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Photograph by Kathy De La Torre
While Ron Cassel expects his students to be orderly and exacting with their work, his office portrays another side of him.
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Industrial Strength
Ron Cassel's industrial technology classes set a high standard for training the skilled workers companies are seeking
By Sandy Sims
Ron Cassel has not missed a September school bell since he was 6 years old. However, this farm boy from Davis who has gained an international reputation with his industrial technology program at Los Gatos High School is going to miss the bell this September after 37 years of teaching.
"I don't want some fru-fru retirement party," Cassel told his wife, Karen. "I just want to be with my kids." And being with his kids is pretty much what Cassel has loved all these years. He's spent the wee hours of countless mornings creating programs to prepare his students a career-path and a college-path curriculum.
In a time when industrial technology--shop class--is being phased out of curricula, Cassel has actually built a cutting-edge program that has drawn delegations of educators from as far away as China, Australia, Turkey, Japan and Russia.
"It's amazing," LGHS principal Trudy McCulloch says, "that the industrial technology program at LGHS is thriving and well-respected when most high schools are closing theirs and turning the space into math classrooms."
Cassel has striven to keep what he believes is a program students need--hands-on production, working in teams, seeing real-world application for what they are learning. Cassel also is keenly aware of industry's painful search for skilled workers and pulls out a Feb. 22, 2000, USA Today article that reports, "Across the country, machine shops are scrambling for workers who can transform blocks of metal and hard plastic into everything from cases to protect security system scanners to dies that stamp metal into car parts. ..." Cassel gets calls from industry constantly, asking for his students to fill these positions.
Cassel's given a lot of heart to his students, too. He's become friends with them, counseled them, and attended their special occasions. He's gone as far away as New York to attend their weddings, and as far as Germany to visit them. But Cassel's on his second pacemaker, and the doctor's telling him to retire. And if he doesn't retire this year, he will lose his opportunity for a golden handshake.
"I don't want to go," Cassel says. "I love what I do. But it's time."
And many LGHS students, even some of the school's most academic, count Cassel as their favorite teacher.
On June 4, at a special picnic at Vasona Park, students and former students showed up from as far away as Oregon, Arizona and Pennsylvania and from as far back as the class of 1969 to thank him. Tom Cornelius, Class of '96, Westpoint graduate and a Black Hawk helicopter pilot, came all the way from Honduras.
The students told stories about Cassel. One student told how Cassel let him use the metal shop to repair the damage he'd done to his father's front bumper. Another student recalled how Cassel found him a work-study job so the boy could get enough units to graduate on time.
After 37 years of teaching, Ron Cassel is retiring from Los Gatos High School.
Photograph by Kathy De La Torre
It seems Cassel doesn't just teach his students metal shop and automated manufacturing. He teaches them about life. "The number-one goal of a teacher," Cassel says, "is to prepare the kids to be successful. Number two is to teach the discipline." The two are deeply entwined in Cassel's class.
"I owe him my success," Don Jasmann, Class of '75, says. Jasmann, a quality assurance division manager for a Fortune 500 company, came all the way from York, Pa., to thank Cassel.
He says Cassel teaches personal integrity, responsibility, teamwork, and respect for others' property. "Ron was always big on nobody leaving till the place was picked up. If you left a mess, then you cleaned up everyone else's stuff the next day," Jasmann says.
Cassel feels the students he's helped the most are the ones who've kicked around in school and haven't found a place. They come to industrial technology and find their place. "They get a little caring, a little love," Cassel says. "They recognize that, and that's the heart of this program." Those students begin to succeed and then they shine.
According to Peter Sorensen, retired chairman of the industrial "arts" department (precursor to industrial technology) at the time Cassel was hired, "Ron has a way with the kids that most of us envied. Most boys and girls do very well in his class." Sorensen laughs and then says, "Some of us referred to him as a little old lady because of his thoroughness and approach, but if one of his students makes an item, it's done to perfection."
Cassel understands that students don't all learn the same way. "I don't try to find an excuse for why a student isn't learning." Cassel says. "I pound it into them one way or another by bombarding their senses." He says, "If they don't get it from my lecture or my demonstration, I give them my slide program to review at their own speed." That's another program Cassel spent many long nights creating. It's now published.
"Ron's tough," Jasmann says, "but he always helps his students."
"He's real tough," Mike Spiteri, class of '82 says at the Vasona picnic. "We had to learn all the tools and the safety procedures before we could work in the shop. Spiteri is a Santa Clara Valley Water District pipe mechanic. He says he uses everything he learned from Cassel in his work.
Jasmann recalls academic students looking down on the industrial arts program when he took metal shop. But he remembers Cassel's class as the toughest of all his classes. "I got As and Bs in math and science," Jasmann says. But for the first two years in Cassel's metal shop, Jasmann struggled to get Cs; the last two years he managed to get As. "The only time in high school I had to do a term paper was in metal shop," he says. Jasmann joined the Navy after high school and became a machinist. "I graduated top of my class because of the foundation I got from Ron's classes," he says.
