My guest on today’s podcast, Jerod Dailey, could have been a mechanical engineer or even a doctor if he wanted to, but instead, he followed his passion and became a journeyman machinist right out of high school.
Then he fell into a career 24 years ago, teaching precision machining to high schoolers at South Adams High School in Northeast Indiana, which happens to be the Number 1 machining region in the United States.
Jerod’s classes sound fascinating and challenging. They usually ditch the text book to do hands-on projects like build a car engine from scratch using high-end CNC and manual equipment.
His mission is to teach kids real skills that will make them elite precision machinists when they get into the working world. He wants his students to have the same confidence in themselves that he has, and to be problem solvers, not button pushers.
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Interview Highlights
Noah: What got you interested in machining?
Jerod: I was on track to be an architect until I found out that meant six years of college. I knew college wasn’t for me. I could have gotten the grades. I was a good test taker. But I just didn’t want to go down that path.
Towards the end of my sophomore year, my guidance counselor pulled me in his office and said, Hey, they’re starting up this new class at South Adams. We think you’d be good for it. We looked at your transcript and seeing you’ve taken every shop class, we think you’d be good for this new machine trades class. So, I signed up for it. The rest is history as they say.
Noah: After you graduated and did your apprenticeship what brought you back to teach at South Adams?
Jerod: They were talking about shutting down the class, and I knew how much it had helped me get started.
Noah: Your old teacher was leaving, correct?
Jerod: Yeah, he was taking over the machining program at a local college. We were talking one day, and I said, well, if they’re going to shut it down because you’re leaving, what would it take for me to start teaching?
So he checked, and it was possible in Indiana for people to go straight from industry (to teaching). Having done a registered apprenticeship gave me enough documented training.
Noah: When you first started teaching did you use the textbook?
Jerod: We started going through the textbook, but right before Thanksgiving that first year, three of the students came up to me.
They said, this isn’t working. And I said, good, because this isn’t working for me. How can we change it?
Thanksgiving break, I racked my brain and definitely prayed about it. I came back in the afternoon class and said, hey guys, we’re going to build an engine. We’re going to design and build an engine from scratch.
And we basically designed an engine on the chalkboard. We had colored chalk for the different parts. We went through the Machinery’s Handbook for fits and allowances. We went through strength and materials. We even made a dummy connecting rod and stress tested it. We went through a lot of the engineering, and then every student made their own parts.
And this is the twenty-fourth year. We design a new project every year in the afternoon class.
Noah Graff: Do you have standardized tests that you have to give in your class?
Jerod: We have a NIMS test. It’s all on the computer. Job planning, bench work layout, measurement, material, and safety. There’s a project you have to do. You have to pass the test online to be able to get the certification.
Noah: Many of Graff-Pinkert’s machine shop customers tell us their operators are only willing to run one type of machine. Why do you think that is?
Jerod: That’s probably one of the biggest things I’ve seen over 24 years. The confidence level of today’s youth is not as high for things they’ve never done before.
I think standardized tests and things like that have affected them. I tell my students multiple times a week that my goal is to fail a hundred times a day. Because if you’re not failing, you’re not learning anything.
Noah: When we prepared for this interview, you gave me a quote about 96% of the population. Can you summarize that for me?
Jerod: Basically, 2% of the world’s population can think like Einstein or has the athletic ability of Michael Jordan. They can do stuff that nobody else can do.
And then there’s 2% that may have a mental or physical handicap, so they can’t do what the rest of the population can do. That leaves 96% in the middle (who have the potential to do anything).
Now is it stuff we should be doing? That’s another question. Are we following our talents? Are we following our path that God set us on?
Could I go be a banker? I think I could. Do I want to? No. Could I go be a doctor? Possibly. Do I want to? No.
Noah: How does it make you feel when you see the impact you’re having on a student?
Jerod: Seeing the aha moment. You know, when a kid’s frustrated, can’t figure it out. All of a sudden it clicks, and they kind of see the connection. That’s probably the coolest moment.
Noah Graff: You often talk to students and parents about the merits of apprenticeships versus college. Tell me about that.
Jerod: I swore as long as I was going to be (teaching), I would never get a college degree. The first parent teacher conference talking to the parents of C or D students in the core classes I tell them I was making $50,000 a year in Adams County, Indiana, and I didn’t have a college degree. That was four years out of high school, and I was making $50,000. I explain that to them and how apprenticeships work. You can just see their eyes light up.
Noah: Do you have any advice for administrators and teachers relating to the trades?
Jerod: Stay in contact with your local industry, the manufacturers, the value-added companies. That’s where the biggest tax dollars are coming from.
When it comes to recruiting, one of the biggest things people tell the companies is stay in contact with the teachers.
If you’re a machinist, the best thing you can do for our career, our trade, is to let the young people know what you do and how you do it and what it’s for. I challenge people to think of one thing that machining has not touched.
Question: If you could go back in time, would you have gone to college?
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8 Comments
I sometimes wish I had done a trade school, for the drafting and mechanical design side. But life has worked out fine without also.
Thanks for sharing Al.
That is the proper attitude I believe.
No point to regret. Just be grateful. That’s my philosophy.
I guess it was just a hypothetical question to spark some comments.
That would have been the best ever shop class to make an engine from scratch. We did not have those resources in my School in the early 2000’s, our newest machine was some Atlas lathes from the 60’s. They were beat up bad as you could imagine with high school kids working on them. They were still fun though; I would never be doing what I am today without that old Atlas lathe experience.
Great job to this guy though for really stepping outside the box for the type of shop projects he works on with his students. Something that is really beyond what the average high school kid thinks is possible, is exactly what is needed to get the motivation going, and create the idea of what else may be possible.
It does sound awesome.
What’s amazing about Jerod, and I really mean Amazing when I say it, is that he is not Afraid of anything. He had never built an engine before. But he knew he could figure it out. If you listen to the interview he talks about it.
Thanks for reading/listening!
Gave me joy and a pride-stoke to read this. Thank you. Have spent a career in NE Indiana industry; our daughter teaches Spanish at that same school in Berne, IN; and when I sent this to my boss suggesting we establish contact with Jerod, he told me he knows Jerod having worked together in Berne. So good fun for me.
I earned a degree in ME from Purdue in 1983. While I made answers and ideas, I learned how to learn and gained confidence that I could do so. College was good for me because I had aptitude to gain those outcomes from that setting. I look for job candidates who have been hands-on more than I was.
Thanks Ben.
I think any education is great. You don’t HAVE to go to college to be educated, particularly these days.
In fact doing a hands-on class like this one, has more merit than a lot of college classes where you just read and take a test. You can do that on your own.
Nonetheless college can be great. The peers. The fun. The professors. The energy. It’s a luxury. And not for everyone.
I don’t regret college at all. But of course like the song says, “I wish I knew what I know now. When I was younger.”
As a graduate of this program I can not stress enough how amazing this program was for me! Not only did I learn so much about the machining and the process of things, but Mr.Dailey taught me so much more than that. This class changed my life and I wish ever young machinist had the chance to take a class like this!
Thanks for the insight, Luke.
I can imagine how the class would be life changing, even after getting to know Jerod just a little bit.
So much education is available online or via ai. these days, but learning life values and work ethic and the intangibles of how to approach your life’s path and the challenges you will face is why need incredible mentors like Jerod.