When Sparks Fly
Trent Menard Turns Scrap into Craft…
Trent Menard will be the first to tell you he had no plan. Growing up in Redding, the kid who would one day craft custom metalwork for Universal Studios was mainly focused on one thing: BMX.
“I remember in high school, they’d ask, ‘What do you want to do when you grow up?’ And I’m like, ‘I’m still in high school. I just want to ride my bike.’” Menard laughs at the memory. He has the easy laugh of someone who has made peace with a winding road, and come out the other side grateful for every detour.
Today, Menard is the founder of Menard Metal Craft, a one-man metalworking business he operates out of his Redding garage. What began in 2019 as late-night tinkering after putting the kids to bed has grown into something none of his old high school classmates—or Menard himself—could have imagined: a global enterprise with more than 7,500 Etsy sales, brand collaborations with companies like Blundstone (boots) and Ridge (metal wallets), and a social media following that exceeds 750,000 viewers across platforms. One of his YouTube videos has been viewed more than 66 million times. His handcrafted pieces have been shipped to Switzerland, New Zealand, Israel, Benin, the Netherlands and beyond.
But the most remarkable commission? A few years ago, an email arrived out of the blue from Universal Studios. The entertainment giant was building the new Epic Universe theme park in Orlando—specifically a “How to Train Your Dragon” world with a medieval Viking village vibe—and someone there had seen Menard’s work online.
“I didn’t even have to submit a bid,” Menard says, still sounding a little incredulous. “Universal Studios reached out to me. I mean, how does that even happen? I’m just a guy in Redding working out of his garage.” He made more than 100 pieces for the park—custom hooks, straps and fittings for hanging medieval weapons and props. Today, visitors walking through the park’s queue lines pass his work without realizing it.
The path that led Menard here was anything but straight. After high school, biking and skating pulled him toward Sacramento State University, where he enrolled partly because the city had good skate parks. His plan was to study fine art, graphic design and film. It didn’t quite take. He moved back to Redding and found himself working at a fast-food chain, feeling stuck.
“One day I woke up and asked myself, ‘What am I doing? I have to get out of this
The path that led Menard here was anything but straight. After high school, biking and skating pulled him toward Sacramento State University, where he enrolled partly because the city had good skate parks. His plan was to study fine art, graphic design and film. It didn’t quite take. He moved back to Redding and found himself working at a fast-food chain, feeling stuck.
“One day I woke up and asked myself, ‘What am I doing? I have to get out of this rut.’” The answer he landed on was unexpected even to him: the railroad. He’d always loved trains, and as a teenager, he’d been captivated by the vivid graffiti that covered passing boxcars, an urban art form he began documenting with a camera. The railroad felt like a world he wanted to be part of.
The problem was practical: Nearly every railroad job posting required welding and electrical knowledge. Menard had neither. So, at age 25, he enrolled in Shasta College’s welding program, not out of passion, but strategy.
“I knew nothing about welding,” he says. “But the program opened my eyes. Working with molten liquid metal—to me, that was the coolest thing ever. I just fell in love with it.” The railroad dream quietly faded. A new one took its place.
He credits not just the craft itself but also the people who taught it. “The instructors there were amazing. The mentorship I received at Shasta College shaped me. I felt like I was part of a community.” After completing the program and earning several welding certificates, he started working as a structural steel welder and fabricator.
Menard Metal Craft began quietly. While working at a local welding shop, Menard was temporarily laid off during a slowdown. To pass the time, he started experimenting in his garage. His first creation was a small scrap-metal sculpture of a Cat D6 dozer. He posted it online on a whim.
“The next thing I knew, two people wanted to buy it,” he says. “One was a friend in Texas. The other was my mom.” He grins. “So my first sale on Etsy was from my mom. That is how it all started.”
He got his shop job back at the shop, but kept his side business alive, heading out to the garage after putting his kids to bed and working until 10 pm. Then his boss pulled him aside for a conversation that changed everything.
“He told me the grass was greener for me somewhere else and that I should find out what it is,” Menard recalls. “And I instinctively knew what was out there. Me.” From that day forward, he decided he wouldn’t work for anyone else. “It was ultimate freedom.”
Browse the Menard Metal Craft shop and a theme quickly emerges: railroad spikes transformed into something new. Cabinet knobs. Bottle openers. Towel bars. Garden trowels. Hooks. Sculptures. The spike—that heavy, utilitarian piece of railroad hardware—becomes, in Menard’s hands, something you’d want on your kitchen wall.
The railroad imagery, he’ll tell you, isn’t really about the railroad. It’s about the art he saw on those trains as a teenager and the fascination with transformation that has stayed with him ever since. He never thought of himself as an artist until recently.
“At Sac State, my goal was to study fine art, graphic design and film,” he says. “And then I looked at what I’m actually doing, and that is the complete culmination of all three of those disciplines. I’m using all of this artistic background as a welder, which is wild to me.”
His video skills, sharpened by years of filming BMX friends at skateparks, are now central to his business. His YouTube channel has become a window into the shop, giving viewers a front-row seat to the fire and sparks of the metalworking process. This visibility led to the Universal Studios commission, brand ambassador work for Uniweld—an American welding equipment manufacturer that flew him to Florida for a facility tour and trade show demonstration—and commercial partnerships with more than a dozen brands.
“I truly don’t think I would still be working for myself as a welder if it weren’t for my skills behind a camera,” he says.
Menard is deeply rooted in the North State. He’s the founder of rdgbmx.com, a local BMX community site that has helped raise funds for improvements to Redding’s skatepark and provides area youth with a hub for the sport he grew up loving. He runs often, about 35 miles a week on the trails around the city. He once moved away briefly, and it took leaving to truly realize what he’d had all along. “I was very aware of the lack of snow-covered mountains in my daily scenery,” he says with a smile. “The surrounding beauty of Redding is something it took me moving away to truly see. I absolutely love it here.”
At home, he’s supported by his wife Jenna, who manages the backend logistics of the business, including, as Menard cheerfully admits, keeping him on top of the things he’s less enthused about, like taxes. Their three children—Camille, Preston, and Gwyneth—are a constant source of fuel and inspiration.
When asked what advice he’d give to a young person in Redding who doesn’t know what they want to do—who is, perhaps, where he once was—Menard doesn’t hesitate.
“Stick it out. Trust the process. You will begin to impress yourself with what you’re capable of. There is absolutely no way you are going to know what you’re capable of until you give it your best shot. Bet on yourself.”
As a kid, he was made to memorize a poem by Edgar Albert Guest—words that have stayed with him. The opening verse goes:
Somebody said that it couldn’t be done, / But he with a chuckle replied / That “maybe it couldn’t,” but he would be one / Who wouldn’t say so till he tried.
Somewhere in Redding right now, a kid probably wants to know when he can get back on his bike. He has no idea what he’ll build. •
Menard Metal Craft
www.menardmetalcraft.com
Find them on Instagram, YouTube and Etsy
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Al Olson loves culinary arts, adult beverages and hiking in the North State wilderness. You may find him soaking up the scenery at one of our area’s many state or national parks or sitting in a barstool sipping a cold locally brewed craft beer.
