Why Gen Z Is Choosing Trades Over College w/ Mark Hedstrom (SkillsUSA)
Skilled trades shortage is a growing crisis. Mark Hedstrom joins Andrew Brown to discuss workforce gaps, SkillsUSA, and trade school vs college realities.
The skilled trades shortage is no longer coming. It’s here. In this episode, Host Andrew Brown speaks with Mark Hedstrom, Executive Director of the Skilled Careers Coalition, live from the floor of the SkillsUSA competition in Atlanta. Together, they break down what students, parents, employers, and educators need to know to build a stronger trades workforce.
From trade school vs college decisions to why soft skills training is critical for long-term success, Mark shares urgent insights on how to solve the talent pipeline problem in skilled trades careers like HVAC, plumbing, carpentry, electrical, and millwrighting. This is essential listening for anyone invested in the future of the trades industry.
Whether you're a student, contractor, educator, or policymaker, this episode is packed with insight from two leading voices in the trades industry.
IN THIS EPISODE:
● (00:51) – SkillsUSA Competition: 6,000 students preparing for skilled trades careers
● (05:42) – Why the skilled trades shortage is bigger than most people think
● (12:35) – Trade School vs College: Which has better ROI in today’s economy?
● (21:08) – Soft skills training: The hidden key to success in the trades
● (30:14) – Social media’s power in trades recruitment and storytelling
● (43:49) – Mentorship, placement, and what employers must do differently
Key Takeaways:
● The skilled trades shortage is projected to leave hundreds of thousands of roles unfilled in plumbing, construction, and manufacturing.
● Students need help navigating trade school vs college pathways—with clearer ROI comparisons and better exposure to career outcomes.
● Soft skills training is often the differentiator between a good hire and a great future leader in the trades.
● Employers should recruit directly from events like the SkillsUSA competition to meet top-tier young talent ready for careers in the trades industry.
About the Guest:
Mark Hedstrom is the Executive Director of the Steel Careers Coalition, an initiative committed to solving the skilled trades shortage through national partnerships, career exploration tools, and storytelling platforms like Skills Jam. With a background in nonprofit leadership and public health, Mark is an advocate for skilled trades careers, intergenerational mentorship, and better workforce development across education, construction, and manufacturing sectors.
Keywords :
Skilled Trades Careers, SkillsUSA Competition, Soft Skills Training, Trade School vs College, Skilled Trades Shortage, Andrew Brown, Mark Hedstrom, Steel Careers Coalition, Skilled Trades Advisory Council, Electricians, Plumbers, Millwrights, Carpentry, HVAC, Construction, Contractors, Tradespeople, Skilled Trades, Trades Industry, Toolfetch, Craftsmanship, Creativity, Problem-solving, Education, Advocacy, Industry Experts, Mentorship, Social Media in Trades
Resources :
Linkedin profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markhedstrom/
Website: https://skilledcareers.org/
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Transcript
But you see these students and just the excitement and the skills that
Speaker:they're bringing to this, you know, across what 120 trades that they're
Speaker:competing in while they're down here.
Speaker:It's, it's just amazing to see their excitement, you know, in some
Speaker:cases of their first time traveling right to a place like Atlanta.
Speaker:And it's just like, you can just feel the buzz of these 6,000 students
Speaker:who are, you know about to compete.
Speaker:Probably nervous, but also incredibly excited and you know,
Speaker:passionate about what they're doing.
Speaker:So we love being here for this, and this is the future of the trades.
Speaker:Hi, I'm Andrew Brown.
Speaker:You're listening to the Lost Star of the Skilled Trades Podcast, a show that
Speaker:shines the spotlight on careers in the skilled trades that are high paying,
Speaker:honorable, rewarding, and fulfilling.
Speaker:The trades are the backbone of the economy that keep us running, and without
Speaker:them, our world would cease to exist.
Speaker:Alright, we are here at Skills USA in Atlanta.
Speaker:I'm super excited because I have somebody who is passionate about the trades.
Speaker:His name is Mark Hedstrom of the Skilled Careers Coalition.
Speaker:Welcome, mark.
Speaker:Mark.
Speaker:Thanks for having me on, Andrew.
Speaker:Appreciate it.
Speaker:So, what's your feeling about being here, and this is the future of the
Speaker:trades, the kids walking around.
Speaker:What's your feeling on that with these kids?
Speaker:It's amazing to see, I mean, you know, you, you always have this generational
Speaker:conversation about, oh, the kids coming up behind us, or the students come behind us.
Speaker:You know, I was a Gen Xer, so I was considered a slacker.
Speaker:But you see these students and just the excitement and the skills that
Speaker:they're bringing to this, you know, across what 120 trades that they're
Speaker:competing in while they're down here.
Speaker:It's just amazing to see their excitement, you know, in some
Speaker:cases of their first time traveling right to a place like Atlanta.
Speaker:And it's just like you can just feel the buzz of these 6,000 students
Speaker:who are, you know about to compete.
Speaker:Probably nervous, but also incredibly excited and, you know,
Speaker:passionate about what they're doing.
Speaker:So we love being here for this.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I remember being here last year and walking around and just being blown
Speaker:away and just looking at the coats and the red coats that they're in.
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:And it's just when you go by plumbing, you go by welding.
Speaker:And I remember going by sort of the welding competition and I saw the,
Speaker:uh, what they made with their hands.
Speaker:Like someone made an owl.
Speaker:Oh yeah, someone made a ship.
Speaker:I'm like, holy shit.
Speaker:I'm like, these kids Yeah.
Speaker:Have such talent.
Speaker:I always tell companies who are looking to hire the best, come here.
Speaker:Oh yeah, this is the future.
Speaker:Now these students are, you know, so the way it works for your audience
Speaker:is, you know, skills, USA is about a 450,000 student member organization.
Speaker:There's a bunch of advisors, uh, you know, CTE advisors and teachers.
Speaker:Uh, administrators.
Speaker:It's a fairly large organization and you've got 450,000 students that are
Speaker:part of this, and that's in the larger ecosystem of those that are going
Speaker:through career technical education.
