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HEATHER HILL
THE MID-COUNTY MEMO
The David Douglas High School wood shop has turned into a space for career building, not just another elective classroom.
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| David Douglas High School’s WoodLINKS students constructed 100 toy trucks for the Guild of Oregon Woodworkers Toys for Tots contribution last December. WoodLINKS students pose with proof of their efforts. |
Where high school academics shepherd students from the halls to the campus quad, until recently the trip from the shop class to the factory floor had more impediments than one might expect, not the least of which included expertise. Today, a number of organizations work to bridge the gap between education and industry, often offered on an extracurricular basis. One program currently working in schools is the WoodLINKS program. Created by and for cooperation between industry and education professionals, WoodLINKS operates in over 80 schools nationwide, the majority located in the Midwest. However, four Oregon woodworking programs now employ WoodLINKS curriculums, the sole Portland participant being David Douglas High School.
With the practical goal of supplying the wood industry with skilled workers, WoodLINKS exposes students to the realities of the industry through partnerships with local manufacturers. To qualify for WoodLINKS, a school and industry sponsor partner together, levying the required $5,000 license fee to earn entry into the program. This pays for the curriculum materials and teacher training. Portland industries Emerson Hardwood, Boden Store Fixtures and Barbo Machinery combine to support David Douglas and provide materials. The school employs these resources to fashion a program more relevant to the industry’s needs, imbuing students with the necessary skills to enter the workforce. The industry, in return, gains access to WoodLINKS’ certified entry-level potential employees, elevating quality while simultaneously reducing training costs.
Offered as the advanced woodworking class at David Douglas and led by instructor Jeff Reardon, the WoodLINKS courses would alternately classify as Wood Manufacturing I and II in more traditional programs. Reardon credits Doug Ivey, the school’s former woodworking instructor, for bringing the WoodLINKS program to David Douglas before he joined two years ago.
“The guy who preceded me was a woodworking veteran, teaching wood for 30 years, extremely good at helping kids with individual projects. Before my time, they made some projects you would not believe; they were pretty good at picking up some awards at some student competitions.”
Switching to the present, Reardon continued, “I’m interested in good quality woodworking but also (want) to focus on the manufacturing process: how do you build a number of the same product and have good quality, good volume and cost efficiency with the fixtures and tools you need to make that in a repeatable fashion?”
This regulation distinguishes the hobbyist from the professional and as a bonus has interdisciplinary applications. “I think what’s neat about it is (that) it wouldn’t matter if they were using woods or metals or electronics; there’s still a lot of the same design steps and documentation you go through to ensure quality. We do floor charting, for example, that would apply to any production process you may encounter.”
Reardon’s classes remain small. His dozen or so students manufacture CD cases, mirror frames, coffee tables, and a project involving a drawer and a door of their choosing, but he hopes that larger-scale projects will earn students and the program more recognition. Last December, Reardon’s WoodLINKS class used wood donated from Emerson Hardwood to create 100 toy trucks for the Marine Corps Reserve’s annual Toys for Tots drive. As one of three school programs enrolled to contribute to the Guild of Oregon Woodworkers’ efforts, Reardon saw a serendipitous opportunity. “I was looking for something to manufacture that would be kind of fun, but I didn’t know how I would come up with the material. So they (the Guild of Oregon Woodworkers) called at the right time, and Emerson donated scraps of material that we used to turn into some nice toys.”
He hopes this will lead to further collaboration. “Now I have something to show for it when I talk to my industry partners. I can show them the evidence that we have actually manufactured a project in volume. There is some evidence that we are doing something beyond the original woodworking program.”
Now the challenge remains to replicate the process, complete with time restraints and uniformity challenges. In the process of toy manufacturing, Reardon taught his students fabrication knowledge that he hopes to build upon in a project to market to the public at year’s end. “I’m trying to talk them into Adirondack chairs. We don’t have a lot of time to build them and (have) to have the show to sell them, but Adirondack chairs are a nice classic piece of yard furniture. But then I run into problems like, where do I store a bunch of them? One of the kids suggested something small, maybe jewelry boxes or something like that. I don’t want it to look too Saturday Market-ish, but maybe that’s what we need to do.”
The sometimes tedious components of duplication and the necessity of relinquishing one’s preferences for practicality’s sake stand to differentiate a job from a hobby. Yet the teamwork involved in collaborating toward a cause and the pride of observing others enjoy the finished product may make up for the freedom lost. That and designating 40 paid hours a week to one’s passion, rather than squeezing it into the weekends. In addition to employing the students’ skills to benefit the needy, Reardon hopes his students’ expertise will translate into a gainful future in woodworking, also the goal of the WoodLINKS program.
“That’s what I’m working on: trying to have a program that is relevant to the employers where we can demonstrate that they are learning something about how to manufacture, using tools. They are responsible kids, but it takes a little time. This is my second year, but I think we are making progress. I feel pretty good about it.”
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