“I grew up in a factory
town and I knew that if
you can make, build,
or repair something,
well, you have to be
pretty smart to do it.”
MAKER MAKER: (facing and left) John Ratzenberger
at the L. A. Community College summer manufactur-
ing camp with more than 20 area teens learning
the nuts and bolts of manufacturing. Students at
Mid-South Community College in West Memphis, Ark.
(above), get hands-on manufacturing experience.
Summer camp projects are made with technologies
such as welding, CNC lathe, water jet cutter, and
lasers.
says Ratzenberger. “That’s how they think at Pixar.”
“I remember at a very young age being fascinated
by the insides of radios,” says Ratzenberger, who
grew up tinkering in Bridgeport, Conn., where his
mother was a factory worker. “My mother would
buy old radios at garage sales and I eventually had
enough of them and had taken all the parts out of
them so then I made a futuristic space city.”
Living near the ocean, he and some friends found
a boat washed up on the shore. They hauled it home
where they recaulked and replanked it. “We were
8 or 9 years old,” he recalls. “We didn’t think about
what we were doing. We didn’t call it creative play.
We just fixed the boat so we could use it. It was fun.”
He wonders if these experiences are still available
to kids, and what it means to society if we have
fewer people willing to work with their hands. “Every
single industry started with one person inventing
one thing,” he says, challenging anyone to prove him
wrong. “Every one of those people started off as a
child tinkering. No one wakes up at 32 years old and
starts inventing.”
He’s been talking to members of Congress about
a coming “industrial tsunami,” which is the title of a
documentary he’s working on. “If you look at skilled
workers in America, from welders to rebar setters
and carpenters, the average age is 56 nationwide,”
Ratzenberger says. “They’re going to retire soon
and nobody is coming up after them.” He believes
America needs more vocational training programs.
The manual arts, as Ratzenberger calls them, go
unappreciated in our culture, and he’s dismayed that
the media often portray skilled workers as “dumb.”
“I grew up in a factory town and I knew that if you
can make, build, or repair something, well, you have
to be pretty smart to do it,” he rebutts.
From 2004 to 2008, he made factories the focus
of his Travel Channel series John Ratzenberger’s
Made In America, taking TV viewers behind the
scenes to see how everyday items are made.
He established the Nuts, Bolts and Thingamajigs
Foundation ( nutsandboltsfoundation.org) in 2006
to promote tinkering in America and introduce kids
to technical trades. Today NBT offers scholarships
and organizes summer camps for girls and boys
ages 12–16. “Kids can get a first taste at making
something themselves,” he explains. “Most of them
become enamored by their newfound skill.”
Ratzenberger says teaching kids hands-on skills
is beneficial, even if they don’t end up working in
the trades. “I am determined to have every parent
understand the value of getting their kids making
things.”
Dale Dougherty is the editor and publisher of MAKE.
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