Speaker:This is the best of the best.
Speaker:And I think the opportunity though, you know, even at the national competition,
Speaker:if you go back to each of the states and you go back to the regional
Speaker:competitions, there's a ton of students out there in this ecosystem that are
Speaker:competing and they have amazing skills.
Speaker:So a lot of these students who are walking this floor or they're back at
Speaker:state walking the floor and competing, those are high rule people tomorrow.
Speaker:I think the thing that people don't know about Skills USA is it's not
Speaker:just the hard skills they're teaching.
Speaker:'cause that's the advisor's role.
Speaker:You know, you've got some great mentors out there teaching their
Speaker:trade, but it's all the soft skills.
Speaker:Soft skills.
Speaker:And you talk to, you know, any type of employer out there right now and you
Speaker:know, soft skills, you know how to be part of a team, how to show up to work
Speaker:on time, you know, are you potential management track for the organization.
Speaker:Like all that stuff is being taught by skills.
Speaker:USA.
Speaker:And that's the thing.
Speaker:And you know it's interesting when somebody is in the field and they want
Speaker:to make the leap to entrepreneurship, you need the soft skills.
Speaker:Let's say that you're walking, and I was having this conversation
Speaker:with Paige Knowles, remember Paige?
Speaker:Sure, yeah.
Speaker:Who was a part of Skills Jam.
Speaker:I'll get into that.
Speaker:And I remember she was in the podcast and she was like, I remember walking
Speaker:up to a home, knocking on the door.
Speaker:And the husband answers, he's looking at me like.
Speaker:You're gonna fix my plumbing?
Speaker:She's like, yeah.
Speaker:And he felt like I should be able to do that, but she did that.
Speaker:And there's people like that who are just amazing and working
Speaker:with their hands and putting, obviously there's stuff out there.
Speaker:She has a couple books and things like that, but man from her to some
Speaker:of the other gym ambassadors work, we can talk about that as well
Speaker:as we get into the conversation.
Speaker:But all the way through to these students.
Speaker:I mean, there's a need for both those hard skills swinging the hammer.
Speaker:The soft skills that they have to bring to this trade.
Speaker:You would say that same in, you know what we're traditionally
Speaker:call white collar jobs?
Speaker:Like you want people who show up.
Speaker:You want people who are part of a team.
Speaker:You want someone who can potentially be a manager.
Speaker:And to your point, like if you decide, let's say you're a carpenter and
Speaker:you work for someone for a number of years, maybe that person's retiring.
Speaker:Is that an opportunity for you to take over the business?
Speaker:Or can you take your skills and start your own business and you've
Speaker:gotta have those soft skills.
Speaker:You've gotta know how to manage people.
Speaker:You've gotta know how to manage the books.
Speaker:That's the kind of stuff that they're learning at Skills USA and
Speaker:you know, throughout their careers when they're, when they're students.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And it's about the passion of skills.
Speaker:USAI remember walking in a technical school in Paramus, New Jersey.
Speaker:I had spoken there with somebody else, and I remember going through the
Speaker:carpentry section and Skills USA flag was ending that like somebody won.
Speaker:I spoke to the, the head person there and he just lit up.
Speaker:He's like, yeah, that's a badge of honor.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And it is.
Speaker:And when you say skills, USA people really resonate.
Speaker:If you're in the trades world, people resonate.
Speaker:Like that's the place where like you learn your soft skills, you compete and you
Speaker:know, get so much experience from that.
Speaker:And you see that all the way through the advisors, to the educators, to
Speaker:the students, all the way up through the leadership of the organization
Speaker:is just this sort of passion for.
Speaker:Empowering these young students around not just the hard skills,
Speaker:but those soft skills and, and being incredibly well-rounded.
Speaker:So you, you'll see it on the floor.
Speaker:I'm sure you saw it last year.
Speaker:I've seen it for the last couple years.
Speaker:You know, just the excitement that these kids bring to the conversation and
Speaker:what they're trying to do in the world.
Speaker:You know, it's interesting.
Speaker:Everybody's got a journey and a story.
Speaker:My backstory is I was a high tech guy.
Speaker:On nine 11 2001, I found myself on ground zero helping first responders,
Speaker:EMS firefighters, and working back to back with tradespeople.
Speaker:That changed everything for me and literally quit a job in it.
Speaker:Formed a tool and equipment company named Tool Fetch and started giving
Speaker:back to people in the trades.
Speaker:What's your back story on this?
Speaker:Like why, why the trades?
Speaker:Uh, it's, um, well, I've got a, I've got an interesting journey.
Speaker:I mean, look, I started out, I grew up in central Mass, so, you know,
Speaker:we'd already talked about being from, uh, outside of wta, um, wta.
Speaker:I, I wta, I hear it.
Speaker:Look, I don't have the accent, but I can do it.
Speaker:You know, I grew up working on a farm.
Speaker:I was a farmhand all through high school and college and, you know, I
Speaker:didn't have one of those internships that, uh, you would get when you were
Speaker:going through a four year degree.
Speaker:My parents were like, no, you're gonna learn what it's like to make a buck.
Speaker:Learn to work with your hands.
Speaker:You play that all the way through.
Speaker:You know, like I spent time in public policy, health policy, I
Speaker:was a former management consultant.
Speaker:I worked in action sports, so I ran a snowboard skateboard company.
Speaker:I worked at Oakley.
Speaker:I think through all that, you know, it doesn't seem like there's a through line,
Speaker:but the through line was, you know, always continuing to be an intellectually curious
Speaker:about like what comes next and continuing to build my own skillset, right?
Speaker:Whether it be my soft skill or my hard skills in, in sort of those types of
Speaker:jobs all the way through to, I got to a point in my career where I was trying
Speaker:to figure out a way to give back.
Speaker:I moved into philanthropy.
Speaker:Uh, so I was the head of the Vember Foundation in the US for about 11 years.
Speaker:So I was the guy getting men to grow mustaches every November.
Speaker:Uh, you know, so literally I was a farmer growing up, vegetable farming to then
Speaker:a mustache farmer about 30 years later.
