
Olivia Macho would like her morning welding class to last all day. Not that she’s averse to other course offerings at New Ulm Cathedral High School (CHS), but she feels that she has found a home in the shop.
“I like being able to be creative,” says Macho, a CHS senior. “Down here [in the shop], you can do whatever you want.”
Craig Smith, the ag instructor, says that by allowing students the freedom with their projects, “you’re free to make mistakes. That’s OK. If it doesn’t turn out, we can cut it apart.”
Although there is a heavy emphasis on welding, Smith attempts to expose CHS students to a plethora of mechanical life skills, including electrical wiring, plumbing, shingling, small engine repair and building a fence. In the spring, students focus on agronomy. Regardless of the subject matter, each of Smith’s lessons is framed in safety. “Everything we do revolves around safety [and] well-maintained equipment, which plays into safety,” he says.
Smith lets students, such as Macho, explore their welding abilities and stretch their creativity, especially with their welding projects. Early in the 2024-25 school year, Macho built a chair entirely out of steel. That freedom to explore has opened a possible career path for her, as she sees welding in her future even though she lacks a farm or machine shop background.

PUT INTO PRACTICE: New Ulm Cathedral senior Olivia Macho puts into practice the lessons she has learned in Craig Smith’s welding class as she works on her chair project. (Kevin Schulz)
This is Macho’s second year in Smith’s program, and she wishes she would have discovered the shop a year earlier.
Such course offerings are relatively new at CHS, as Smith is in his fourth year of teaching at the high school in the New Ulm Area Catholic School system after 45 years of teaching in high schools and at South Central College (SCC) in North Mankato. Smith and his son also farm west of North Mankato.
His work at SCC is what made him a known commodity to CHS backers and helped him land the job to start the welding/ag program at the high school.
Community steps up
Jessica Kloeckl recalls the early stages of the ag program’s development. CHS called a meeting with local welding companies for their input, which included Big Ideas Inc., SpecSys and G&S Manufacturing LLC.
Eric Fliszar from Big Ideas volunteered to serve as the teacher to help launch the program. Fliszar and his wife, Rebecca, had children enrolled at CHS. Big Ideas loaned CHS its welding simulator for classroom instruction.
Fliszar had a full-time job outside of teaching, which occasionally required him to miss class for extended periods. In response, G&S Manufacturing offered to step in and teach when needed. As the program neared the end of its first year, CHS recognized the need for a dedicated instructor to maintain the program’s momentum, and that is where Smith was part of the conversation.
Kloeckl is in charge of accounting and shipping for G&S Manufacturing, an industrial steel fabrication job shop, and offers painting/coatings for the final touches. SpecSys, with a New Ulm location, offers a full suite of services, including project management, fabrication, welding, machining, painting, assembly, testing and supply chain management.
G&S, which is owned by Kloeckl’s parents Pat and Laura Stadick, became familiar with Smith’s work, or more specifically with the quality of the welding students who had gone through Smith’s program at SCC. She says G&S currently employs six or seven of Smith’s former SCC students.
That track record is one of the reasons that the CHS community pursued Smith as the program’s instructor.
Smith, who was in the process of retiring from SCC was asked to meet at the high school, and he entered a room full of people representing businesses and companies. He was told about the idea of starting a welding and ag program at the school, with the companies supplying the equipment and the school providing the space, “and they said we’re missing one thing. We’re missing a teacher, and we’re hoping that would be you.”

STURDY CHAIR: Olivia Macho was proud of her finished welding project. She enjoys the freedom to create that Craig Smith allows his students in the class. (Courtesy of Olivia Macho)
Obviously, Smith took the offer, with the thought of getting the program started and running smoothly and then turning the program over to “a younger person to come in and take my spot.” Ron Fleischmann has been added as a technology teacher.
“In a small school, it’s a real challenge to meet the needs of students on a traditional four-year track while also offering the rigorous academics some students seek,” CHS Principal Erica DeVries says. “At the same time, we’re trying to provide hands-on technical experience for others and give them opportunities to explore a wide range of careers. Given our limited resources — just one classroom and a tight budget — it’s a difficult balance. Craig truly became a godsend for us, bringing invaluable expertise and a background that made it all possible.”
Just as he did while at SCC, Smith provides his accomplished students with a certificate that he says is recognized and holds merit with southern Minnesota industries. “There are industries hiring high school students” with that certificate, Smith says.
Case in point, Kloeckl says G&S currently has a paid intern who is attending SCC but graduated from CHS.
Students in Smith’s yearlong welding program are exposed to various aspects of welding — stick, tungsten inert gas, metal inert gas, oxyacetylene and plasma cutting. “They get the full experience of welding, everything you can imagine,” he says.
DeVries saw Smith’s influence firsthand as her own son dove into the class offerings. “My son personally benefited from Craig,” she says. “He was a junior the year that Craig started, and our welding program had just started the year prior, and my son was all over the opportunity to learn welding.”

MEETING THE CHALLENGE: Erica DeVries, principal at New Ulm Cathedral High School, admits it can be difficult to meet the needs of all the students at a small school, but having Craig Smith on faculty brings hands-on technical education as well as possibilities of other careers. (Kevin Schulz)
Her son ended up pursuing a career in diesel mechanics, but she credits Smith with “bringing in speakers, presenters, connecting the kids with partners in the industry that are looking for students with their skill set, and showing them what’s possible out there.”
Looking to the future, Smith says there is talk about bringing an FFA program to the school as well.
School community
While Smith’s students gain a wealth of agricultural knowledge and welding practice, he has gained a sense of belonging to a community — the community of CHS.
That sense of community came to the front during the 2023-24 school year, when Smith was forced to take some time off as he battled cancer.
“The people at that school are the best,” Smith says, as paychecks never stopped coming even though he wasn’t in the classroom/shop.
“The word that a lot of times will come up for us is ‘family,’” DeVries says. “When people ask how would you describe [CHS], whether it’s parents or students or staff, a lot of times ‘family’ is the word we use to describe how we feel about each other.”
Smith definitely felt a part of the CHS family as he battled cancer, which is now in remission.
“They were having Masses for me, and they were doing everything they could … and I’m not even Catholic,” he says. “They really took me under their wings, and they made sure I was getting what I needed. … The people at the school are the best.”
Kloeckl echoes that family sentiment as she, her mother and brother are CHS graduates. “Definitely it has that family feeling,” she says. “Everyone is always willing to help out.”
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