mirror to weld. There will also be many difficult aspects when it comes to the automotive part because we’re a welding class, not an automotive class. Still, we do have a lot of smart automotive-related kids, so I know we’ll put some good stuff together.”
Armando Castro, an eight-year veteran of Monster Jam and driver of El Toro Loco, sees that the students may face difficulties, but with enough effort, thinks that they can succeed.
“I think their biggest challenge is that they have to believe in themselves,” Castro said. “If they can come together as a group and take everyone’s opinion into consideration while being willing to learn and listen, they will do great things.”
Students have become very committed to the project, working on it and planning with each other before, during, and after school and at home.
“There are kids who are very much leaders – kind of captains – and can do the work but can also guide people, get the team moving, and keep the morale up,” Lehde said. “Some have great welding skills, some have great math skills, some have great skills in fabricating and laying out, and some are good at designing on the computer.”
Lehde believes that the students will work well together because they bring many different skills to the table while also possessing bonds of friendship.
“We all get along really well,” junior Carson Dodd said. “It’s going to be a challenge, but we’re all pretty close with each other, so that’ll make the challenges and the bumps and everything along the way much easier to overcome.”
Students have spent much of their free time working on the project, trying to reach their monthly goals and keep the work moving steadily.
“Carson’s going to be a great foreman, keeping us in line and keeping the project going because we’re going to have a lot of people in this group, and we can’t have people going off building their own monster truck,” Peyton said. “We need everybody to work on this project daily so that we can get it done and get our monthly goals done so that every time Northern Tool comes by, they can see our progress.”
So far, the team has been good at leveraging each member’s talents, using some students’ computer skills to 3D print models of their ideas while using the imagination and artistic talents of others to create concept drawings.
“The project will be difficult – it’s a monster truck – but seeing Stone doing drawings is really awesome,” Carson Giese said. “I feel like he’s going to be a big, big part of this because he’s very creative with just pen and paper.”
Though June is still eight months away, the students already feel the pressure but know they will have support each step of the way.
“I’m a little nervous about Monster Jam in June,” Peyton said. “But I know Lehde will keep us in check and ensure everything we’ve done is to spec and proper to help us put out a professional-grade product.”
Even though the build is a little intimidating for students, they recognize this event is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
“I’m really excited to showcase our work in Austin,” Carson Giese said. “When we see it out there, I think that’s when it will be like a dream come true because we’re going to be surrounded by thousands and thousands of people, and what we’ve spent the past seven months working on will be front and center.”
However, the students will not be alone in their endeavor; a team of skilled people is ready and waiting to help them succeed.
“I hope to use my experience as a driver to help the students learn,” Castro said. “I’m super excited to work with the high school kids and give them all the knowledge I have.”
The mentors are also excited to see what the high schoolers can imagine, plan, and create.
“I can’t wait to see what they build,” Castro said. “I’m a big gearhead and a big kid myself, so I’m genuinely excited to see what they end up creating.”
Throughout the school year, Northern Tool and Monster Jam representatives will visit the project regularly to record the students’ progress.
“I think it’s really cool that they are going to be coming in and filming us working,” Carson Giese said. “We’re the only school in the United States working on this project, and I feel like that will put Bryan High on the map.”
Participants’ hopes are high for the project’s potential.
“I’m excited that people aren’t just going to look at the school for our sports or fine arts programs,” Peyton said. “They will be able to see that we have some talented people, just everyday students building something incredible.”