Speaker:So that's the kind of joke and through line.
Speaker:What I found in philanthropy was the ability to kind of leverage my experience
Speaker:and skills to give back, right?
Speaker:So I moved from creating products or helping people create products to
Speaker:actually creating a social good product.
Speaker:I spent 11 years doing that, uh, focusing a lot on men's health.
Speaker:And then I came across this and, you know, really the opportunity
Speaker:here is not dissimilar to what I was doing in November.
Speaker:It's just a different look at the same issue, which is how do we empower
Speaker:and raise that next generation of talent and how do we get them to
Speaker:places and spaces where they feel like they can have fulfillment?
Speaker:You know, the conversation I was having growing up was always like, oh, it's a
Speaker:four year degree, or it's the military.
Speaker:And what you see now is this conversation that's starting to happen.
Speaker:It's like, wait a minute.
Speaker:We've hauled out this opportunity for these young students to
Speaker:not consider a skill career.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:They were dirty, dark, dangerous jobs when I was growing up.
Speaker:You know, there were blue collar jobs when I was growing up and it just,
Speaker:it doesn't have to look that way.
Speaker:It's not that way.
Speaker:In terms of which shop class in your.
Speaker:Oh yeah.
Speaker:In your high school?
Speaker:No, all the, like I actually know a guy who's, uh, you know,
Speaker:I live out in Los Angeles.
Speaker:He runs a masonry company.
Speaker:Great.
Speaker:Top of the line guy.
Speaker:He went to the local tech school back in Fitchburg, mass.
Speaker:And I knew those kids, right?
Speaker:I went to the local high school, I went to the all boys school and you know, that was
Speaker:always like, you know, the tradies versus, you know, the regular high school kid.
Speaker:And there was this real dichotomy that is this, I worked with a
Speaker:bunch of those guys on the farm.
Speaker:Like they're solid dudes and they knew exactly what they were doing
Speaker:and they knew their career path.
Speaker:And I'm sitting there going, I don't know what I wanna do.
Speaker:But they knew exactly what they were doing.
Speaker:'cause they had a trade, they had picked up a hammer, they had picked
Speaker:up something when they were, you know, 14, 15, and just started working.
Speaker:I reflect on that now and realize kind of how it's gone full circle now.
Speaker:And you know, just being able to be in a space where you can empower
Speaker:young students to think about what's possible and give them.
Speaker:More opportunity, I think is probably the most important piece.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's a trade that It's a skill that's always in demand, right?
Speaker:It doesn't matter if you're an electrician and you're a union, like
Speaker:you can go pretty much anywhere, right?
Speaker:If you are a welder, we need over 300,000 welders by 2029 according
Speaker:to welding workforce data, right?
Speaker:We need 80,000 electricians every single year up to 2030, and that's
Speaker:just to replaced electricians that are leaving the industry that's real less.
Speaker:550,000 plumbers are needed, over 600,000 open manufacturing jobs.
Speaker:And you look at those numbers, you're like, holy cow.
Speaker:Like the opportunities to learn a trade.
Speaker:And it's interesting, and I'd like to hear your thought on this because
Speaker:I hear the comments on TikTok.
Speaker:I have a sizable TikTok following.
Speaker:And the thing is, the comments that come back and forth is the pushback
Speaker:from the younger generation is that they kinda look at two different paths.
Speaker:They look at maybe a trades path, maybe a college path.
Speaker:Some of them also push back and say, why would I want to be an apprentice?
Speaker:I only make $16 an hour, but if I work for McDonald's or
Speaker:Chipotle, I can make $22 an hour.
Speaker:What would you push back to the younger generation on that?
Speaker:I won't say how old I am, but I didn't identify as a Gen X or so.
Speaker:You can kind of do the math from there.
Speaker:I think what I've learned over time is the ability to grow your, whether
Speaker:it's compensation or career in a service industry job is gonna be
Speaker:much more challenging than having that opportunity as apprentice.
Speaker:You're coming out Yes.
Speaker:Are you making, you know, 25 bucks an hour?
Speaker:No.
Speaker:But are you on a pathway that's gonna move from apprenticeship to
Speaker:journeyman to master over a 25, 30 year horizon where your compensation,
Speaker:your income becomes that much bigger?
Speaker:It's a longer term play in terms of how you're looking at that.
Speaker:So I would always consider, you know, where I started, you know, working as a
Speaker:farmhand, I think I made eight bucks an hour, I don't know, maybe when I was 14,
Speaker:because you could work at 14 on a farm.
Speaker:I think it was eight bucks an hour.
Speaker:I think by the time I left I probably made 14 bucks an hour at, you know, 18, 19.
Speaker:I'm like, this is great.
Speaker:But the reality was like, I didn't have to pay for rent.
Speaker:I didn't have do all this other stuff.
Speaker:So I think that opportunity with a skilled career is.
Speaker:Really seeing, yes, you have to start out, you have to pay your dues,
Speaker:but those dues pay off in the end.
Speaker:The thing is, most likely it's a lower percentage that you're going
Speaker:to be upper management, right?
Speaker:You're probably, your wages will stay the same.
Speaker:But like you said, if you're, let's just say you're in a union, there are wages
Speaker:that you know you're gonna make like every six months or a year, you're making
Speaker:a little bit more, a little bit more.
Speaker:And I always say like, if you wanna be a journeyman, you're a journeyman.
Speaker:That's cool.
Speaker:You wanna be a master in your trade.
Speaker:Go do it.
Speaker:You wanna be an entrepreneur, do it.
Speaker:You want to run a construction company.
Speaker:It depends how far you want to take it.
Speaker:It's what you put in is what you get out.
Speaker:And you know this, I mean the, you know, in general, most of those that have done
Speaker:well in this country, entrepreneurs are, people start their own businesses, right?
Speaker:So the ability to learn to trade, the ability to learn under someone
Speaker:who's been in the trade for 30 years and get mentorship, um,
Speaker:which is a big focus for us.
