St. Paul firm helps revive vo-tech ed

The problem is one Joe Westhoff, owner of Westhoff Interiors Custom Fabrication, yacht interior specialists, based in St. Paul and Lenexa, and his brother, Bill, are working to resolve.

“If you have hands-on skills, you can make anything,” Joe Westhoff said. “People pushing hands-on skills to the side the last 10 to 15 years, that’s what’s kicking us in the U.S. I don’t care what you are doing, hands-on learning is needed. It’s critical problem-solving skills that are being ingrained. I can take a craftsman and make him a draftsman, but I can’t make a draftsman a craftsman.”

Joe and Bill Westhoff grew up in the St. Paul area in a family with eight children. They attended St. Paul High School, where they took classes in wood shop from Frances Reed and Gary VanLeeuwen. After graduating, Joe Westhoff went to Pittsburg State University’s wood tech program, and Bill Westhoff started his own business in construction and home remodeling.

“I went to work for a company in Kansas City that did $5 to $6 million a year in high-end wood working. I worked there 10 years and got introduced to the yacht interior industry,” Joe Westhoff said. “It was very difficult and very challenging. I saw a lot of failures. I saw it was a moat industry right away because it takes extreme engineering.”

In 1995, Westhoff decided he wanted to start his own company. In 1999 the company he was working for announced to him one day that at the end of the week it was closing its doors.

“I had four kids,” Westhoff said.

The thing Westhoff had noticed in visiting shops across the country was what was needed in finding a quality workforce and the high overhead costs many industries faced being located in larger areas. Those details made him consider establishing his new company not in the city but in the small town where he was raised.

“There is no better workforce in the U.S. than right here in the Midwest, especially St. Paul,” Westhoff said.

Holding a high admiration for his brother’s technical skills, he approached him about coming on board with him to start the company.

Starting small, at first the two contracted with local construction companies and contractors for work.

After the two graduated from St. Paul, the woodworking program continued for a few years, but was finally eliminated. The building, once a buzz of activity with students constructing projects with their hands, fell silent and became a storage facility. So it has sat for the last 10 to 15 years.

Few vo-tech programs at the school were greatly reducing opportunities for students once they would leave the high school and no students were graduating with the skills or interest to feed local construction and manufacturing businesses, such as Westhoff Interiors, St. Paul Furniture, Grosdidier Construction, Industrial Crating and others. St. Paul agricultural teacher Dan Spielbusch wanted to bring back construction to help create a new employee base for local business and industry, but the school was not able to start a separate construction trades program. Many students and parents had expressed an interest in students having greater opportunities to be exposed to technical, hands-on training.

Any type of construction program would have to be tied into the school’s current career pathways. Working with St. Paul principal Kim Bartelli, Dan Vitt, St. Paul farmer and member of the board of St. Paul Schools Alumni and Friends Association and St. Paul, the idea was developed to implement an agriculture structures program that would tie in with already existent ag mechanics and other ag courses.

“Mr. Spielbusch’s vision was the drive behind the expansion of the ag classroom and adding ag structures to our curriculum,” Bartelli said. “He recognized the tie to our St. Paul community for the need to get local students interested in our local manufacturing.”

When Joe and Bill Westhoff heard what Spielbusch was wanting to do, they and some of the Westhoff Interiors employees who wanted to see the program succeed jumped on board to help.

“Dan Vitt and Dan Spielbush here worked real hard to get this shop back running and to create this a class to enhance students’ skills in ag structures and give students the opportunity to be recruited by local colleges and industry,” Joe Westhoff said. “When I went to school here, PSU would come here to recruit students for their wood tech program. I felt we needed to get that back.”

The Westhoffs and employees, Spielbusch, some community members and even students came together in the summer to help clean up the facility. The Westhoffs drew up a blueprint for the design of the interior of the facility, designed and constructed work stations to install in the building and purchased and donated around $10,000 in tools to supply the students with what they would need to get started in the class.

“I know the kids are super excited,” Spielbusch said. “The work centers are just like the ones at Westhoff Interiors, so if they do go to work there, they will be familiar with the setup.”

Westhoff Interiors is not stopping with its donations of equipment. Westhoff said the company plans to work with students, giving them tours of the facility, offering opportunities for internships and even chances to compete for scholarships. Providing those opportunities will help reach the long-term goal of allowing students to see they do not have to migrate to the bigger cities to be exposed to job opportunities but can find them or even create their own business in the area.

“I’m super excited,” Spielbusch said, noting that once the new program is in place, down the road there is opportunity to expand to include things such as auto cad.

“At first we will have basic instruction on manufacturing processes, material processes. After that, we’ll have small projects in the shop at first,” Spielbusch said. “Vision-wise, looking out to the future, if it goes over well, with the help of supporters and if we get the finances, maybe we’ll be able to add another program.”

“Funding is the large elephant in the room,” Westhoff said, “so the community has to step up to support the schools.”