Steven Barnes had always wanted to be a pit crew mechanic for racers. His career, however, took a stop in education and it stuck. Barnes is currently the Automotive Technology Instructor at the AKS Career Center in Michigan City, a position he’s held since 2015.
At the age of 10, Barnes and his family moved from Three Oaks, Michigan to Michigan City, Indiana. Barnes went to Krieger Middle School and then Rogers High School where he graduated in 1993. Barnes’ high school experience is what allowed him to get a deeper dive into his hobby of cars, whether it was preparing for the dirt track with his friends or his automotive classwork.
“I like cars, so for several years I built and raced cars at the South Bend Motor Speedway growing up,” said Barnes. “I found out that I was really into cars when I was probably 9 or 10 years old. I knew that it was something I wanted to get into, so I took automotive classes in high school.”
Barnes’ time at the AKS Career Center greatly influenced his later career. With great instructors like Mike Robinson and Dave Sobecki at the Career Center, Barnes' future in automotive work was cemented. Barnes knew he had to get experience to obtain the job he wanted, so right after high school, he was hired at a dealership to get his career started. In 2014, Barnes opened his own mechanic shop and was then asked to come teach at the Career Center. Now, he has been pursuing both for the past decade.
“My career took off, and I hadn't really given it a whole lot of thought,” Barnes said. “It was 1995 when I started turning wrenches professionally, and I’ve been doing it ever since.”
The opportunity to become an instructor for the Career Center stemmed from Barnes fixing his friend’s car. Barnes loves being an automotive instructor because no one day is the same and he’s inspiring the next generation of automotive workers like his instructors did prior.
“I try to teach these kids the automotive skills while also teaching them how to be a professional. I think if you interviewed the students, you'd find that the automotive part of this might actually be secondary,” Barnes said. “My job is to train these young people to be professionals and be productive members of society, whether they're turning wrenches or not.”
Barnes has had students who have come back to thank him for all the work he has done at the Career Center. Some said that, without him, they may have ended up in jail or worse. Barnes is the type of instructor who allows his students to get hands-on experience they can take with them once they graduate. With spending more than half the class on demonstration, many of the students are curating and fine-tuning their passion for cars.
Barnes' passion for cars stemmed from his dad’s love of hot rods and the classic cars of the ‘80s. The love of cars surrounds him, in and out of work. When he isn’t working, he still fixes and works on cars and wants to get back to working on race cars. Outside of the automotives, Barnes loves camping, being outside and getting active. He also loves to find new adventures when he can.
“I'm a child of the ‘80s, so I was watching TV and movies when I fell in love with things like ‘Smokey and the Bandit,’ ‘Knight Rider,’ and ‘Dukes of Hazzards,’ all those cars,” Barnes said. “I just thought ‘Man, that seems so cool and I just wanted to be a part of that culture.’”