Speaker:And then have the opportunity to either stay with that organization and grow
Speaker:within the organization, or to take your talents and create your own opportunity.
Speaker:A lot of those people are doing well in this country are those that
Speaker:have started their own business.
Speaker:It's hard though.
Speaker:Let's be clear.
Speaker:There's a lot of businesses that fail more than they make it.
Speaker:For sure.
Speaker:Entrepreneurship is crazy.
Speaker:I know it.
Speaker:I started business at 23, like it's fulfilling, but it's difficult.
Speaker:Scary.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:You go through all the emotions, but it's a whole different skillset and
Speaker:obviously you need to get around.
Speaker:Other people have a certain mindset, business groups,
Speaker:masterminds to be successful.
Speaker:I like the fact that you could just take your skill anywhere,
Speaker:and it's such in high demand.
Speaker:Even with ai.
Speaker:I mean, let's just talk about AI for a quick second.
Speaker:It's disrupting white collar jobs across the board.
Speaker:Everybody's afraid.
Speaker:My friends are afraid.
Speaker:Who are have white collar jobs, like why do they need me anymore?
Speaker:But if you're in a trade and you're working with your hands, AI is not
Speaker:coming to disrupt anytime soon.
Speaker:You know, the optimist, robots from Elon Musk are not gonna walk
Speaker:around and, you know, go onto your crawlspace anytime soon.
Speaker:What are you seeing from a perspective of, well, I mean AI
Speaker:versus in terms of what's out there?
Speaker:You know, there's gonna be a disruption of about 40% of the
Speaker:jobs, mostly white collar jobs.
Speaker:Um, from the reports and studies that we've taken a look at and those
Speaker:that have been published recently.
Speaker:There's always gonna be disruption.
Speaker:I think the challenge we see now and where there's insulation for a skilled
Speaker:career, a skilled trade is disruption's happening at a lot quicker pace, right.
Speaker:Than it used to.
Speaker:Like technology is moving us forward faster, whereas, you know, moving
Speaker:from horse-drawn bug A to the Model T, right, and how long that took to then
Speaker:get to mass production of cars where it could end up in everyone's driveway.
Speaker:That was a long period of time.
Speaker:Now we're having disruption in 10 year cycles, right?
Speaker:So job creation and job destruction is becoming a real challenge.
Speaker:I think one of the things that's interesting about skill careers is
Speaker:to your point around HVACs, plumbers, you know, under your crawlspace, those
Speaker:jobs are gonna be there for quite some time, probably throughout most
Speaker:of our lives, in terms of you can still have a very long term career.
Speaker:Whereas what's happening in, you know, white collar jobs, you know, particularly
Speaker:paralegals, those that aren't, you know, lawyers, even if you're a contract
Speaker:lawyer, I have good friends who are contract lawyers are going, it's changing.
Speaker:It's gonna be in the next three to five years all the way through
Speaker:to what's happening in coding.
Speaker:And you know, in the tech space, there's a lot of those jobs gonna
Speaker:be disrupted, probably destroyed.
Speaker:And how do you repurpose that workforce?
Speaker:It's us as what happening?
Speaker:Skill careers or versus, you know, more traditional white collar jobs.
Speaker:It's how are we looking at workforce development moving forward?
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:So if you look at the BLS data, the Bureau of Labor Statistics Data,
Speaker:they do a 10 year projection out.
Speaker:But if you actually look at that list, some of those jobs, you're like, those
Speaker:aren't gonna be there in five to 10 years.
Speaker:So what are the jobs that are coming?
Speaker:We were just finding out what some of those jobs potentially are, right?
Speaker:If you look at things like mechatronics or robotics, there's gonna be a huge
Speaker:explosion in that space in automation.
Speaker:Not because you know you're gonna have someone on the distribution center
Speaker:floor actually still doing the packing and picking those jobs are gone.
Speaker:Those are low paying jobs.
Speaker:But the service techs that are actually managing that for the
Speaker:Amazons and the Walmarts of the world, like those are high paying jobs.
Speaker:'cause if those lines go down and those boxes don't get out the door
Speaker:to the customer that ordered it, that's hundreds of thousands of
Speaker:solvers a minute, if not an hour.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And so you've got this real challenge of like, how do we see what's coming?
Speaker:Because some of those jobs that we typically think will be there.
Speaker:They might not be, but how do we project out to what's coming,
Speaker:what disruption is happening, and then how do we get that workforce?
Speaker:Either we redeploy that workforce that's losing those jobs through
Speaker:destruction, or we set up that next generation of that workforce.
Speaker:I was listening to another podcast diary of the CEO and he had the godfather of
Speaker:AI, and I forget his name offhand, and the trailer started off, the host said.
Speaker:What do we do?
Speaker:You know, AI is gonna disrupt white collar jobs.
Speaker:And he said, become a plumber.
Speaker:That was like the first part of the podcast.
Speaker:And it's true.
Speaker:And I'm having this conversation with my kids.
Speaker:So my daughter is eight, my son is 11.
Speaker:And I remember having, in my, one of my CEO groups, a technologist
Speaker:came and he was talking about ai.
Speaker:And I said, okay, what am I gonna tell my kids?
Speaker:What am I gonna do?
Speaker:And he was like, well, you know, maybe, um, they can, um, you know, learn.
Speaker:He did say something about trades, but he kind of like said like, well, maybe
Speaker:not that, but he was also confused and he really couldn't give a solid answer.
Speaker:There is like an unknown.
Speaker:There's that big question mark out there of we knew that either you went into
Speaker:a trade, you went to college, right?
Speaker:You had a path.
Speaker:Now the path is a lot different.
Speaker:Look, we, we can have that conversation at length.
Speaker:I mean, if you look at Federal Reserve data around the value
Speaker:of what used to be just a ba.
Speaker:When I was coming out of school with a bachelor's, there were still
Speaker:a lot of ROI in that investment, particularly if you were in a harder
Speaker:science or in a STEM type program.
Speaker:Now it's moved to PhD level, right?
Speaker:So in the, again, not to date myself, but let's just say 25 years time, the value
Speaker:of my BA has been completely pulled out.