Jasmann was around when Cassel first began what has become his signature program, a kind of mass production, where an idea is taken through design and production, with each student responsible for a specific part of a project. Everything is documented just as in industry. When Jasmann was a student, Cassel was also beginning his automated manufacturing program. "That was before computers, when we used tape to program the production machines," Jasmann says. He remembers that the first two projects were a come-along (a kind of wrench) and a drill press.
"Ron's goal was always to be at the cutting edge," Jasmann says.
And Cassel's program is cutting-edge today. His students use computer-assisted design (CAD) and computer-assisted manufacturing (CAM) software for his automated manufacturing program. Industry and colleges look at Cassel's curriculum as a model.
In order to teach his students, Cassel had to first teach himself these computer programs because there was no one around to teach him. A number of professors from San Jose State University have come to Cassel over the years for their training. He also taught night school for several semesters at SJSU.
Ron Cassel goes over an end-of-the-year list with student Adrienne Peetz.
Photograph by Kathy De La Torre
What's unique about Cassel's curriculum for both his metals class and his automated-manufacturing class is that he has set them up to simulate industry. His students must plan, accurately document and produce high-quality products. And they must work in teams.
For example, in the center of his automated-manufacturing shop, Cassel has pushed together several long tables and created what looks like a Fortune 500 conference table. Computers line the perimeter of the room, and next door, separated only by a glass wall, is the production room.
Student teams start at the conference table planning their product. They use CAD software to work out the design of the product, then CAM software to program a tool-path for the machine that will actually cut the product. Finally, the students move to the other side of the glass into production.
"I keep the glass wall there, so the students will always be aware of production," Cassel says. Cassel whips out a satirical essay about a draftsman who is trying to drive a machinist mad with an impossible design. "I read this to the kids," he says. "Most engineers come out of school with no production experience, and the result is they design things impossible to produce."
Cassel actually began teaching idea-to-production in Manteca when he was a straight-out-of-college, 22-year-old teacher. And under unusual conditions.
He accepted the job in Manteca because the pay was a little higher than in San Jose and also because this Davis farm boy didn't feel he could compete with the quality of teaching of his classmates at SJSU.
When Cassel showed up for work, he learned that students had actually scared off a few shop teachers before him. "These were rough-and-tumble kids," Cassel says.
After spending an entire summer repairing and cleaning shop tools and machines, Cassel met his new class in September.
On that first day of school, a tall 18-year-old student told Cassel, "You'll be outta here by Christmas."
"No college class prepares you for that," Cassel says.
With his characteristic humor and firm manner, Castle recalls telling the boy, "I don't know how when I just signed a two-year contract." The boy sat down and Cassel says that student became one of his biggest supporters. "I realize now that that kid was working on a dare."
Photograph by Kathy De La Torre
Ron Cassel helps a student in the automated manufacturing lab.
One morning those rough-and-tumble boys got hoodwinked by their rookie teacher into an idea-to-production project unexpectedly. They were listening to morning announcements over the school intercom, and the principal was naming off all the groups who were making floats for the homecoming parade.
Cassel's students began complaining. "Why do they get floats and not us?"
"Well, why don't you have a float?" Cassel said to them.
"You're kidding," they said.
"I'm not kidding."
"It only took the students 30 minutes to design a float," Cassel says. "They really got into it."
"When the students were done," Cassel told them, "OK, now go build it."
He smiles when he says the students borrowed a trailer from someone's field because he wasn't sure if that someone knew about it. One young man had a red and white '57 Chevy to pull the float. The students built a sports float with bleachers on the sides and a football scene in the middle. "It was a pretty nice float," Cassel says.
In fact, the float took the sweepstakes award.
But the day's excitement didn't end there.
Cassel watched his students parade their winning float around the stadium only to see them arrested and hauled off to jail. It seems they were drunk, and when they'd reached the opposing team's side of the stadium, they stopped and gave the fans the finger. Cassel's students were charged with drunk and disorderly behavior. "Instead of celebrating that night," Cassel says, "I was at the jail calling parents."
Even after that experience, Cassel has always encouraged his kids to compete. "Competition is good for kids," he says. His metal-work students bring home blue ribbons every year from the county fair. In fact, by the time those students are in their fourth year, they are producing major items like trailers, tables and chairs, hand-trucks, go-carts and barbecues.
Many of Cassel's students have succeeded directly on the basis of skills they obtained from Cassel's classes. At Cassel's picnic, former LGHS principal, Ted Simonson, read a few names off. Rod Bennett, now 40-years-old, owns the well-known Los Gatos company, the Iron Rod, a decorative wrought-iron company. Bennett actually started his business during high school, in the corner of his parents' back yard. He has employed many of Cassel's students, as well.
