Educator of the Year

Salaty mixes life lessons with electrical training

By Sean Ryan

Salaty People have turned to Jerry Salaty for help throughout his 28 years working in the electrical field.

He helped his superiors in the 101st Air Force Division teach new enlistees, he trained his co-workers when he was Vulcan Materials' chief technician, and he was called to the front of his classroom during his construction apprenticeship to explain things that were tripping up the class.

His construction career began when he joined the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers in 1989, and it unexpectedly ended in 1996 when he broke his back in a job-site accident. While Salaty was recovering, a co-worker suggested he start teaching at Milwaukee Tech.

Now the electrical instructor at Lynde and Harry Bradley School of Technology and Trade in Milwaukee, the Milwaukee Boys Tech graduate started teaching in the same classroom where he sat as a student almost 30 years before. He is in his third year at Bradley Tech.

In five years of teaching electricity at Milwaukee Public Schools, Salaty has sent between 15 and 18 teenagers into apprenticeships.

But Salaty's impact at Bradley Tech goes beyond his knack for teaching students the basics of electricity. School Principal Ed Kovochich said Salaty mobilizes a lot of contractors to donate equipment and materials for his classes.

"He just has tons of connections to get companies to bring in electrical wire or toolboxes or whatever," Kovochich said.

And he does more than just bring contractors' equipment to the students. About four times a year, Salaty takes his students to the contractors. He organizes a Saturday morning breakfast for students to meet contractors and apprenticeship organizers who could one day interview them for journeyman training. His former students also show up sometimes to tell the class that Salaty's instruction is worth the time.

But lessons from Salaty extend beyond the electrical skills that help his students land jobs. He tries to teach his students about leadership and extending their physical and emotional limits as people.

Salaty has led a pack of students on six-day canoeing and backpacking excursions through the 2.5

1 million-acre Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness on the border between Minnesota and Canada. He gives all of his students an assignment to write a paper about what life would be like without electricity, and that trip to the Boundary Waters gives them the basis for their assignment.

But the students inevitably learn more. They learn teamwork and leadership through their camping chores and hikes. Through experiences such as paddling across a gusty lake, where the wind will blow the boat backward if they stop paddling, the students push themselves to grow.

And, Kovochich said, they come back with new perspectives.

"When the kids get back they are just a different kid," he said. "They have stories about bears in their tents."