Speaker:So it's now, if you're not in.
Speaker:A STEM type, bachelor's, master's, PhD program, the investment
Speaker:you put into college isn't paying off for a lot of people.
Speaker:When people ask that question and just go back to somewhat,
Speaker:the technologist couldn't answer.
Speaker:There's still this stigma around these blue collar jobs and I think part of
Speaker:our work at the Scope Careers Coalition is really pushing back on that and
Speaker:saying, actually, no, that's not true.
Speaker:The jobs that you thought were happening on the factory floor in the 1950s or
Speaker:sixties in Detroit with, you know, what your dad used to do for 40 years.
Speaker:That's not what this is anymore, right?
Speaker:There's this massive opportunity that's out there.
Speaker:So part of our work through Skills Jam and working with the JAM ambassadors we
Speaker:have through the Skill Careers Coalition is to just push back on that stigma and
Speaker:show young students what's possible and that there is a third option for them.
Speaker:The hardest part, and we did a much research around this, is convincing
Speaker:their parents and their advisors and those that influence them.
Speaker:They have that mindset of, well, these are old school jobs and you know,
Speaker:they're dirty doc, dangerous jobs.
Speaker:That's not the actual reality.
Speaker:So it's not just talking to young students and convincing them.
Speaker:I think they're much more open to it.
Speaker:It's also making sure that when they are, or we are talking to their parents
Speaker:or advisors or their counselors, that there's an open aperture
Speaker:with those conversations as well.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:That there's something else out there that you should be considering
Speaker:for your student, whether it's your 8-year-old or my 11-year-old.
Speaker:It's interesting.
Speaker:I just wanna touch on college for a quick second.
Speaker:So I graduated in 2000.
Speaker:Everybody can do the math.
Speaker:I went to school for four years and I was a programmer.
Speaker:I was doing c plus plus stuff like programs, like complete waste of time.
Speaker:I was taking advanced calculus, completely lost one into business administration,
Speaker:minor in finance, went into it.
Speaker:Then I went into selling industrial supplies to people in the
Speaker:trades because of nine 11 event.
Speaker:I always say this, I came outta school more lost outta school than
Speaker:I was in school and a lot of these kids, they go 'cause they think that
Speaker:their parents are pushing them to go.
Speaker:My parents never said like, look at the trades.
Speaker:It was just go to college.
Speaker:A lot of these kids are just kind of going through college, coming out.
Speaker:What's the return on investment, especially today where a lot of these,
Speaker:you know, careers don't need degrees, that you can learn a trade, you can.
Speaker:Not tack on the extra debt for college.
Speaker:And you learn and you earn when in an apprenticeship,
Speaker:I mean, what's not to love?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And you're applying your skill.
Speaker:The way we look at the opportunity exists and, and we look at
Speaker:it from this perspective of opening up the aperture, right?
Speaker:So there are still students that we need going through four year degrees.
Speaker:There are still people we need in engineering.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:I don't want my doctor learning on YouTube.
Speaker:No, you don't want Exactly.
Speaker:You don't want your doctor learning on YouTube.
Speaker:There's still, when we think about it from workforce to mental perspective.
Speaker:There's still people we need to be moving through that funnel.
Speaker:But we also, because we've not done a great job in a lot of cases, we've
Speaker:underfunded CTE programming in America.
Speaker:We haven't really created a rich trade environment.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:If you look at places like Germany, you look at places like Australia,
Speaker:they have a rich trade environment.
Speaker:It's considered, you know, a career.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:So, you know, we've gotta make sure that we're rebalancing alongside the military.
Speaker:The military struggling with recruitment.
Speaker:Four year degrees are struggling with recruitment, I think four year degrees.
Speaker:One that's challenged by things like AI and some of those jobs we were
Speaker:talking about, but there's recruitment challenges across all three spectrums.
Speaker:And so we need to look at the population of students that are coming up, those
Speaker:that are trying to read jobs, those that are coming outta the military, those
Speaker:that are coming outta the prison system.
Speaker:Say, Hey, how do we do a better job of finding right person, right role?
Speaker:How do we get them into the place that leverages what they're interested in?
Speaker:It might be something in a four year degree.
Speaker:They might be, you know, predisposed to engineering and
Speaker:math and calculus, which I was not.
Speaker:And finding a way to do a better job of seeing students when they're younger,
Speaker:seeing what their aptitudes are and what their passionate about, and helping direct
Speaker:them in those, into those opportunities as opposed to saying, well, everyone's
Speaker:gotta go down this path, or You've got this path, but there's no middle way.
Speaker:Well, you know what's interesting?
Speaker:Why I think the traits have come a long way is social media.
Speaker:You know, years ago you thought of a welder or a plumber.
Speaker:You just thought of just like an old factory, or you looked at, you
Speaker:know, a plumber was plumber's butt.
Speaker:You know, that's what people assumed over the last few years that you
Speaker:see these influencers out there.
Speaker:Even women only make up about three or 4% of tradespeople in the trades.
Speaker:And you look at the day in the life of a plumber, a day in the life of
Speaker:a welder, a day in the life of an electrician, and these kids are getting
Speaker:interested versus what they preconceived and what their parents told them.
Speaker:You're doing this at Skills Jam.
Speaker:You're telling stories right about these individuals.
Speaker:Tell us a little bit about Skills Jam and its mission and what it's looking to do.
Speaker:And I think just to pick up on that point around social media, you know,
Speaker:just for the audience, you know, I spent 11 years in men and boys mental
Speaker:health at a global level with November.
Speaker:And I've seen the dark side of that as much as the light side of what we're
Speaker:trying to do with skills jam and, and quite frankly in November we're very
Speaker:much leaning into finding the positive that could come from social media.
Speaker:'cause I do think it can do some good.
Speaker:I do think we need to be aware of what it can do in terms of the harm it creates.
Speaker:However, it's not going away.
Speaker:It is how you market if you're a plumber now.
Speaker:And I think the point that we try to make is storytelling or storytelling
Speaker:about and showing the visual of.