Other Cassel students include Jonathon Jensen, founder of Jenfab, a Los Gatos company doing industrial press and shear work; John Brennan, vice president and general manager of Meadow's Manufacturing; Matt Parrott who travels worldwide teaching software to private industry, with the configuration of every U. S. Naval vessel afloat; and Mark Seminoff who worked on the technical scenes for Kevin Costner's Waterworld.
Photograph by Kathy De La Torre
Ted Simonson, retired LGHS principal, reads a long list of Ron Cassel's achievements and awards during his 37-year teaching career.
Cassel is also working with more and more academically-minded students.
Many are finding their niche in Cassel's program; girls are coming around, too. Chris Doherty is a LGHS sophomore. She found out about Cassel's automated program when he came to her math class to show the students how math can come alive. "I love getting a solid thing for my work instead of just theory," Doherty says. She also says Cassel is awesome and her favorite teacher. "He really cares if you're happy."
Sara Raap, Class of 1995, knew she wanted to go into engineering but found through Cassel's class that she liked mechanical engineering. She went on to get her degree from Boston University, and while she was there, she dazzled the school with the skills and knowledge she'd learned from Cassel's class.
Shane Rogers, a LGHS junior, hopes to attend Cal Poly at San Luis Obispo and study engineering. He figured it would be good to take Cassel's automated manufacturing class. "By Christmas I hated it," Rogers says, "because I had such a hard time with the lathe." But Rogers stuck with it and says the class got more fun as he got into the more advanced "stuff."
Cal Poly thinks so highly of Cassel's students that they actually sent him a letter of apology one year when they had to refuse one of his students. Cassel had never heard of a teacher getting a letter of apology before. He says that student was a silver-medal winner at SkillsUSA.
Yes, automated manufacturing students bring home their share of prizes, too.
That started in 1995 when a little rivalry stirred in Cassel.
A fellow industrial-arts teacher in Manteca bragged about taking students to the Vocational and Industrial Clubs of America (VICA) Skill Olympics--now called SkillsUSA. Cassel gathered up 15 of his own students to start a VICA club at LGHS.
In 1995 he took a team to VICA's regional competition. The LGHS students competed in the automated manufacturing section, which consisted of taking what's called a napkin sketch of a product through CAD and CAM software all the way through production, plus providing detailed documentation for every step. "Those kids won first place," Cassel says, with a broad smile, "and that's a tough competition."
"Then we took the state," Cassel says, and he was amazed.
Photograph by Kathy De La Torre
Ron Cassel's high school picture is among memorabilia at his retirement party at Vasona Park. Rod Bennett (right) is owner of the Los Gatos business Iron Rod. He's one of Cassel's former students.
The team went on to the national competition in Kansas City. "Now we were representing California," Cassel says, "not just Los Gatos." He says the competition hall seemed more like a political convention, with state banners and five- or six-thousand kids, from both high school and college, competing in 74 categories--everything from dental assisting to robotics.
"Here I am with my pacemaker," Cassel says. There were several flights of stairs he had to go up and down. There was the excitement, and the competition. Cassel's wife, Karen, says, this was one of the most exciting things in a lifetime of teaching. The winning teams were flashed onto an enormous sign in the auditorium. "Those kids won the gold again," Cassel says. "Best in the Nation."
"We've been to Kansas now five times," Karen says. They've won another gold and a silver.
Cassel has three large banners hanging high on the wall of the automated manufacturing lab. In big red letters they congratulate the teams and name team members. Cassel made the banners himself. "It adds some excitement to what we do here," he says.
As a fourth-generation Yolo County farm boy, Cassel graduated from Davis High School in 1959. He was the first in his family to get a college degree.
Cassel came to LGHS when he was 26. He was working on his master's at San Jose State. His teaching position in Manteca was pretty far away, and he had a relative in Los Gatos living on University Avenue who ran a beauty parlor in town. At the time LGHS was under major renovation and Cassel's current metal shop was serving as the cafeteria. The administration offices were in a trailer.
Cassel met with the principal, who, Cassel says, was a man of few words. When Cassel didn't hear back after a number of days, he called and talked to the principal. Cassel found himself doing all the talking because the principal didn't say a thing. "I decided to be quiet, and the man didn't make a sound for a long time," Cassel says. "Then all he said was, 'Well, come on.' "
Cassel has been at LGHS ever since."
Photograph by Kathy De La Torre
Ron Cassel listens at his retirement party while former students take turns telling stories about him and thanking him for being a patient and inspiring teacher.
Cassel sits at the conference table in his shop. A stack of smudged and yellowed papers 18-inches high sits on the table.
"Those are the records of all my students, some of them fathers and sons," Cassel says. "I keep them in case one of the students needs a recommendation," he says. "Everyone of those forms represents a relationship, which is what this is all about."
Cassel's had job offers from industry and several other irons in the fire. "I don't know what I will do," he says. "I do know I want to take a year off to rest. Then I'll decide."
It's a sure bet Cassel will wonder what's happening in rooms 73 and 74 at LGHS when that September bell rings.
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Los Gatos, California Since 1881
