Mary Ann Christensen (right) with her Big Ideas staff, Ryan Ott, executive director (left) and director of sales Anna Hughes (center).

Mary Ann Christensen is a person who enjoys helping people. She is a real “people person” who loves her work.

Christensen is the owner of Big Ideas USA whose mission is to inform, inspire, and connect learners from ages 13 to adult to career paths and professionals in skilled trades. Big Ideas USA was incorporated as a non-profit in 2017.

Currently, Ryan Ott is the executive director, Anna Hughes is the director of sales and outreach, Andrew Kish is the lab coordinator, and Joe Schotzko is the operations manager.

Big Ideas USA began in 2016 when Christensen was having lunch with a friend. They talked about kids they knew who were smart, but not good students.

Even though Christensen had grown up in a trade family, her own kids who were early high school students at the time, thought that you had to go to college because working in a trade was a dead end job. Christensen was appalled by that idea.

“We decided we wanted to start change, at least in our little world, so we started with a big idea and that idea grew,” said Christensen.

The original idea was to create micro classes through community education in schools to show people the importance of a skilled trade. We began having sessions on carpentry, welding, and dry wall. They were two to four night classes for two hours at a time. The real connection for the students started with the trade professional, not the class itself.

“In the original concept, we considered and dismissed the idea of creating a “training center” because many excellent venues already existed in school shops and within industries and were willing to let us use their shops. We did not need to go to the expense of recreating workspaces that already existed. However, when COVID hit, we were not allowed to continue to use those shops for obvious reasons,” said Christensen.

“We had purchased one Miller simulator to use at career fairs to continue our mission of promoting skilled trades careers. During COVID shutdown, career fair participants who had used the simulator, asked to use it to practice their welding skills and came to our office. The kids liked it, they thought the simulators were cool,” said Christensen.

“We came up with the idea of using mobile learning labs. Currently, we use a F550 truck with a large mobile trailer and a semi trailer that is pulled by J & R Schugel. There are four learning stations on each lab,” added Christensen.

“So, for each event, we typically have four learning stations through which groups of four to five participants rotate so that each person in each group tries the skills at each station. The length of a rotation is determined by our event host for how many participants they want to experience the event.

We usually work with four or five students per instructor,” said Christensen.

The classes are brought to church groups, transitional populations, at risk groups, to anyone who wants to promote new opportunities.

The mobile learning lab sessions are led by active or retired skilled trades professionals from all over the Upper Midwest. The skilled trades instructor opportunities help fuel the Big Ideas nonprofit mission of showing young learners the benefits of skilled trades.

Big Ideas represents over 40 different industries and specialties. They are all introductory models to dispel the myth that skill trade jobs are dead end jobs. They are progressive.

“Trade skills are noble, required, progressive financially, professionally, and personally. You can start as labor and depending on your values and persistence, and your hard work, you can go up as far as you want to even ownership. The world is built and maintained by skilled trades professionals,” said Christensen.

Simulating and experiential stations are a way to connect with people and catch people’s attention. “Everyone learns differently so when you capture their hands, you slow them down and it opens their ears and brains so they can listen and hear differently. We try to capture that and give people hope,” said Christensen. The information that is given is done by a professional from their trade. The simulators show people that they have a skill that they did not know they had.

There are times when a laborer’s employer may provide employees with an option of obtaining a degree.

“Just don’t limit yourself,” said Christensen.

Big Ideas is an independent non-profit. It is supported by grants and donations. They also charge a fee for each lab. All money is used to pay the direct cost of the lab, instructors, overhead, and capital expenses.

Christensen grew up with a family who worked in the steel industry in South Carolina. She graduated from Clemson University in South Carolina with a degree in animal science. Three years she worked on a hog farm for Carroll’s Foods in North Carolina before earning her masters in agricultural economics from North Carolina State University. She then worked as director of research at Hog Slat Inc., in North Carolina for three years.

While at Hog Slat, she worked nights and weekends starting her own business to help hog producers collect and manage their data. It was called CompuPIG, which was for computers and pigs. She sold the business in 2000.

It was at Hog Slat that she met her husband, Bob Christensen. He went to Hog Slat with a group from the University of Minnesota because Hog Slat is known as the best place for research and for their hog setup equipment. Bob ended up being the first person west of the Mississippi to purchase equipment from Hog Slat.

After two years of dating, Mary Ann and Bob were married so she moved to Sleepy Eye in 1991 where Bob owned and operated Christensen Farms. They raised two children. Bob passed away in 2012. Mary Ann still serves as Chairperson of the Board of Directors at Christensen Farms.

Big Ideas USA can be reached at (866) 992-4443.