Speaker:Of what you're doing and the physicality of using your hands to fix something.
Speaker:You know, as a plumber or as an electrician, those are
Speaker:incredibly visual cues to someone going, oh, that's really cool.
Speaker:As opposed to just listening to it, you're actually seeing them doing
Speaker:it as they're talking about it.
Speaker:And in a lot of cases it's explanatory and it's got some passion behind
Speaker:it because you can tell the person is happy with what they're doing.
Speaker:So a lot of our work in Skills Jam, whether it's young students
Speaker:through the Jam Ambassador program that we use, which is.
Speaker:Let's be honest, I'm not the person to be talking to someone about a skill career.
Speaker:I don't have one.
Speaker:I didn't grow up with one.
Speaker:I'm also of a certain age, so when they look at me like, who's
Speaker:the old guy with the gray hair?
Speaker:Having a peer or a near peer talk to them about what they're doing and
Speaker:showing them the visual of that through storytelling is incredibly compelling.
Speaker:It's authentic, and it's someone that looks like me or talks like me.
Speaker:So I think social media, while it's not going away, it's how do you find
Speaker:the ways to leverage it for good?
Speaker:The last point I'll make is everyone's talking about this tool belt generation.
Speaker:The reality is how you market your skills and your wares as an entrepreneur
Speaker:or how you, you know, show up as a plumber in your local community.
Speaker:And the ability to actually market into that community to say, I'm the
Speaker:guy or girl down the street that does a great job of this stuff.
Speaker:Look at my product that's happening on social media.
Speaker:The way you market to your customer base even is changing.
Speaker:And social media is one of those pathways through, which is why you're seeing a
Speaker:lot of these, you know, these STEM type feeds show up on TikTok or on YouTube.
Speaker:It's because people are realizing that that's a way to market to
Speaker:the potential customer as well.
Speaker:You need to be a brand ambassador in your own company.
Speaker:And I tell this to a lot of smaller businesses, medium sized business,
Speaker:like if you're not out there.
Speaker:Right, you're invisible.
Speaker:And especially with chat GT and people going to chat GPT and typing
Speaker:in who's the best plumber, who's the best electrician, obviously the last
Speaker:20 years you would pay for that in Google, but you can't do that anymore.
Speaker:It's losing traction.
Speaker:So even if you are uncomfortable being on video, you running a plumbing business.
Speaker:And I see this a lot on TikTok and, and YouTube shorts.
Speaker:Somebody is filming exactly what they're doing and then it's just, um, you
Speaker:know, they're talking over the video.
Speaker:That's one way to kind of get on video to showcase what you're doing because
Speaker:it can attract a younger person who's interested in, maybe they'll go to your
Speaker:company over another company because you're bringing to light what you
Speaker:do day to day, and also that you're actually on social media as well.
Speaker:That's a whole nother podcast.
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:From a sense of like the good and the bad.
Speaker:But I think from the good standpoint, like you have to be on social media.
Speaker:And I like the fact what you're doing at Skills Jam that, like you said,
Speaker:like a page knows or plumber page, you know, being an ambassador, you
Speaker:know, that generation can relate to her and what she's doing in plumbing
Speaker:and HVAC and things like that.
Speaker:It's making a huge difference and a huge impact.
Speaker:Yeah, it is.
Speaker:And uh, some of us remember Yellow Pages, um, that's how you used to
Speaker:advertise your plumbing wares or your, your, your carpentry work.
Speaker:Those don't exist and, and so you have to kind of move with what's happening.
Speaker:Opportunity that's presented with Skills Jam and those influencers are
Speaker:out there having these conversations.
Speaker:You know, I know you spend time on those channels.
Speaker:It gives people more context and color to what's happening.
Speaker:Whereas Yellow Pages is a very binary, oh, I need to call this person.
Speaker:I have no idea if this person's a great plumber or not.
Speaker:I'm about to find out.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:There wasn't even Yelp to refer to someone to say, oh, this
Speaker:person's a really good plumber.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:There wasn't Angie.
Speaker:All those things didn't exist, and it's progressed over time now too.
Speaker:Where you can find out if someone's, you know, quite capable of what
Speaker:they're doing in your backyard or someone in, to your point in an
Speaker:organization showing what's possible.
Speaker:I mean, the opportunity to leverage social media for companies when you have young
Speaker:talent who's excited about what they're doing, showing off what they're doing.
Speaker:I mean, that's a recruitment tool.
Speaker:They no longer go to websites.
Speaker:So let's be clear, you know, if you're creating a, a monolithic
Speaker:website that has all your jobs.
Speaker:Among young people, they don't spend any time on the website.
Speaker:We have a website for skill careers.org, which is our overarching
Speaker:organization, but all of our skills jam material is, is social based.
Speaker:You gotta go where your market is.
Speaker:Exactly right, right.
Speaker:Our market is scrolling and you know, it's just, you're on that video and then
Speaker:one second later, you're on the next video and the next video, and how can
Speaker:you make the biggest impact within that?
Speaker:First you have to go where the spending of the truck.
Speaker:Sometimes it might not be the right place you want to be, but
Speaker:you have to go where the market is.
Speaker:You know, I see individuals out there really teaching trades.
Speaker:Like there's a plumber by the name of Roger Wakefield out there who
Speaker:has a big social media following on YouTube, but he's teaching plumbing
Speaker:like, you didn't get that before.
Speaker:What if you don't know anybody?
Speaker:If you want to be in the trades, and I find this, and I'd like
Speaker:to get your feedback on this.
Speaker:Career exploration into the trades, I feel is difficult because if.
Speaker:Schools are pushing college and you're sitting down with your guidance counselor
Speaker:and your guidance counselor saying, what college do you want to go to?
Speaker:But this person has a technical spark.
Speaker:Their mechanical ability, where are they gonna get their information if
Speaker:they don't have anybody in their, uh, family or friends that are in the trades?
Speaker:We work with the American School Council Association.
Speaker:They're one of our strategic partners like Skills, USA and
Speaker:amongst others in the B2B space.
