How I Made It: Trevor Hirschi, Instructor, Bridgerland Technical College

I started in machining in the class that I teach right now. In high school I always liked fine-detail stuff — working with my hands. A shop teacher recommended I come take the machine class that they offered here at Bridgerland. I took it and I could make parts for my four-wheeler, my motorcycle. I kind of got hooked when I had a part that was broken and I couldn't get a replacement part. I just made one and was like, “this is so cool because I can make anything.”

I like showing people what I like to do, what I'm passionate about. I don't have a degree in teaching or anything like that. I just went through this program. I went to university. I was going to go do mechanical engineering and electrical engineering and realized I already kind of do the mechanical engineering side on my own, and I like to make stuff as an engineer. I basically sat at the computer all the time, so it's like I would rather go make things all the time, so I aimed back into the machine shop. And when the teaching opportunity arose I was like, yeah, sure I would love to show kids how to make stuff.

I didn't do any 3D machining when I went through the program. I learned on Mastercam X and X2. A lot of the 3D toolpaths weren't really being utilized by shops at that time. It wasn't until around X3 when the dynamic toolpaths started to come into to play. High-speed machining stuff, I didn't learn any of that in school. I learned it out in the field. Now, the technology is so important. We had a grant a couple of years ago where we got two five-axis Haas mills. That's part of the curriculum that they can access and learn these. It's way more than what I got when I went through the program in high school. Some of these kids are so smart and they just pick it up like nothing. It's so fast. While it was a more gradual learning experience for me, some of these guys, they can pick it up so quickly.

There's something about that for this generation that, like when shop owners go, yeah, these guys are untrainable. I've seen some young high school kids that are plenty smart. But it's like trying to run a chariot instead of a dogsled. It's a different approach. You just have to see it a little bit differently. And you train them differently, right? I mean a lot of shops say “We need to get them off of their phones. Everybody wants to be on their phones,” and that's not wrong, but take advantage of that somehow.

Asking questions is so important. There's so much to learn in the manufacturing industry — I can still learn things every day and I try to.

My favorite thing in manufacturing is just being able to create. My mom is an artist; she likes to paint and draw. My sisters are the same way. They're really good at drawing and painting and ceramics and clay and sculpting and stuff like that. But I can spend hours on SolidWorks and forget to eat. I just like to create, and machining has become my paintbrush and canvas of choice. I love having something in my hand that didn't exist a day ago.