BLINN ALUMNUS BRINGS EXPLOSIVE TALENTS TO NEW DISCOVERY CHANNEL SHOW

  

From the time he first learned to make gunpowder as a 7-year-old, Matt Barnett knew he wanted to work with explosives. But it wasn’t until he attended Blinn College that he learned how to turn that passion into a career.

Now the star of the new Discovery Channel show “Fire in the Hole,” Barnett owns Texplo Explosives based in Columbus. Barnett took his first step toward that career by enrolling at Blinn College in 1999, and he attributes the one-on-one attention he received during chemistry classes for his success as an explosives expert.

“At Blinn I had a feeling that I was grasping the subject matter at my own pace,” Barnett said. “I felt like part of the laboratory at Blinn.”

One of the reasons Barnett felt so comfortable at Blinn’s laboratories was Professor Kenneth French.

“Matt was a very motivated and a unique student,” French said. “He wanted to do things from scratch and we fully expected him to succeed.”

Said Barnett, “Dr. French would let me come in after hours and work in the laboratory. He spent a lot of one-on-one time with me and recently came down to Columbus to look at my current laboratory.”

Barnett transferred to Texas A&M University, where he graduated with a chemistry degree in 2005 and then earned his certification as an unexploded ordnance technician. In 2007, he opened Bonetti Explosives.

“I take all the small jobs that the big companies won’t touch,” Barnett said. “I also have an explosives range where people can come out and test just about anything they want.”

“Fire in the Hole” demonstrates Barnett’s skill in safely detonating everything from 250-pound World War II bombs to meth labs to bridges. Barnett and his team demonstrate their ability to overcome obstacles in his laboratory, where he manufactures explosives and works on inventions, one of which is a shape charge he was awarded a patent for.

Growing up, when people learned that Barnett wanted to blow things up for a living, they made fun of him or told him that he would end up in jail, he said. Regardless of the naysayers, Barnett focused on his dream and did the work necessary to achieve that dream.

“I would just say to anybody that if they like something that doesn’t quite fit the mold of the folks around them but they know it’s true in their heart, then they should go after it with reckless abandon,” Barnett said.

For more information on Texplo Explosives and “Fire in the Hole,” visit www.texploexplosives.com or www.discovery.com/tv-shows/fire-in-the-hole/.