Speaker:I think again, it comes back to this, the way we're approaching the exploration
Speaker:that these students are going through, whether it's a four year degree or the
Speaker:military or otherwise, military has a great recruitment platform, right?
Speaker:You can kind of see the opportunity and they've invested heavily in
Speaker:showing what that opportunity is.
Speaker:The same in college, in the general sense.
Speaker:You know, if you look at how much they're spending per year, right?
Speaker:Military spends about 1.3, $1.5 billion to solve for those welder jobs that
Speaker:they have to get into the summing basis to build the summaries of the future.
Speaker:And the colleges and university is spending about 1.5 to $2 billion a year.
Speaker:I would argue that we're probably spending that in skilled careers and skilled
Speaker:trades across the board, but it's very disaggregated and it's not joined up.
Speaker:There's not a central theme that comes through.
Speaker:So when we look at skills jam, it's like, what's our call to action?
Speaker:Where do we send these young students?
Speaker:Okay, they're interested.
Speaker:They're in discovery mode.
Speaker:Okay, well how do we start?
Speaker:You know, the algorithms can do a great job of this, but they're just
Speaker:feeding them more content and not getting 'em further down that path.
Speaker:And when you end up in a school environment, oftentimes
Speaker:it's a hard copy, right?
Speaker:There's not a soft copy version of, well, I'm interested in becoming a plumber.
Speaker:Like, what are my options here?
Speaker:And they just have a very tactile, hard copy version of what's available.
Speaker:That's not their fault.
Speaker:It's just we have to reimagine how do we move that student further down that
Speaker:pathway and give them more exploration about what's possible, and then say,
Speaker:here's what in your local community, we do have the tools to do this.
Speaker:With the advent of AI and what's out there in terms of search,
Speaker:like how do we do a better job of saying, I'm intrus in this pathway.
Speaker:What does it take for me to get down that pathway into a trade school?
Speaker:Because I want to explore plumbing and I wanna actually
Speaker:go after that and check it out.
Speaker:How do we do a better job of getting them to that point to make a decision, right?
Speaker:This is marketing 1 0 1.
Speaker:You know, it's awareness, consideration, purchase skills.
Speaker:Jam is the awareness end.
Speaker:All the people are out on TikTok or YouTube, or the awareness end
Speaker:of showing them what's possible.
Speaker:We're not really joined up on the consideration point.
Speaker:I'm really interested in this.
Speaker:I wanna go down this pathway to then I'm applying and I'm now in a
Speaker:plumbing program at local trade school.
Speaker:That's the part that we gotta figure out.
Speaker:So alongside de-stigmatizing the trades, showing what's possible, our
Speaker:other main focus is how do we fix that placement recruitment ecosystem.
Speaker:How do we do a better job of streamlining that?
Speaker:So when someone's on that journey of discovery into exploration, into
Speaker:decision making and taking action, that there's just signposts along that way.
Speaker:I think also mentorship helps a hundred percent.
Speaker:Being able to get next to somebody who's been in the industry for
Speaker:20, 30 years, who's successful, maybe the EL in their own business.
Speaker:I always believe in having community, building community and having these
Speaker:individuals, you know, can speak to other people along their journey.
Speaker:When you kind of get lost in the mix, you kind of, you don't have
Speaker:clarity, like you said, it's murky.
Speaker:You retreat and you're like, okay, maybe this is not for me.
Speaker:Do you want to give them the tools?
Speaker:Like, I like the fact that you said that the social media, it's the awareness
Speaker:now you need to send them somewhere.
Speaker:So either you send them to community mentorship of some
Speaker:sort and getting them around.
Speaker:Individuals, yes, they can go to trade school or if they wanna
Speaker:apply to apprenticeship or if they want to go into union.
Speaker:And it's the thing, like there's so much information out there,
Speaker:it's too much information.
Speaker:It's almost like, I don't really know.
Speaker:It's disaggregated too.
Speaker:And I think to your point around, you know, mentorships on the other side, and,
Speaker:and I'm sure you've looked at this too, on the other end of the spectrum, you have
Speaker:what people are calling silver tsunami.
Speaker:You have people retiring.
Speaker:There's not that replacement rate that we want to see.
Speaker:We're also losing a ton of knowledge.
Speaker:You talk to skills, USA, you talk to other CTSOs that are in the space of technical
Speaker:education and they're struggling to get advisors and mentors back into teachers,
Speaker:back into the schools to teach them that 30 years and 40 years of knowledge.
Speaker:Like I've run my own business, I've been a general contractor, you know,
Speaker:I've been in mechatronics at large organizations, getting them to come back.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And that same idea of mentorship is how do you, we talk a lot about
Speaker:this in that sort of ecosystem of.
Speaker:Knowledge translation.
Speaker:How do we translate knowledge between generations?
Speaker:How do we find those pathways that not only is it going up, right?
Speaker:So how do I teach an older person that might be managing me as to how I wanna
Speaker:be engaged on the job site through to what can I learn from someone who's
Speaker:been doing this for 30 to 40 years?
Speaker:So there's a real opportunity in the middle there around mentorship, whether
Speaker:it's apprenticeships or going through the union or going through trade school.
Speaker:There's a unique challenge with we're losing all this
Speaker:knowledge and all this talent.
Speaker:How do we find a way to tap into that and bring that back in?
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:So if there are people listening to this, they're, you know, looking at
Speaker:sort of going off into the sunset and, you know, enjoying time on their boat.
Speaker:Find a way to give back and pay it forward.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Pay it forward.
Speaker:I think that's really what it's about.
Speaker:Tell us a little bit about the coalition and how that is bringing together
Speaker:along with Skills Gem, we're Big 10 organization, so in philanthropy there's
Speaker:this concept called collective impact.
Speaker:Collective impact is basically as I was, you know, mentioning, you know, the idea
Speaker:between the, uh, you know, recruitment placement ecosystem, it's disaggregated
Speaker:collective impact is idea of like, we're all trying to solve the same problem.
Speaker:So I'll use cancer as an example 'cause that's the space I worked in and everyone
Speaker:was investing in cancer research.
