A teacher at Amistad High School in Indio was pulled out of his own classroom under the guise of a budget meeting Friday morning, only to be led into a gym packed with cheering students who had gathered to watch him win $100,000.
Gregory Kraus, who runs the school’s automotive technology program, is one of 25 grand prize winners of the 2026 Harbor Freight Tools for Schools Prize for Teaching Excellence, a national award recognizing public high school skilled-trades teachers and their programs.
Kraus had no idea the announcement was coming. School staff told him he needed to step away from class to discuss budget matters, handed his students off to a counselor, and walked him to the gym, where the surprise ceremony was waiting.
“This program is my passion,” Kraus told the Merced Sun-Star. “I came into this with just the mindset of, ‘I want to change the world in a positive way, one student at a time.'”
A career built on shop class
Kraus has applied for the Harbor Freight prize every year for the nine years he has run Amistad’s program, never previously advancing past the first round. This year’s win marks his first breakthrough after nearly a decade of attempts.
The award carries real money alongside the recognition. Kraus will keep $30,000 for himself, while the remaining $70,000 goes directly to Amistad’s career and technical education program.
For Kraus, the subject matter is personal. As a young single father decades ago, he leaned on automotive skills learned in his own high school shop classes to enter the workforce immediately. He went on to spend 15 years in the automotive industry, including a long stretch at a Honda dealership.
Eventually, despite that success, he began looking for something more. It was his mother who first suggested teaching — an idea Kraus initially dismissed because he lacked a college degree. She pointed out that his hands-on industry background was precisely what Career and Technical Education programs needed.
He made the switch and has spent the past nine years building up Amistad’s automotive program. Kraus later earned a master’s degree in Educational Administration from CSU San Bernardino.
Graduates of the program have gone on to work at companies including Tesla, Toyota and Boeing.
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