That’s how reformed troublemaker Dr. Harvey Dean describes himself as a 1960s high school “shop” student from Elmore City, Okla. Dean was an average athlete and mediocre in English, yet he spent four hours every day during part of his junior year in “shop” because he’d been locked out of every other class by the school principal.
Many Oklahoma Baby Boomers remember the industrial arts programs of the 1960s and ‘70s – more commonly known as “shop.” Most boys – not girls – were enrolled in shop, primarily a cabinetmaking and woodworking program.
Today, Dean is the founder and CEO of Pitsco, a 30-year-old company with 200 employees based in Pittsburg, Kansas. Pitsco is a leading provider of innovative products and curriculum for math, science, and technology education programs, annually touching the lives of millions of students nationwide by engaging them in education that’s meaningful, engaging and fun.
Pitsco products are especially popular in science and technology education classes. Some are gliders, kites, rockets and CO2 dragsters, balsa bridges and supportive materials and software.
“I was in four hours of industrial arts one semester, because I’d been kicked out of almost every other class,” Dean said. “I’ll never forget the day that my instructor Jim Coffey, saw me standing by the heater in the shop, after being ‘dismissed’ from school.”
“He encouraged me by saying that I was going to be successful in life…that I should not let what was happening to me in school keep me from going on to be successful in whatever I decided to do in life. There’s a good chance that if I hadn’t been allowed be to in his class and that he had not been a positive influence on me at that time in my life that I might have never finished school.”
Dean did hang in there and his life has been one of many successes. That’s why Dean is being recognized as a CareerTech Champion.
Today, Pitsco touches the lives of more than 7.2 million students, from elementary through high school. The majority of these students are in the seventh-ninth-grade range.
Since 1985, the former vocational program “industrial arts/shop” has evolved into a CareerTech program known as Technology Education, with a student organization called Technology Student Association (TSA). Today, more than 14,500 junior and senior high school students are members of 212 chapters across Oklahoma.
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