WHS has hired Michael Horvat to be the new teacher in charge of instructing the carpentry compact. He began instructing students at the end of November.
Horvat graduated from WHS in 1990, after completing the carpentry program himself.
He has lived in Wadsworth for almost his entire life, but right after graduating high school, he spent time in the Army.
Horvat has three children who have all graduated from WHS.
In addition, he has extensive experience in construction and carpentry.
“Pretty much my entire life has been in construction, whether it’s been doing carpentry, concrete drywall, additions, a lot of remodeling, and building decks and garages,” Horvat said.
He has previously worked for William’s Concrete Construction Company and Keihl Building Services.
Although this is Horvat’s first job teaching in a classroom setting, he has had experience in leadership positions in his previous construction jobs.
“As a foreman or a superintendent, part of doing that job is making sure they’re doing things the right way,” Horvat said.
He never planned on going into teaching but took advantage of the opportunity when the job was posted in the spring.
“Some friends of mine told me I should apply for it because they thought I’d be good at it,” Horvat said. “I’d never really thought about being a teacher before, I took a shot and here we are.”
He is looking forward to working with the students and teaching them everything he can in order to prepare them for work after graduation.“He’s a pretty nice and smart teacher and we’ve gotten a lot of progress on the house so far with him,” said Collin Mynk, a student in the carpentry compact.
The main project that he is working on with the students of the compact is the building of the storage barns and the house.
As juniors, students learn carpentry by building storage barns that are then sent to the homes of whoever has purchased them.
Then, as seniors, students spend their year building a house that is then auctioned off in June. There are 24 students in total that are working on the house.
“Overall it’s mostly the same for the seniors, but working on the house has been much more efficient and organized,” Mynk said.
Horvat says that they will work on other projects but the main focus of this year will be these two projects.