Speaker:What you've seen over the last 15 years is everyone's like, well, wait a minute.
Speaker:A lot of the modalities, a lot of the chemistry behind these different types
Speaker:of cancers, whether they're male or female cancers, particularly Euro genital
Speaker:cancers, they have the same markers.
Speaker:They have the same baseline.
Speaker:We're investing over here, you're investing over there.
Speaker:Maybe we should pull our idea and resource to move further faster.
Speaker:And that's really what collective impact is.
Speaker:Like how do we come together and say, Hey, we've got a problem here.
Speaker:Let's solve for it collectively because we can get there faster.
Speaker:We know we have a skilled trades gap, right?
Speaker:How do we bring, you know, into a bigger tent coalition?
Speaker:And the nice thing about skilled careers, skilled trades is it's a purple issue.
Speaker:We need government involved.
Speaker:We need them to be looking at it from the top down and saying, how do
Speaker:we reinvest in these opportunities?
Speaker:How do we find these pathways for these young students to just open up the apture
Speaker:and explore what's possible for them?
Speaker:All the way through to the business side, all the way through to other
Speaker:CTSOs educators in that space and saying, look, collectively, and we know
Speaker:everyone's not gonna come to that table.
Speaker:That's okay.
Speaker:But those that do and see the possibility of moving further
Speaker:faster is those we want to engage.
Speaker:So you know, whether it's TikTok, which is one of our partners to Skills, USA,
Speaker:which is one of our partners to Warner Brothers Discovery, which is a partner
Speaker:of the Material Handling Institute, which oversees all mechatronics in all the
Speaker:suppliers and producers of mechatronics.
Speaker:So robotics.
Speaker:Automated systems and warehouses, et cetera, they're all coming
Speaker:together saying, Hey, we have a problem in our space.
Speaker:We've got an issue with automation and, and having the
Speaker:text to manage that automation.
Speaker:Or, we've got an issue in carpentry, or we've got an issue in diesel techs.
Speaker:How do we try to solve that problem together?
Speaker:Because if we can sort look back and say, we wanna get right person, right
Speaker:role, not all of these students are gonna be coming to me, but they're gonna be
Speaker:available to others that are in this space trying to solve for the same problem.
Speaker:I think if we can try to solve the old stigmas, which a lot of us are
Speaker:right online, but I think it is the administration that's gonna have
Speaker:to be the one to help with this.
Speaker:Yes, there's a lot of different foundations.
Speaker:My foundation Stack, skilled Trades Advisory Council.
Speaker:We're working, our mission is to recruit, retain, and advocate in your coalition.
Speaker:Everybody's kind of doing their part.
Speaker:We'll see what happens at the administration and the big
Speaker:beautiful bill that Trump is doing with the apprenticeships.
Speaker:And hopefully there's money that will funnel through there.
Speaker:But hopefully we'll get to a place where, like other countries, it's respected.
Speaker:Like it's okay if you're a plumber.
Speaker:That's totally cool.
Speaker:You wanna work with your hands.
Speaker:That's totally cool.
Speaker:If people wanna find out more about you Skills Jam the
Speaker:coalition, where do they go?
Speaker:So if you wanna understand the organization, the Skill Careers
Speaker:Coalition, just go to skill careers.org.
Speaker:That'll talk a little bit more about the high level of what we see, what
Speaker:we're doing around those two issues de-stigmatizing, and then how do we
Speaker:fix that workforce development, that recruitment placement ecosystem.
Speaker:How do we work together on that?
Speaker:And it gives a little bit more of the math behind, you know, what
Speaker:do we see as the opportunity.
Speaker:With this fairly large population of people that we could be tapping into.
Speaker:And again, pushing 'em or moving them into pathways that work best
Speaker:for them and what we need, not just moving them down one or two pathways.
Speaker:So Skill careers.org is where you can go to understand a lot of the stuff
Speaker:that I talk about, but as I said, I'm the old guy in the room, right?
Speaker:That's the conversation I'm having.
Speaker:If you wanna understand what we're doing with Skills Jam and that
Speaker:peer-to-peer that by youth for you content, you go to YouTube, you go
Speaker:to Instagram, and you go to TikTok.
Speaker:You look at Skills Jam and you'll see what we're doing.
Speaker:So longer form content, 15, 20 minutes.
Speaker:We've engaged Ty Pennington for the second year here at Skills USA.
Speaker:He does a whole Champions League series with us, and that's very
Speaker:purposeful because Ty understands.
Speaker:I've been doing this for a long time.
Speaker:I've done a lot on cool stuff, and yes, I've also been on tv, but man, I can
Speaker:always fall back on working with my hands.
Speaker:Having him in that conversation with these younger students and showing
Speaker:that intergenerational knowledge transfer is some of the things we're
Speaker:picking up on YouTube and some of the shorts we're putting out on TikTok.
Speaker:Probably the most important thing that we're doing is tapping
Speaker:into that zeitgeist around young students and the passion they have.
Speaker:So when you look at Instagram and TikTok in particular, 'cause they're shorter
Speaker:form content, a lot of our content from our jam ambassadors is living there.
Speaker:And these are students that are across the board, right?
Speaker:They're not just the, what you consider the traditional trades.
Speaker:They're across the board in terms of all these different types of trades
Speaker:and talking about what they're doing, and again, giving you that storytelling
Speaker:layer and that visual layer that is very different from what you typically see.
Speaker:I've seen it, and you are making an impact across the board by giving
Speaker:these kids the ability to share their stories, to bring other kids together
Speaker:with them, to share their stories.
Speaker:And I think it's all about a combined effort.
Speaker:Again, we're all doing different things.
Speaker:Overall, we want the same things, so definitely check that out.
Speaker:Mark, it's been a blast having you on the show.
Speaker:I appreciate Andrew.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:Thanks for listening to The Lost Art of the Skilled Trades.
Speaker:Visit us@andrewbrown.net for more resources and tips.
Speaker:Join us next time for real stories and meaningful initiatives as we celebrate
Speaker:our men and women in the skilled trades and shape the future together.
